WTA to Squeeze More Money from Tennis Fans via WTA TV

Like everything in life, it all depends on what you want. Personally, paying $75 a year is good for me. I will be able to see every WTA tournament that is played all year. Combine ESPN and the Tennis Channel and you will miss the majority of the tournaments held each year. And that was before the Bein Sports deal that was made.

So the WTA channel is a great deal for people who want to see the women play all year instead of a few select tournaments. Sign me up.

July 27th, 2017 at 4:03 pm

I don’t even know who are the top 3 women players.

July 27th, 2017 at 9:31 pm

I don’t even know who are the top 3 women players.
—
You also don’t know English grammar.

Don’t worry, I have 10 FOs, I still can’t speak or write good English or French, for that matter.

Uncle Toni passed 6th grade, a huge accomplishment in our extended family.

July 27th, 2017 at 10:09 pm

HR, that sentence is grammatically correct. You can put the are in the end if you want but where I placed it is just as correct. You have limited knowledge of English grammar and just demonstrated your lack of knowledge on the variability of sentence construction.

July 27th, 2017 at 10:33 pm

TennisTV is the same thing for the ATP, and it’s more expensive at $99/year. I’m with KG that more content available to consumers is a good thing. I happen to think $99/year for me is worth it because streaming tournaments live online is terrible and nobody else picks up the smaller tournaments as well as TennisTV.

At least they are trying to make the WTA more widely accessible!

July 28th, 2017 at 8:20 am

Just to clarify, ESPN3 is only free for those who have a cable package that includes ESPN. But yes, their streaming provides good, inexpensive coverage (assuming you are already paying for cable).

July 28th, 2017 at 11:47 am

Personally, I don’t like streaming. I have a lap top and it is not the best. Watching on it is not fun for me. I live in southern california and have the tennis channel. We, of course have ESPN. I have never signed up for Tennis Channel Plus for the extra $99 (or whatever it is per year) b/c except for the slams, what is the benefit? I was very bummed when they took the WTA away from Tennis channel and ESPN. For me, although I do enjoy women’s tennis and (being in the minority look forward to Maria coming back) not sure I want to be paying an additional $75 per year. The channel they moved women’s tennis to does have soccer on the majority of the time. I used to get that channel for free. Now, they make us pay for it. I thought that move would lose women’s tennis a lot of viewers

July 28th, 2017 at 2:14 pm

Problem I see is greedy players, owners, and media execs want to make much money and think they have a viable solution in making tennis a boutique sports, affordable to watch for a small demographic of fans who have the desire & surplus cash to watch.
And do this without consideration to growing the sport and leading poorer country’s people or developed nations people unfamiliar with the sport and present players ability – to watch a good number of matches. Maybe become fans.
4 Slams a year don’t work to achieve that end. Especially since 3 Slams are out of normal Asian viewing times (and gambling times). And people curious will not click to see the AO at 3am.

July 28th, 2017 at 7:09 pm

Humble Rafa: “I have 10 FOs…”
See link for what this means in ‘good’ English. It confirms that HR knows what he has (which is what we know he has). What’s amazing is that HR is even able to quantify what he has.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=F.O.S&utm_source=search-action

July 29th, 2017 at 12:34 pm

I don’t get why sports cable programs are so damn expensive. NFL red zone, the other sports I love to watch is a small fortune. Part of me thinks that it should be cheaper for a more niche sport like women’s tennis…but for some reason that just seems to drive up the cost, not bring it down. 75 is expensive!

July 30th, 2017 at 4:38 am

This move, right now is bad for all tennis. One gets tired of watching the same men’s matches over and over on tennis channel. So, I’ve cut back immensely on my tennis watching time on the tennis channel. And bein sports is terrible, they just show the same matches over and over as well, driving me to the point of not watching tennis at all.

I don’t want to watch tennis on some streaming basis, and I definitely don’t like the idea of having to pay more money to watch tennis, the sports packages by the cable companies are already a rip-off in itself. I don’t have to pay extra to watch men and women’s golf, which I might be taking up pretty soon.

August 2nd, 2017 at 1:04 pm