Sky: 'We chose to keep Rome's free-to-air rights in house'

'Ours was a precise strategic choice. Which does not prevent us from making agreements with Rai or other publishers in the coming years. But this year we have deliberately chosen to keep the free-to-air rights of the Internazionali di Tennis di Roma in-house". So said Giuseppe De Bellis, Executive Vice President Sport, News and Entertainment of Sky Italia, during the presentation at the Foro Italico of Tennis and the Summer of Sky Sport, seeming to put a firm point on it: Sky - which has the pay rights for the event - has chosen to keep the free-to-air rights in house.

In short, it was not an epilogue due to the lack of a commercial agreement with other broadcasters. As reconstructed by Il Sole 24 Ore, in the opposite case - that is, if Sky had wanted to aim at reselling the free-to-air part of the rights - the most advanced contacts would have been with Mediaset. But, in the end, it was a precise strategic decision to break off the existing partnership (in place until last year) with Rai. "Our free-to-air channels are doing very well, in particular Tv8, which is on the eighth position of the remote control. The Internationals, with their value, represent an opportunity that we wanted to consider'.

Sky, therefore, will use Tv8 to comply with the dictates on the free part by Atp: one match a day of the men's tournament, live and free to air, while on the pay platform the Foro Italico will be treated as a major event in its entirety. Thirteen days of live challenges, more than 500 hours of live coverage and up to six dedicated channels, with Sky Sport Tennis at the centre and, for the first time in Rome, also Diretta Tennis: a continuous direction of the tournament, with matches, updates and links from the courts.

It is the Sinner effect, of course. But not only. "Tennis on Sky," underlines De Bellis, "continues to grow significantly, with ratings up by over 25% compared to last year in the Atp tournaments broadcast so far. Blue fever does the rest. Tennis has become a valuable television product. And Sky is trying to capitalise on the moment, keeping at home that share of the generalist audience that in past years passed through Rai.

The package is heavy. After Rome, more than 40 Atp and Wta tournaments will arrive between May and September, with Wimbledon and the Us Open being exclusive. All this as a prelude and completion of a multi-sport summer: four European Championships including swimming (in Paris from 31 July to 16 August), athletics (from 10 to 16 August in Birmingham) and volleyball (from 21 August to 6 September for women and from 10 to 26 September for men), the women's basketball World Cup (from 4 to 13 September in Germany), Formula 1, MotoGP golf, rugby, Diamond League (in Brussels, in September), basketball playoffs, European cups together with programmes such as "Calciomercato - l'Originale" from 1 June and the new Sky Sport Original Productions, including the docuseries on the 50th anniversary of Torino's Scudetto in 1976.