BT takes WTA tennis rights for UK

UK telco BT has struck a deal with the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) to show live matches from 21 WTA tournaments around the world.

The deal gives BT Sport the rights to show as much as 800 hours of live tennis per year, including the end-of-season TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships. The four-year deal includes the five major WTA tournaments held in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Beijing and Istanbul. For 2013 the rights will be held jointly with the previous rightsholder Eurosport, but from 2014 will be held exclusively by BT Sport.

Simon Green, head of BT Sport, said: “This is our first women’s sport for the channels and we see a genuine opportunity to really develop the exposure for women’s sport with our new channels. We are focusing on several more women’s sports and we hope to be able to announce more rights soon.