Tennis on NBC

Tennis on NBC
Format	Sports
Created by	NBC Sports
Directed by	Andy Rosenberg
Starring	See list of commentators
Opening theme	Clark Gault
Ending theme	Keith Mansfield
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	N/A
Production
Executive producer(s)	Don Ohlmeyer
Running time	180 minutes or until tournament ends
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Picture format	480i (SDTV), 1080i (HDTV)
Original run	1955 (US Open) – present
External links
Website

Tennis on NBC is a television program produced by NBC Sports that broadcasts the main professional tennis tournaments in the United States.

Overview

The usual time slot over the NBC network for Meet the Press (the long running Sunday public affairs program for NBC) is airing from 9-10 a.m. local time in most markets, though this may vary by markets due to commitments by affiliates to religious, E/I or local public affairs programing, and varies several weeks in the summer due to morning coverage of Grand Slam tennis and golf tournaments by NBC Sports.

US Open coverage

NBC broadcast the US Open as early as 1955 and at least up until 1961. Bud Palmer, Jack Kramer, Lindsey Nelson, Don Budge, Bill Stern, and Bill Talbert were among the commentators during this period.

Wimbledon coverage

NBC broadcast The Championships, Wimbledon beginning 1969. Americans had made a tradition of NBC's "Breakfast at Wimbledon" specials at weekends, where live coverage (which under the guidance of then-NBC Sports executive producer Don Ohlmeyer and associate producer Bob Basche, began in 1979 for the men and in 1982 for the women) started early in the morning (the US being a minimum of 5 hours behind the UK) and continued well into the afternoon, interspersed with commentary and interviews from Bud Collins, whose tennis acumen and (in)famous patterned trousers are well-known to tennis fans in the USA. Collins was sacked by NBC in 2007, but was promptly hired by ESPN, the cable home for The Championships in the States. For many years, NBC's primary Wimbledon host was veteran broadcaster Dick Enberg.

Effective the 2012 tournament, all live coverage (something of which NBC has been criticized for not doing), including the Finals, will be exclusively on ESPN, marking the second major tennis championship (after the Australian Open) available in the United States exclusively on pay television. Thus, the 2011 tournament marked the 43rd and final year (at least for the next 12 years) of NBC's coverage. NBC issued a statement saying it had been outbid for the rights to future broadcasts.

NEP Visions has helped to televise many of the world’s major events, including three Olympic Games, two soccer World Cups and hundreds of other sporting events including the English and Scottish Premier League football, Wimbledon Tennis (for NBC and Turner Sports), English Test Cricket, Horseracing and Championship Boxing.

French Open coverage

NBC's coverage of the French Open began in 1975. Other than a three year stint on CBS, the French Open has remained the American television network home of the French Open since 1983. NBC shows weekend morning early round matches in the afternoon via tape-delay. If a match is still being played, it will be shown live. ESPN2 or Tennis Channel cannot show NBC's tape-delayed matches. NBC also tape-delays the men's semifinal, broadcasting it in the late morning on the same day. They broadcast both finals live.

Olympic Games coverage

Main article: Olympics on NBC

In 2004 and 2006, Bravo carried coverage of the Olympic Games during the overnights and mornings produced by NBC Sports. In 2008, the channel carried no coverage, as NBCUniversal had acquired Oxygen, allowing Bravo to continue to carry their general programming schedule during NBC coverage of the Games. In 2012, NBC Sports announced that Bravo would serve as the home of Olympic tennis with 56 hours of coverage.

On-screen graphics

NBC Sports first switched to digital on-screen graphics in 1995, although in a very limited, text based form. In 1999, NBC rolled out their first modern graphics package. The graphics were transparent black rectangles, with 3D gold bars on top and bottom, with blue accents for most sports (green for golf, purple for Wimbledon, and orange for the tennis French Open). Interestingly, scoreboxes were still not permanent, and they disappeared during plays. In 2002, the graphics were modified. They were changed to rounded edged, and the transparent color was changed from black to the color of the accents, which also replaced gold as the border color. The graphics still had no animation and the scoreboxes still were not permanent until 2005, when college football and hockey finally adopted scorebars, which didn't match the other graphics.

Commentators

See also: List_of_sports_announcers#Tennis

• Julie Anthony: 1976-1984
• Jimmy Arias: Arias served as an analyst for NBC Sports coverage of Tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
• Tracy Austin
• Don Budge
• Mary Carillo: 1996–present - In May 2003, Carillo joined NBC Sports as an analyst on the network's French Open and Wimbledon coverage, having made her debut as an analyst on NBC for the 1996 Family Circle Cup tennis event.
• Rosie Casals
• Bud Collins: 1972-2007 - During the 2007 Wimbledon tournament, Collins announced that NBC had chosen not to renew his contract and was letting him go. Collins had covered tennis for the network for 35 years. He insisted that he had no plans to retire and would continue to cover tennis for the Boston Globe. On July 8, 2007, the final day of the tournament, fellow Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan, on the ESPN TV show The Sports Reporters, ridiculed NBC for this decision. He said the 78-year-old Collins "still has his fastball" and praised the Globe for retaining Collins.
• Jimmy Connors
• Donald Dell: Dell broadcast tennis for NBC television in the 1970s and 1980s.
• Dick Enberg: 1978-2000 - As NBC's voice of the Wimbledon tennis championships (alongside Bud Collins and, later, John McEnroe), Enberg regularly concluded the network's coverage of the two-week event with thematically appropriate observations accompanied by a montage of video clips.
• Chris Evert: 1990-2003
• Gayle Gardner: 1987-1993
• Mike Gorman: Gorman called tennis at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics with Bud Collins
• Julie Heldman
• Hilary Hilton
• Charlie Jones
• Jack Kramer
• Bill Macatee: Macatee joined NBC in 1982, where he hosted and reported on a variety of major events including late-night coverage of Wimbledon and the World Series, as well as the pre-game shows for the League Championship Series, Super Bowl XVII, and college football bowl games.
• Barry MacKay: He served as the play-by-play announcer for the NBC Sports coverage of tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics in China.
• John McEnroe: 1992–present
• Lindsey Nelson
• John Newcombe
• Bud Palmer
• Ted Robinson: 2000–present
• Tim Ryan
• Jim Simpson: -1979
• Hannah Storm: 1992-2002
• Bill Talbert

External links

• Fang's Bites: NBC’s 43 Year History With Wimbledon
• Tennis on NBC | Sports Media Watch