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11-14-08
The R&A and ESPN have reached an eight-year agreement that will place all four rounds of The Open Championship – otherwise known as the British Open – live on ESPN beginning in 2010.
The new deal also will provide broad and comprehensive rights for digital platforms, expanded television and digital media rights for ESPN International and extensive same-day weekend highlights on ABC. The agreement was announced Thursday by George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN, Inc. and ABC Sports and Peter Dawson, chief executive of The R&A.
ESPN will televise 34 live hours of British Open play over the four days and produce six hours of encore highlights coverage over the weekend, to be broadcast on ABC. The coverage on ABC will extend The R&A’s relationship with ABC beyond half a century.
“It is all important to The R&A that we preserve the traditions of The Open Championship while at the same time ensuring that golf fans are able to enjoy modern state-of-the-art coverage of the event,” Dawson said. “We know just how much ESPN respects The Open’s heritage and we are very excited by their many innovative plans to cover the Championship across the whole media spectrum, both in the United States and internationally. We look forward to a long and productive relationship.”
The deal also includes exclusive US coverage of all rounds of The Senior Open Championship, which is governed jointly by The R&A and the PGA European Tour, and coverage of the next two Walker Cup matches contested in the United Kingdom (2011 and 2015). In all, there will be 90-plus television hours and 40-plus hours of live coverage on ESPN360.com and ESPN Mobile TV.
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