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Tennis Channel is Where Champions Live

LOS ANGELES — On the eve of its fifth French Open and with telecast rights to tennis’ other three major championships, Tennis Channel is well established as television’s “Home of the Slams.” This spring, however, the network is changing its tagline to reflect the quality of coverage its viewers have come to enjoy the other 44 weeks of the year. Starting this week, the only 24-hour network dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle will unveil its new handle, “Where Champions Live.”

Tennis Channel has created a multi-tiered approach to unveil the new tagline, rolling it out through a series of promos, short-form pieces and ID spots in support of “Where Champions Live.” The campaign launches this week and will unfold throughout the summer with promotional elements that feature several men and women who have tasted their share of on-court success. Among these players are Billie Jean King, Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick, Lindsay Davenport, Novak Djokovic, Kim Clijsters, Andy Murray, Caroline Wozniacki, Sam Querrey, Ana Ivanovic, Fernando Verdasco, Jelena Jankovic, John Isner and Na Li.

One of the first IDs, with the all-time men’s Grand Slam singles champion Roger Federer, can be seen online now at http://goo.gl/aGKY0.

“Tennis Channel’s new tagline, ‘Where Champions Live,’ characterizes both the year-round tournament finals we offer and the stars that consistently appear on our air,” said Robyn Miller, senior vice president, marketing, Tennis Channel. “Our viewers expect to see Roger Federer and Kim Clijsters one night, and Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal the next. We cover these great champions during the Grand Slams too, but they don’t play in just four events a year, and an overwhelming majority of their televised competition takes place on Tennis Channel.”

The new tagline is also indicative of the Hall of Fame and major-championship caliber talent in the network’s on-air booth today, a list that has steadily grown in recent years to include Martina Navratilova, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Tracy Austin and Lindsay Davenport.

In addition to providing the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television, with rights to nearly every one of the top 100 events in tennis, Tennis Channel also shows more championship tennis matches each year than all other networks combined. As a general rule, the network carries at least one men’s or women’s tennis championship match during most weekends throughout the year, if not more than one. A small sample of some of the more prominent tennis champions in recent years - Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal, Venus Williams, Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick, Kim Clijsters, Novak Djokovic and Caroline Wozniacki - yields 44 tournament championships that were captured live on Tennis Channel during the past five years.

Tennis Channel (www.tennischannel.com) is the only 24-hour, television-based multimedia destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. A hybrid of comprehensive sports, health, fitness, pop culture, entertainment, lifestyle and travel programming, the network is home to every aspect of the wide-ranging, worldwide tennis community. It also has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television, with telecast rights to the US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open), Australian Open, Olympus US Open Series, ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events, top-tier WTA competitions, Davis Cup and Fed Cup by BNP Paribas, and Hyundai Hopman Cup. Tennis Channel is carried by nine of the top 10 MSOs, Verizon FiOS TV, AT&T U-verse, DIRECTV and DISH Network.

Posted on April 26, 2011
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