Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

The broadcasting arm of the ATP Tour, ATP Media, is moving towards generating $130 million a year through the sale of broadcast rights and its production of tournaments.

The unit owns the rights to the nine Masters events, the ATP Tour Finals and the 500 events, making up 23 tournaments. The COO, Stuart Watts, says that the tournaments pooling their rights and selling to broadcasters as a package has been an effective approach.

“We have all rights to the Masters Series and we sell territory by territory,” he told SportsProMedia. “We are absolutely adamant that the series is sold in its complete form.

“I think the key thing for us at ATP Media and for the Masters Series is the aggregation of content.”

Watts noted that the 500s had seen a ten-time increase in their rights fees since signing an agency agreement with ATP Media in 2009.

For the Masters events, it also co-ordinates with broadcasters to give them the footage they are looking for, creating an ongoing relationship following the sale of rights. “One of the reasons we do territory by territory and we try and build up long-term deals with our broadcasters is that we try to work with them, because we’re not just the rights sales team, we’re also the host broadcaster and a distributor,” he said. “They may have a player that they’re particularly keen on, so we’re at the tournaments, we try to have a little bit of an influence on the schedule along with the ATP and the tournament.”

The company is also planning on increasing its content, showing all singles matches at the Masters and investing $30 million a year in production.

“It’s obviously a big undertaking, to do most courts at all tournaments. We feel it’s important that we continue to offer more content to our broadcasters,” he said.

Though it offers its own online streaming subscription, agreements with other online platforms are another potential area it wants to get into, alongside its agreements with traditional broadcasters.

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.