Sky Italia, the heavyweight pay-TV broadcaster in Italy, has retained rights in the country to broadcast the Wimbledon Championships grand slam tennis tournament, extending its deal with the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) organizing body for another four years.
The new agreement will see the broadcaster continue to air the grasscourt grand slam from 2027 through 2030 on its Sky Sports channel and Now streaming service after its current exclusive four-year deal expires after next year’s event.
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The deal was brokered by international sports and entertainment firm IMG, which manages the AELTC’s global media rights sales.
The popularity of tennis in Italy has been boosted significantly in recent years by current men’s number one Jannik Sinner, who has won three grand slam titles so far in his career – two Australian Opens in 2024 and 2025 and the US Open in 2024 – and is one of the favorites to win this year’s Wimbledon Championships.
Fellow Italian Matteo Berrettini, meanwhile, became the first Italian player to reach the Wimbledon final in 2021, which he lost to Novak Djokovic.
This year’s edition will feature a record prize purse, with total prize money reaching £53.5 million ($72.5 million) – a 7% increase on last year’s record £50 million and double the £26.5 million offered in 2015.
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By GlobalDataIt is scheduled to run from June 30 to July 13 and will feature a new events schedule as the tournament attempts to draw a larger worldwide audience for its finals.
The finals of the women’s and men’s singles tournaments at Wimbledon have been pushed back by two hours on their respective days (the final Saturday and Sunday of the tournament, respectively).
This move means that on the Saturday, the men’s doubles will begin on Center Court at 1pm UK time, while the ladies' singles final is pushed back to 4pm, while on the Sunday the ladies' doubles will begin at 1pm and the men’s final at 4pm.
The move has been made to attract a larger TV audience in the US, one of the world’s biggest tennis markets, by lessening the effect of the adverse time zone difference.
Moving the men’s and women’s finals back by two hours each means that they will both now start at 11am US Eastern Standard Time, as opposed to 9am in that same time zone, making it more likely to be able to capture a wider range of viewership.
Wimbledon is broadcast in the US by Disney-owned sports broadcast giant ESPN, which holds the rights in a lucrative deal running through 2035.
The tournament is shown domestically by the UK's BBC public broadcaster, meanwhile.
Sky Italia, meanwhile, has further bolstered its rights portfolio by also announcing a renewed deal to show basketball’s top-flight EuroLeague and the secondary EuroCup, covering the competitions on both its linear channels and the NOW TV OTT service.
That deal was also brokered by IMG, the EuroLeague’s strategic partner.
