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29-512: The Champions Tennis League (CTL) was a team tennis tournament in India held two times only in November 2014 and in late 2015, across six Indian cities. The first edition of Champions Tennis League was held from 17 to 26 November 2014, across Mumbai , Hyderabad , Delhi , Pune , Bangalore , and Chandigarh . The second edition was held from 23 November to 6 December 2015. The Champions Tennis League

58-636: A four-year contract. The event was formerly part of the US Open Series , but withdrew due to frustration over ESPN (rightsholder of the series due to its new contract to be exclusive broadcaster of the US Open proper) only promising a limited amount of television coverage. On January 27, 2016, Sinclair Broadcast Group , the largest owner of over-the-air television stations in the United States, announced that it would acquire Tennis Channel for $ 350 million. In

87-449: A match. The winner of a match was the player / doubles team that won 6 games. The winner of the tie was the team that won the highest number of games across all 5 sets. The winners' prize money was Rs. 1 crore, while the runner-up prize was Rs. 50 lakhs. The 2015 edition of CTL was announced by Vijay Amritraj on 23 September 2015, at a press conference in Mumbai. The press conference also saw

116-451: A separate contract). This made Tennis Channel the exclusive U.S. broadcaster of all Masters 1000 events. The network broadcasts live tournaments, news, one-on-one interviews, game analysis and skills instruction. Tennis Channel provides extensive coverage of the Davis Cup , Billie Jean King Cup and Hopman Cup as well as other tournaments throughout the year. Until 2025, Tennis Channel

145-454: Is a professional tennis league held in India where the team captains are Grand Slam veterans and the players are among the best in the world. It is a privately owned tennis league, owned and operated by Vijay Amritraj 's sports management company Second Serve Pvt. Ltd., which operates other integrated sports and entertainment formats in India and overseas. The player draft for each season of CTL

174-684: Is an American sports-oriented digital cable and satellite television network owned by the Sinclair Television Group subsidiary of the Sinclair Broadcast Group . It is devoted to events and other programming related to the game of tennis , along with other racquet sports such as badminton , pickleball , and racquetball . Launched on May 15, 2003, the channel is headquartered in Santa Monica , California , and produces its programming out of an HD-capable broadcast center in

203-499: Is conducted without an auction with each team picking four players from a pool of 24. The pool consists of six legends, six international ATP players, six international WTA players, and six Indian players. Each CTL team features an ATP and WTA player, an international legend as their playing captain, a noted Indian male tennis player, plus a top ranked junior Indian girl and boy. The league consists of six teams, split into two zones. Each zone has three teams, with each team playing

232-541: The Federal Communications Commission ruled in favor of Tennis Channel following a three-year dispute between the network and Comcast over placement on extra-fee sports tier. As a result of the ruling, Comcast was prompted to remove Tennis Channel from its sports package tier, available to customers via an extra charge, and carry the network on the same basic cable tier as Comcast-owned Golf Channel and NBCSN . The FCC found Comcast's previous handling of

261-563: The French Open in 2006. The network sub-licensed approximately half of the package to ESPN, at a lower cost than ESPN would have paid for the entire tournament. In 2008, Tennis Channel sold the Tennis Channel Open event back to the ATP, citing growth of its core businesses tied to its rapid acquisitions of Grand Slam tournament rights; beginning 2009, Tennis Channel also split cable rights to

290-603: The Golf Channel succeeding with a mostly male demographic and tennis having viewer of both sexes and of a desirable high-end demographic that a tennis channel would draw in advertisers. The channel officially launched on May 15, 2003, after its first live event, a Fed Cup tie in Lowell, Massachusetts, was broadcast in April as part of a "sneak preview". Barry MacKay was one of the original commentators. In 2005, Tennis Channel acquired

319-468: The Grand Slam ), the channel's David Meister was replaced by Ken Solomon. On February 1, 2006, Tennis Channel became a charter member of the new Association of Independent Programming Networks. Tennis Channel's senior vice president of distribution Randy Brown was a co-founder of the group, alongside The American Channel's Doron Gorshein. Outbidding ESPN by double, Tennis Channel acquired cable rights to

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348-571: The Los Angeles suburb of Culver City . Ken Solomon serves as the network's Chief Executive Officer . As of November 2023 , Tennis Channel is available to approximately 38,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2019 peak of 63,000,000 households. In 2001, Tennis Channel was founded by Steve Bellamy in the shed in his backyard, who soon hired Bruce Rider to head up programming and marketing. A group known as

377-584: The US Open with ESPN. In April 2013, Al Jazeera Media Network was speculated as expressing interest in purchasing the channel to complement beIN Sports , though nothing came of this. The channel opened an online store selling professional and lifestyle golfing merchandise and gear on August 14, 2013. The store is operated by Delivery Agent under the Shop TV brand. In 2013, Tennis Channel launched its TV Everywhere service Tennis Channel Everywhere. On May 25, 2014,

406-524: The "Viacom Mafia"—a group that includes Viacom's former CEOs, Philippe Dauman and Frank Biondi , and current CEO, Thomas E. Dooley —became involved in the founding of the channel. This group invested and rounded up additional investors, Bain Capital Ventures , J.P. Morgan Partners , Battery Ventures , Columbia Capital, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi , who as a group invested about $ 100 million. These founders felt with other single sports channel like

435-668: The ATP Tour's Franklin Templeton Tennis Classic in Scottsdale (which it had held the television rights to) from IMG , and moved it to Las Vegas as the Tennis Channel Open in 2006. Tennis Channel announced plans to hold women's and junior events alongside it. In 2005, after struggling viewership (having only reached a subscriber base of 5 million by 2006), attributed to a lack of coverage of high-profile tournaments (such as

464-629: The CASHS tennis team teams (often backed by a professional player) with a National Championship in the US. In the United Kingdom, team tennis is played through schools and clubs from local to national levels. The Lawn Tennis Association have an 'AEGON Team Tennis Series' where several thousands of teams compete. Active Abolished This tennis-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tennis Channel Tennis Channel

493-654: The Margaret Amritraj award. The Robert Amritraj award is given to the Most Valuable Player (MVP) who has won the most games throughout the tournament, while the Margaret Amritraj award is given to the best Indian player in the tournament, who has won the most games among the Indian players. In 2014, the CTL saw 13 matches played over a 10-day period between 17 and 26 November. Each tie consisted of 5 sets, with each considered as

522-543: The USA. Team tennis It is played at the collegiate or national level in the United States. The United States Tennis Association promotes junior team tennis and USTA League Tennis. The National Collegiate Athletic Association organizes competitions such as the NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championship and NCAA Division I Women's Tennis Championship . Many regions have their own "city-based" or "area-based" for example;

551-609: The channel that August), as well as frequent scheduling conflicts favoring soccer coverage. In 2019, Tennis Channel reached a five-year extension of its rights to the Citi Open. The tournament also re-joined the US Open Series under new ownership. In October 2020, Tennis Channel renewed its rights to the ATP Tour, and also added rights to Masters 1000 events held in North America beginning in 2021 (previously aired by ESPN under

580-401: The draft of the players into each team. In 2015, CTL featured six city based teams across India and saw 13 matches played over a 2-week period between 23 November and 6 December. The winners' prize money was Rs. 1 crore , while the runner-up prize was Rs. 50 lakhs . Each tie will consist of 5 sets with each set being considered as a match. Unlike the 2014 edition, the winner of a match was

609-465: The entire tournament, ESPN dropped its sub-licensing agreement with Tennis Channel for the French Open, giving it exclusive cable rights to the tournament ( NBC continues to be the broadcast television rightsholder). In March 2017, Sinclair additionally acquired Tennis magazine and Tennis.com, seeking to integrate Tennis Channel with them to boost its cross-platform presence. In October 2018, it

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638-548: The network also launched Tennis Channel Plus, a new direct-to-consumer subscription service including coverage of additional events not seen on television, also including digital rights to the French Open outside of the finals. Tennis Channel carriers receive a cut of profits from the service. In 2015, Tennis Channel acquired rights to the Citi Open , an ATP World Tour 500 and WTA International tournament in Washington, D.C., under

667-616: The other two teams on a home and away basis to decide the zonal standings. Two teams competing against each other is called a tie. The teams with the highest number of games (not sets) won in their respective zones will advance to the final, where they play each other for the Champions Tennis League trophy. Apart from the Champions Tennis League Cup, two individual awards are given out: the Robert Amritraj award and

696-549: The player/doubles team that wins 5 games, not 6. The winner of the tie was the team that wins the highest number of games across all 5 sets. The first edition of Champions Tennis League was held for 10-day period between 17 and 26 November 2014. The tournament started in Mumbai , progressed through Hyderabad , Bangalore , Pune , Delhi , Chandigarh , before closing out with the finals in Delhi. The second edition of Champions Tennis League

725-541: The providers declined to accept a new agreement that the Tennis Channel made with the National Cable Television Cooperative (a group which the seven providers are members). Along with a fee increase, the agreement also required that the Tennis Channel be moved from their optional sports package to their digital basic tiers. Tennis Channel returned to Verizon FiOS on January 17, 2012. In July 2012,

754-463: The statement announcing the purchase Sinclair CEO David Smith said that Tennis Channel had high-quality content and advertisers, though it had been valued low and was under-distributed. Sinclair also gets greater than $ 200 million of net operating losses to offset its future taxes. The deal was closed on March 2, 2016. Days later, Tennis Channel announced an extension to its contract for the French Open. In addition, citing its preference to hold rights to

783-539: Was announced that Tennis Channel had acquired rights to the 46 overseas events of the WTA Tour under a five-year deal beginning in 2019, replacing beIN Sports . beIN had acquired the WTA Tour rights as part of a larger deal covering 30 countries, but the deal faced criticism from U.S. viewers due to the network's narrow carriage (only serving half as many households as Tennis Channel, with several top providers having also dropped

812-577: Was held for two weeks between 23 November to 6 December 2015. The tournament started in Mumbai , progressed through Chennai , Chandigarh , Hyderabad , Raipur , Nagpur , before closing out with the finals in Hyderabad . In India, all Champions Tennis League matches broadcast live on Sony SIX HD and Sony KIX , who have the exclusive broadcasting rights for the event in the Indian subcontinent . The Tennis Channel , shall broadcast Champions Tennis League across

841-589: Was the exclusive cable rightsholder of the French Open ; while it previously sub-licensed portions of this coverage to ESPN , this arrangement ended in 2015. Rights to the tournament will move to TNT Sports under an agreement reached in June 2024. The Tennis Channel launched an HD simulcast on December 31, 2007. On September 4, 2011 during the US Open, Tennis Channel pulled its signal from Verizon FiOS , Cablevision , Suddenlink Communications , Mediacom , WOW! , Knology and General Communication Inc. systems after

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