Sky Secures US Open Rights Until 2030: A Game Changer for Tennis Coverage

Sky has locked in the US Open for the long haul, signing a three-year extension that keeps the New York major exclusively on Sky Sports and NOW in the UK and Ireland until the end of 2030.

The deal, agreed with the United States Tennis Association and brokered by IMG, guarantees wall-to-wall live coverage of every corner of the tournament: men’s and women’s singles, doubles, mixed doubles, juniors and wheelchair events across the full three-week stretch at Flushing Meadows. If a ball is struck in Queens, Sky will have it.

This isn’t just about linear TV either. Fans in the UK and Ireland will continue to be able to dip in and out of the chaos with clips, highlights and short-form reaction spread across Sky’s digital and social platforms, catching the key points and late-night drama on demand.

That drama has been in full supply this year. Novak Djokovic, a 24-time Grand Slam champion and usually a fixed point in the second week of any major, crashed out in the first round. Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz then tore up the night session script with the latest finish in tournament history, the American finally edging through at 3.33am in a match that felt like it might never end.

And the show is far from over. The women’s draw has delivered the heavyweight final the rankings promised, with World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka set to face World No 2 Elena Rybakina on Saturday in a meeting that underlines the depth of quality at the top of the game.

Sky has used this edition of the US Open as a shop window for its tennis coverage. Augmented reality graphics, deeper data integrations and in-depth touchscreen analysis have all been pushed to the fore, while behind-the-scenes features have tried to drag viewers into the heartbeat of the tournament rather than leaving them at the baseline.

Fronting it all is Gigi Salmon, anchoring the coverage with a rotating cast of analysts led by Tim Henman and Laura Robson. Jonathan Overend calls the action from the commentary box, backed by a wider team of co-commentators and pundits dropped in at key points across the season.

For Jonathan Licht, Chief Executive Officer of Sky Sports UK & Ireland, the extension is more than a simple rights renewal. He called the US Open “one of the highlights of the sporting calendar” and framed the deal as a statement of intent: Sky wants to stay at the cutting edge of how tennis is presented, while reinforcing its claim to be the home of sport in the UK and Ireland.

From the USTA side, Chief Commercial Officer Kirsten Corio hailed a long-standing partnership that she expects to fuel tennis’ growth in the region. The message is clear: keep innovating on screen, keep the audience engaged, and the sport’s upward curve in the UK and Ireland should continue.

This US Open agreement slots into a packed tennis slate on Sky. Live tennis runs all year, with full ATP and WTA Tour coverage on Sky Sports, NOW and the Sky Sports app. Across the season, Sky plans to show more than 4,000 matches from 80 tournaments, turning tennis into a constant presence rather than a four-times-a-year event.

It also strengthens an already formidable rights portfolio. Sky’s schedule stretches from around 1,500 games across the Premier League, WSL, EFL and SPFL to exclusive coverage of every Formula 1 race weekend until the end of 2034. Add home men’s and women’s international England cricket, every shot from the golf Majors, year-round darts, major boxing from promoters Zuffa and MVP, plus action from the NFL, Netball Super League and rugby league, and the picture is obvious.

With the US Open now locked in through 2030, the late nights in New York are set to remain a staple of the British sporting calendar. The only real question is what kind of stories the next generation of champions will write under the lights at Flushing Meadows, and how Sky chooses to bring them into living rooms back home.