Sky/Now TV’s double fault: how not to show the US Open

My Amazon Prime account costs me £95.00 pa. That includes free overnight deliveries, films, kindle, a very slick service and, until now, year-round ATP/WTA tennis, including the US Open.

Sky/Now TV have taken over the rights to those tennis events and so far it’s a complete disaster. Fans have been ranting on the Now TV forum and all over Twitter, as have those who present the excellent Tennis Podcast.

Now I shall rant with the rest of them — although I’m not sure it’ll make me feel any better.

When Eurosport had the rights to the Australian Open in January, like most tennis fans, I bought a one-month subscription for £6.99 and cancelled that after the tournament was over.

The Sky Sport subscription costs £26.00 per month. That is quite some increase over Amazon and Eurosport. But I am a tennis nut and swallowed the cost. And this is where I and many others became irate. For, it turned out that for this £26.00 you only get to see one live singles match and maybe a doubles. That was out of 17 courts of live action. Replays are more or less non-existent.

It turns out that you can only get “bonus streaming” — the ability to watch all the courts — if you have a device such as Appletv (which costs £150.00) with the latest OS, a Now Smart stick, fire stick or some other add-on device. They don’t tell you this when you sign up. You can just imagine the comments on the forum.

Happily, I have an Appletv and also, luckily, it’s recent enough to upgrade to the latest operating system, or that wouldn’t have synced with NowTv. Lo and behold, I got to see play on all courts.

Of course, New York is five hours behind us, so the 7.00 pm evening sessions (when the best matches are played) means staying up until midnight to see just the first match, which also means that the second match is often aired around 2.00/3.00 am. Some of us have to get up in the morning.

Now, you’d expect to have access to full replays the following day, as happened with Prime.

Well, you’d be mistaken. What is shown on the replays is totally random. There might be one, maximum two matches, and it’s a lottery as to what is shown. The 2.00 am matches, which you don’t have the energy to stay up for, are not.

Instead, you get a 3-minute highlight reel to thumping music. A whole 6-minute reel for the enthralling five-setter between Sinner and Zverev. I know it was enthralling because they said so on the Tennis Podcast. Oh, and the matches are frequently mislabelled so when you think you’re going to get one match, it turns out to be a highlight reel to a different one.

I was so keen to see a match featuring Jabeur that I stayed up till 3.00 am to watch. And then the system froze at a crucial moment and there was no full replay the following day.

Matches featuring British players such as Katie Boulter and Andy Murray were, again, 3-minute highlight reels. A wonderful encounter between Alcaraz and the Brit, Dan Evans? Another three minute reel.

The Zverev vs Sinner match was finally shown on replay two days later, when we all knew the result as they told us during the women’s match at midnight the day before.

Also, when you watch live matches, you can’t replay or pause, so you need to be quick to boil that kettle to make a cup of strong coffee to keep you awake. On top of that, unlike with Amazon Prime, the picture is not full HD and is often blurry and sometimes buffers.

The blockbuster between Alcaraz vs Zverev in the quarters started at 1.15 am. No replay the following day.

The semis all start at midnight and, as we know, men’s five-setters can go on for several hours, in which case there is no way most of us can watch the next one, which often starts around 3.00 am.

I suppose I should be thankful that the finals start at 4.00 pm New York time, so I’ll get to see them in full.

When Amazon had the rights to the tour and the US Open, it was equally chaotic for the first two days and there was plenty of on-line ranting about that. The difference is that Amazon got their act together by Day Three. They listened to the viewers. I was hoping that Sky would also learn from them, but it’s now at the semi-final stage and they still haven’t.

Sky have the rights to this tournament for the next five years, along with the other tournaments such as Masters 1000 which happen throughout the year. If I want to watch those, I shall have to fork out £26.00 per month.

It’s all very depressing.

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