The World Surf League (WSL) has announced a new rights deal with ESPN, which will cover its Champions Tour events in 2024.
Under the terms of the deal, ESPN will air the entire season of ten Champions Tour events, which runs from January 29th through February 10th. Streaming service ESPN+ will air the WSL qualifying event, which is also known as the US Open of Surfing.
Also, the linear channel ESPN2 will air 11 episodes of WSL: Inside Pro Surfing, a Champions Tour-focused docuseries.
“Distributing the WSL Champions Tour live events rights on ESPN+ provides our audiences full access to the premier surf tour, where the top men and women will compete for the championship crown at legendary surf spots all over the world," said Tim Reed, ESPN vice president of programming and acquisitions in a statement announcing the deal. “The WSL CT is a great addition to the platform and live competitive surfing will fit well alongside an already significant content offering. We look forward to kicking off the season in Hawaii next week.”
Cherie Cohen, WSL chief revenue officer, said: “Working with ESPN this season is a fantastic opportunity to bring the sport to more viewers and new audiences across different platforms in the United States.
“They are the biggest name in sports content in the USA, and this agreement offers us the opportunity to share surfing with the millions of subscribers across their digital properties as well as on linear television.”
The World Surf League is in the middle of an effort to substantially expand media coverage of its games as well as step up promotion of the sport. The WSL recently entered into a partnership with the highly regarded Box to Box Films production company to create its ‘Make or Break’ docuseries on AppleTV+.
The league also recently signed several major international rights deals.
Warner Bros. Discovery will air the Inside Pro Surfing docuseries on its Eurosport pan-European broadcaster and livestream all Championship Tour events on its Discovery+ streaming service in Europe.
The WSL also just announced a broadcast partnership with major Australian pay-TV network Foxtel, which will air the entirety of the 2024 WSL season on its main channel, as well as on the Kayo Sports streaming service, which Foxtel owns.
All events will also be aired in Australia free-to-air through a deal with commercial broadcaster Seven.
The WSL events also air in Brazil, as part of a three-year deal struck with Brazilian TV network Globo in 2021.
