Will Tennis ever get its R-E-S-P-E-C-T?

Why wont tennis ever get its respect, not just from media, but with televised coverage? Last week at The Pacific Life Open and this weeks tournament in Key Biscayne, ESPN, and especially the Tennis Channel arent showing live matches. In fact they arent showing any matches. Tennis Channel rather show "The Other Side With Leyton Hewitt" every 3 hours from 2005, and other interviews from the past, as well as taped matches from the seniors tour, and even racquetball, rather then live matches being played by todays athletes. What gives with that?

Will Tennis ever get its R-E-S-P-E-C-T?
Shoot tell me about it, the only time we ever even get decent coverage of tournaments is when the grandslams are on. I cannot stand that tennis channel, and I didn't even get to watch the Pacific Life Open until the second week, which annoyed me because it's a major tournament in America. Now with the Sony Ericsson Open, the so called "fifth grandslam" I didn't even get to see coverage till frekaing saturday. Today there's only 4 freaking hours on FSN, and then it comes back on at 1 am, which is when I'm sleeping. I used to be able to view the tennis channel but since I live in Houston, I had Time Warner Cable which let me view it free now since Comcast has taken over they took it and I have to buy a 50 dollars sports package if I want it. Now since they've inked deals with the Tennis Channel it's kinda sucks, but the tennis channel doesn't hardly show any tennis tournaments at all. There's only so many times I can stand to check my tv guide menu and see "The Other Side With Lleyton Hewitt". Something needs to be done, at least when the US Open comes around they show the small US Open Series tournaments, but why not show the other bunch of tournaments like Dubai, The Queen's Club and other stuff, it's ridiculous.
Reply:The Tennis Channel is really disappointing. You would think with a name like that, they would be covering every major tennis tournament. Key Biscayne is the 6th biggest tennis tournament on the ATP calendar. Very disappointing.
Reply:well,the only reason you're seeing crappy programming in place of coverage is because of broadcasting rights that FSN won. i suppose they proposed more money to garner themselves more viewership since they pretty much suck and needed a bit more depth as a network. it's shame indeed but unfortunately that's the way it goes in corporate telly.





as for your official question,i hope it does. if they get the coverage perhaps it will change but right now i don't feel the interest from networks and just people as viewers or spectators as a whole.
Reply:yeah.. tennis channel is pure S-H-I-T! and as for the other channels shame on them for not broadcasting live matches anymore. it really sucks that all I can do is watch the live scores on the internet change until someone wins! it would be better if I could actually see the players play the points specially when the top players are on court! grrr....
Reply:I agree with everyone. Tennis is overlooked by sports such as basketball, football, and baseball in the US. I really hope it gets more credibility. On the bright side, it is gaining more popularity.
Reply:i dont have the tennis channel but i dont want it. i agree with you
Reply:I hope it will, cause this is really annoying. I was hunting everywhere last week to watch the PLO, but it was extremely frustrating that no channel was showing it. People here would rather watch others ramming into wach other in football, and that's why tennis is understated.





I think tennis fans have to stand up for tennis more. It seems as if everyone is talking about more popular sports to everyone, but tennis fans don't really discuss tennis with ppl other than tennis fans. If we became a little less resevred, others would start noticing the sport and then channels would be forced to accomodate it...

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