29 April 2008

The Club’s marketing and commercial programme continues to build on its existing partner relationships, forge new ones and engage technology to deliver Wimbledon to its audiences around the world. 

Television
BBC

• The Club and the BBC recently announced a new deal confirming the BBC as the exclusive UK rights holder and host broadcaster covering The Championships 2010-14 inclusive. 
• The new agreement is focused on delivering state-of-the-art digital services - High Definition transmissions from the show courts, a greater choice of live action, on-demand highlights on PC or mobile and BBC iPlayer will show all the key matches for up to seven days after broadcast.
• In the UK, watching on broadband will deliver all the same action as broadcast on television, including the extensive additional coverage offered behind the red button.
• Centre and Number One Courts will be provided in HD, as part of the BBC HD channel.
• Contract also secures radio rights on Radio Five Live.

NBC

• In 2008, the Club will celebrate the 40th anniversary of its television partnership with NBC.
• New agreement will extend network coverage until 2013.
• Centre and No.1 Courts will be transmitted in HD in 2008.

ESPN

• Agreement extended for six years until 2013 guaranteeing 100 hours of Wimbledon coverage.
• Features increased Wimbledon content on its digital outlets and international rights in all of Latin and South America (except Brazil) and the Caribbean.
• ESPN (US) will transmit Centre and No.1 Courts in HD in 2008.

The Tennis Channel

• New partner until 2013

NHK

• Renewal with NHK (Japan) for three years until 2010.
• The Championships, 2008 marks the 21st consecutive year of NHK coverage.

European

• The Club has also made extensive progress in expanding its European coverage with the major European markets – Spain, France, Italy, Scandinavia, Russia – all renewing for a further three years until 2010.

Television Coverage 2007

• British TV viewers again voted Wimbledon the nation’s top sports event during The Championships' final weekend as Roger Federer’s epic 5-set victory over Rafael Nadal on Sunday attracted a peak BBC audience of 7.3m compared to a peak of 5.1m for ITV’s coverage of the F1 British Grand Prix.  Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic’s win in the Mixed Doubles achieved a peak BBC audience of 4.9m.
• In 2007, television coverage of The Championships was broadcast globally for 10,211 hours, the first time coverage levels have exceeded 10,000 hours in Championships’ history.
• This represented a 24% increase on the 2006 total, the seventh consecutive year in which record levels of coverage have been achieved, and a 9% average year-on-year increase over the last 12 years.

• The Championships 2007 was aired on 129 channels in 185 territories enabling 748.4 million TV households to watch the action, 60% of which were able to access coverage via free-to-air channels. The proportion of live coverage increased by 25% in 2007.

• High Definition coverage of The Championships 2007 was available to Euro 1080 subscribers in nine countries.  Additionally, NTV+ (Russia & CIS), Polsat (Poland), Sport 1 (Netherlands), ESPN (USA) and Sky Italia (Italy), took The Championships in HD.
• The BBC, through its BBCi service, broadcast 804 hours of Interactive coverage.

Web Coverage

• Over eight million unique users had logged onto the Official Website, www.wimbledon.org, by the end of The Championships, an all-time Grand Slam record and the equivalent of the population of London logging on at least once during the fortnight.
• The site was visited more than 40 million times, nearly twice as many as last year, and recorded 266m page views, an increase of over 80m on 2006.

• For the second year in succession, live coverage of The Championships was available on the Official Website via subscription to Wimbledon Live, the Club’s online video service in partnership with broadband operator Mediazone.  Live coverage was available from nine courts, supplemented by ‘on demand’ services, archive footage, interviews, previews and highlights.
• 21 other internet providers across 17 territories showed coverage of The Championships in 2007. Packages included live audio feed, daily highlights, archive footage and enhanced data in the form of a live scoring console, plus additional territory specific content.

Mobile Coverage

• Coverage of The Championships was provided to fans via their mobile phones by a total of 10 separate mobile providers across 10 territories.
• Packages included daily video highlights, archive content, data (XML feed) and the Official Java Scoreboard, wallpapers and ring tones.

Official Suppliers
Two new official suppliers have been appointed for The Championships 2008:

• HSBC has been appointed as the ‘Official Banking Partner’ and become the sponsor of the HSBC Road to Wimbledon National 14 and Under Challenge.
• Evian has been appointed as the ‘Official Bottled Water’

Merchandising

• Licensing programme started in 1979 now incorporates some 25 licensed companies worldwide in 8 international markets. 
• Total of 34 Wimbledon shop within shops can be found in 14 cities in China including two recently opened in Beijing to take advantage of the Olympics 2008 market.
• Licensing programme in India started with licences granted for the marketing of towels, jewellery and other accessory products.
• A new 4,000 sq ft Centre Court Wimbledon Shop will be opening for The Championships 2008 with almost one half of the floor space devoted to the Polo Ralph Lauren Wimbledon Collection.  Polo will also feature their Wimbledon Collection in key European department stores and in Saks of Fifth Avenue, New York.
• All UK licensees are represented in The Wimbledon Shop on-site at The Championships where there are three major stores and another nine smaller kiosks situated around the grounds. 
• The top five best selling items in the Wimbledon Shop during the 2007 Championships were:  16,712 mini tennis ball key-rings, 9,912 Ladies’ Championship towels, 9,739 Men’s Championship towels, 7,267 twin wrist bands, 5,590 Slazenger mini balls.

ATP World Tour Finals

• Event in London in 2009 at the O2.  Produced by ATP in association with AELTC and LTA.
• Marketing of the event at The Championships – programme advertising, use of Club/LTA databases, availability of registration cards for the event.
• Terracotta Warriors of the top eight players for Shanghai 2008 have been on display at the Club since January as part of the Wimbledon Tour and will still be on site during The Championships.