\n<\/p>\n
\n\tJeff Blackburn had a prolific 24-year run at Amazon, helping create and build Prime Video, Amazon Studios, Amazon Music and leading the company\u2019s push into advertising. Prior to the \u201ceverything store,\u201d though, he was a former high school tennis standout who came to recognize that a passion for the sport and the long hours required by a famously hard-driving tech culture were incompatible.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe exec\u2019s personal and professional backgrounds officially fused last year when he was named CEO of the Tennis Channel by Sinclair, which paid $350 million to acquire it in 2016. After dropping tennis in order to play linebacker on Dartmouth\u2019s football team, Blackburn \u201cgave up the racket,\u201d as he puts it, for 25 years. \u201cI missed it so much, but was working so hard,\u201d he recalls. After rediscovering the sport while still at Amazon, he now plays competitive team matches. \u201cI go out there and battle on the weekends,\u201d he says with a grin.<\/p>\n
\n\tBlackburn\u2019s arrival has coincided with an upswing in ratings and streaming sign-ups. The spring season has been the most-watched in company history, and clay-court season in the runup to next month\u2019s French Open continues with the Mutua Madrid Open leading into the Italian Open on deck. Tennis Channel has full rights to the men\u2019s and women\u2019s pro tours, though it currently has no rights to the four major tournaments. Even so, it is seeing momentum. The BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, CA (which is owned by Oracle and Paramount titan Larry Ellison) jumped 24% over the previous record viewership. Women\u2019s tennis also hit a milestone, with back-to-back championship matches at Indian Wells and the Miami Open both surpassing the 2026 Australian Open Women\u2019s Final. Earlier this month, live coverage of the men\u2019s final in Monte Carlo between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz ranked among the top three sports broadcasts in its time period.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn a wide-ranging interview, Blackburn discussed his strategic plan for Tennis Channel, how it fits into the streaming landscape, competing with ESPN and other large rivals, and other aspects of his first year in the corner office. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length. <\/p>\n
\n\tDEADLINE: Is it helpful that you have the perspective of both player and viewer?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> Big time. At Amazon, I worked in corporate development strategy. I was an M&A person for a really long time. And there were a lot of patterns that we saw. We had the capital and great businesses we could enter \u2013 almost any market we wanted to, including entertainment. And this was across all verticals, every year. But then there\u2019s some where we always said, \u2018You know, quite honestly, the intense focus is gonna make it really hard.\u2019 [Shoe retailer] Zappos required that. And we acquired them [in 2009]. Great company. Did well, incredibly well. Audible, same thing. So focused on that category. Whole Foods. Organic grocery. That was our biggest acquisition, and we just made the decision, because they\u2019re so focused. Like, we\u2019re not gonna be able to do this like them. They are so good at it.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: And still growing.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> They\u2019re really good at it! There was a reason we bought them, you know? But anyways, we had this focus thing. And I had music, I had video and streaming. God, we never could catch Netflix. They\u2019re just a great company and just incredibly focused. Greg Peters, Ted, they\u2019re amazing. Same thing with Daniel Ek and Spotify. Like, just so focused on the category. So, when I was thinking about Tennis Channel, I like that about it. It\u2019s crazy intense focus. We are absolutely that way. And we\u2019re never going to stop being that way. It\u2019s what I love so much about the company. And every aspect of my vision, where we go, is to just continue to focus on the tennis, the game of tennis, and let it grow, \u2019cause there\u2019s gonna be amazing stars. There used to be this, you know, \u2018Federer and Nadal are gone. What\u2019s gonna happen now?\u2019 Now, oh, my God, we got the best rivalry in tennis between Sinner and Alcaraz. It\u2019s maybe one of the best in sports. They\u2019re just trading off. One\u2019s getting better and beating the other, and then it flips six months later. Plus we\u2019re men and women, 50-50, which is a huge advantage in sports.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: That was the conviction of the founders of Tennis Channel. The Golf Channel had been a successful launch but it was very male.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN<\/strong>: We\u2019ve always done that really well. It\u2019s not me. It just comes with the business. We have exclusive rights with the two tours, and then we cover it all. There\u2019s no off-season. We are literally 50 weeks a year covering tennis. We have certain weeks where we will do 18 hours of production four days in a row because we have four different tournaments all over the world.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: What\u2019s the global distribution for Tennis Channel?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> We\u2019re in Spain, we\u2019re in Germany, we have a small little business in the UK. We\u2019re in France a little bit. We\u2019re really just FAST channels, not full networks. Spain is our biggest market. We do have an international strategy, but it\u2019s not a big focus right now.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: For a while, Eurosport was making a lot of moves in tennis.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> And Sky. But Sky went away from tennis. We actually had the rights at Prime Video for the U.S. Open. I wanted to get into sports so badly, I was dying. Jeff [Bezos] was like, \u2018Let\u2019s do UFC.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018No, let\u2019s do tennis!\u2019 [Laughs.] But we actually did both. We did some UFC pay-per-view in 2017, \u201918. No one was doing sports in streaming. And then we licensed beach volleyball globally. We licensed the U.S. Open and ATP\/WTA for UK streaming. And then we did the Thursday night football tri-cast. Those were the first four deals that I did in sports for Amazon. And it was kind of \u2018get our feet wet\u2019 type of moment. But back then, I was dying to do tennis. I wish we could have done more tennis. It\u2019s just, when you sit in a multi-sport rights holder, It\u2019s too small.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: it\u2019s an affluent audience, though.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> And it\u2019s growing. It is in that position today in the U.S., but it may not be forever. I mean, it\u2019s a steady grower.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: In addition to the main linear channel, you also have a subscription streaming service. How do you balance those?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> The flagship network is Tennis Channel. Tennis Channel 2 is the FAST channel, but it\u2019s increasingly just becoming its own network. It\u2019s getting picked up by cable. To us, it\u2019s like our Spotify free, almost. It\u2019s like, \u2018Okay, yeah, try it. It\u2019s not the best<\/em> matches.\u2019 You want the best of the best, our best programming, you want the full deal. But if you want to watch some tennis, it\u2019s pretty good. But our subscription app has all of it. And so right when you go into the tennis channel app, if you subscribe, you\u2019ve got the main flagship network streaming, you\u2019ve got Tennis Channel 2. Then you have all the replays, you have every court. You can do multi-view. And we have Pickleball TV.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: And is the app distributed in the usual places, Amazon, Roku and so on?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN: We distribute the app through Roku, but we\u2019re not in the premium subscriptions program \u2013 yet. But we want to be everywhere. Let\u2019s take all the friction away. Let\u2019s get tennis in front of everybody. If they only want to do the FAST channel and do some free, that\u2019s fine. We think they\u2019ll eventually want to be in the full subscription. They get the app. You know, if you\u2019re an apartment here in Manhattan and you\u2019re 28 years old, you\u2019re not gonna get cable. You\u2019re gonna start with T2, and you\u2019re gonna like, I love this ton of stuff so much. I gotta watch Madrid and Rome. You know, and then subscribe. and hopefully stay with us.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: So have you ever disclosed streaming subscribers?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> We don\u2019t put it out. But we set records in India Wells and Miami for sign ups. And also audience. We were up 30% on cable. I believe by emphasizing our streaming offering, being in more places, being on Amazon. People know there\u2019s live tennis on. We\u2019re growing in cable but it\u2019s not nearly the rate it is in digital. If you look at an average day in Miami, like, in the middle of the tournament, 20% of what people are watching is streaming. So, that\u2019s gonna be 50%. And then when that happens, we\u2019re a streaming company. We\u2019re already a streaming company that also happens to distribute through cable.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: There are more and more players making that transition. AMC Global Media, or Starz, which now has about three-quarters of its subscribers in streaming.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> They were big on Amazon Channels early. They went all in. Increasingly, you know, Amazon Channels is being replicated by everybody who has a big digital portal in streaming, and we\u2019re gonna be part of those. Everybody offers a big bundle, we\u2019re gonna join that if they want to do some sports bundle. We\u2019re open for business on the bundling side. We\u2019re a perfect bundling partner.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: YouTube TV just launched their skinny bundles, but I saw that you aren\u2019t in the sports one at launch.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> Yeah, T2 and Pickleball are in it, but the Tennis Channel is kind of, if you look at the channels and their sports tier, you tell me one better than Tennis. Tennis Channel is the most premium thing in their sports tier. So, there is an issue, which we\u2019re working on.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: How do you feel your streaming service is as a product and a user experience? Given your experience at Amazon, did you identify things to improve when you got to the company?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> I identified a bunch of things right away. Here\u2019s the good news: It\u2019s a deeply experienced team. I hired a great team. I knew the production side was A-plus. But we are a small company, and so they chose to outsource a lot of the components of the digital strategy. And that\u2019s not OK with me. We had no software engineers. Now, we have six. We\u2019re building that side slowly, and we\u2019re moving some of these outsourced relationships into areas where we can control more of the software, more of the experience, more of the personalization, the search. You know, you want to get notifications about Novak Jokovic or whatever, we need to be able to offer you that. Right now, we don\u2019t have a nimble product team because we\u2019ve outsourced certain parts of it, and then so we\u2019re working on that.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: Do you also feel you need to step up and get rights to the four major tournaments? ESPN has been the dominant player there, but obviously you guys have way more overall coverage.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> They used to have the French Open, and they lost it to TNT a few years ago. And then just kind of backed away from the majors, and we\u2019re Tennis Channel. It doesn\u2019t make any sense to me. so we\u2019ve made an investment in having to Jim Courier and Lindsay Davenport on our on-air team at the majors, of course, we\u2019re at the majors. Now, we may not have live tennis, or we might have a little bit, like we do at Roland Garros. But we get it. Those are huge checks ESPN and TNT are writing. And that\u2019s fine. We\u2019ll set up their coverage, but we\u2019re gonna be there.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: When is the next window for rights negotiations?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> Australian Open, 2028. Okay. French Open was a 10-year deal done in 2024, so 2034. U.S. Open is 2035. Wimbledon\u2019s 2034, I think. So, yeah, that\u2019s a ways out. So, anyway, I think we\u2019ll have collaborative relationships with TNT and ESPN.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: Do you see a way to grow without the majors?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> We are just going to deliver more tennis, better tennis, and we don\u2019t have anything to put on top of it. You know, you don\u2019t have to scroll through college football and basketball. It\u2019s not that they have great teams, and they\u2019re serious about tennis at ESPN, but they have many other things they have to do. So, I feel comfortable with our position. Take out the four majors. There are 65 tournaments a year. We have rights to them all. Within those, there\u2019s maybe nine that are kind of like mini-majors, they call them \u20181000s tournaments.\u2019 We do incredibly well. Those are our Super Bowls. We treat each one of those in mega-way. Indian Wells, Miami, Rome, Madrid, Cincinnati. And so that\u2019s our game plan. That\u2019s what we do 52 weeks a year. Increasingly, though, it\u2019s happening, and a lot of it\u2019s just social, and part of it\u2019s Sinner and Alcaraz, and what\u2019s going on with Coco Gauff. A younger, more casual group is getting interested in tennis. And so that\u2019s happening, and our network is getting younger. We\u2019re one of three companies that actually grew in cable in 2025. We\u2019re not counting on cable for growth, but I actually think we\u2019re bringing in a new demographic within that group. And then we\u2019re gonna move them all into streaming over time. It\u2019s not really something that a multisport entertainment company can do. They can pick off a couple big tournaments, and really do a great job. I think the U.S. Open on ESPN, they do a hell of a job. They really crush it. And they can post some big audience ratings numbers on those days that are hard for us to beat.<\/p>\n \n\tDEADLINE: Sinclair, your parent company, had put Tennis Channel and other broadcast assets under strategic review at one point. Are they still committed to you?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tBLACKBURN:<\/strong> That\u2019s gone, that was several years ago. Sinclair, to their credit, made a great acquisition. They did a lot of good things for it on distribution. And they are great partner for us. And they made a good decision, I think, to say, \u2018Let\u2019s reinvest in Tennis Channel.\u2019 It\u2019s working. Let\u2019s hire someone like me. Let\u2019s get the digital part right. So that\u2019s what they did. So, it\u2019s not on the market. We don\u2019t need investments. We don\u2019t need anything. We just need to kind of work on our own business and improve it, cross the bridge into streaming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n