I was traveling in Spain and Italy last year when Roland Garros was on, which included major highlights like Nadal’s (likely) last ever match there and strong performances from European players like Alcaraz, Sinner, Tsitsipas and Zverev (indeed almost all of the current top ten men are European).

But it was only on the pay channel EuroSport, which many homes (and thus Airbnbs) don’t seem to have, and was only available for us in one upmarket hotel in Spain we stayed in for an indulgence for one night.

So the tournament promoters may be making the calculation that if the current TV rights holders aren’t ultimately getting many eyeballs watching their events, they need to do other things to build/maintain the profile of the sport with a view to one day offering it only via the internet (particularly if broadcast TV continues to decline and the networks can no longer afford large rights deals).

Taxpayer-funded TV stations aren’t showing major commercial sport in Australia or anywhere else, really.

If it’s not exclusive to pay television, it’s on free-to-air commercial networks. These are fully private companies that pay a large license fee to use spectrum, and fund their purchase of the sports broadcasting rights by selling advertising (usually at peak rates as these events are very popular).

In Australia, all four of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments are shown on free-to-air commercial TV. No taxpayer funding whatsoever but easily accessible to everyone.

The people who they sell the rights to are less valuable partners, so AO feels comfortable making them a less valuable offer while pursuing other audiences.