As the U.S. Open culminates this week in New York City, airing on ESPN\u2019s networks, Netflix is prepping a wider entry into tennis halfway around the world.<\/p>\n
Netflix has acquired the rights to air the 2025 6 Kings Slam \u2014 an exhibition launched a year ago and being held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from Oct. 15 to 18 \u2014 per an announcement from the company; its regional partner, Riyadh Season; and its production partner, IMG.<\/p>\n
Headlining the event will be men\u2019s world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, along with Carlos Alcaraz (his nearest rival), 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, Jack Draper and Taylor Fritz.<\/p>\n
How does 6 Kings draw such big names? Well, for starters, the purse is huge: Sinner took home $6 million for winning the event last year, which is more than the winner gets for any of the major championships. Meanwhile, each competitor received $1.5 million just for showing up.<\/p>\n
Here are a couple of notable points about this announcement.<\/p>\n
Netflix expands live-sports portfolio<\/p>\n
This is Netflix\u2019s second foray into live tennis, after Netflix Slam, a 2024 exhibition featuring Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal. The 6 Kings Slam joins a live-sports roster that includes NFL Christmas Day games, a 2003 golf event (the Netflix Cup), sports-style scripted live entertainment (\u201cWWE Raw\u201d) and boxing events, including next week\u2019s card featuring Canelo Alvarez versus Terence Crawford.<\/p>\n
Netflix has made no secret of its ambition to add live sports to its programming portfolio, which has elevated the sports-media industry buzzword \u201ceventize,\u201d shorthand for limited-edition programming that can be marketed as an \u201cevent.\u201d Such an event ideally has global reach that fits with Netflix\u2019s strategy to increase its subscriber base worldwide, as well as to build its inventory of content that naturally includes advertising, for which live sports is the recognized standard.<\/p>\n
Related to that, it is a longstanding strategy among distributors airing glamorous sports events globally to use them as an opportunity to impress and entice potential advertising partners, especially for platforms with a relatively new ad-supported business, like Netflix. Another added benefit for Netflix to lean into events rather than try to acquire long-winding seasons is that events are much less expensive to produce.<\/p>\n
Rights to big events are scarce (if not impossible)<\/p>\n
Rights for tennis\u2019 traditional Grand Slam events \u2014 and even authorized lower-tier ATP-sanctioned events \u2014 are locked up with tennis\u2019 traditional media partners for years to come: A year ago, the U.S. Open did a 12-year rights extension with ESPN; in the summer of 2024, the French Open signed a 10-year, $650 million deal<\/a> with TNT Sports; and back in 2021, ESPN extended its existing deal with Wimbledon for another 12 years, through 2035. The bottom line: These Slam-level events are not available for Netflix, at any price, anytime soon.<\/p>\n Inventory that streaming brands like Netflix, YouTube or Amazon Prime Video can acquire will increasingly emerge from league-unsanctioned or exhibition-style events, negotiated with individual athletes. It also isn\u2019t a coincidence that the event\u2019s branding incorporates the most valuable word in the sport (\u201cslam\u201d). To be clear, the event in Riyadh is not a formal tennis \u201cGrand Slam\u201d event; it is an exhibition.<\/p>\n To be sure, ESPN and Tennis Channel are leaning toward, if not fully embracing, direct-to-consumer streaming lanes, in anticipation of the contraction of the cable audience and accompanying rights fees. Netflix, of course, is already there.<\/p>\n Does TKO Holdings see tennis as the next UFC?<\/p>\n IMG is producing the broadcast, but more interesting is who IMG\u2019s parent company is: TKO Holdings, which has had a busy few months<\/a>.<\/p>\n