EUROSPORT'S EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR TENNIS, JONAS BERG, ON ROLAND-GARROS' RENOVATIONS
Jonas Berg, Executive Producer – Tennis at Discovery and Eurosport, talks about the upgrades at Roland-Garros and the impact on broadcasters covering the event.
What makes Roland-Garros so special? For me, it’s the weather factor, it’s always the weather. Wimbledon used to have it, the Australian Open has the heat, but this is the one where you need to work really hard with the schedule. Some big news this year and I think next year there is going to be a big, big difference especially when you are trying to organise a tournament.
For a broadcaster, the roof guarantees you tennis. It doesn’t give us one hour or even 30 minutes of not even knowing if there will be tennis. The pulse is going to get a lot lower for the organisers and for us of course! We need to prepared in case there is a break for three hours – we just don’t know what might happen in those cases. It’s just very challenging.
The viewer is the big winner from the introduction of the roof. There is no worse thing than coming home from work and thinking you’re going to watch the tennis and you put the channel or device and there is nothing to watch – so we wont have that any more. It’s really going to be a big difference. Of course, Wimbledon started it and then everyone else understood that we need a roof as well.