End Of An Era

Tonight as USA Network signed off from the US Open, it marked the final time it would be bringing sports regularly into our homes. Technically, when USA airs the women’s doubles final on Sunday, it will end USA’s association with the US Open, but tonight was really the end. And it’s really sad. For 25 years, USA has produced the weekday and weeknight sessions of the tournament, starting with John McEnroe winning his 4th US Open title and ending it here with Johnny Mac calling the matches for the network.

And USA was the network that first hired McEnroe as an analyst. It was from his candor on USA that CBS and NBC began to take notice of his work and now, John is seen and heard all over the globe, working for 7 Network in Australia and the BBC in the UK in addition to his work here in the States.

But the sad part is that USA Network had a great legacy in cable sports, especially when the industry was in its infancy. In the early 1980’s, USA had a great lineup of sports programming with Major League Baseball doubleheaders, the NBA, the NHL, college basketball, college football, boxing, the PGA Tour along with The Masters, the French Open and its signature event was the two weeks of coverage of the US Open.

For 25 years, it was like clockwork, the week before and after Labor Day was always the US Open and coverage on USA.

But as NBC Universal took over USA and noticed it was doing well with scripted dramas, the emphasis on sports was reduced and the network began to jettison its events starting with its extensive coverage of the PGA Tour, allowing the Golf Channel to scoop it up. Some could argue that the tour has missed USA over the last two years. Then, USA said goodbye to The Masters last year, refusing to bid for the event and basically giving it away to ESPN which started its association with Augusta National this past spring.

And the death knell came when the higher ups at NBC Universal decided that USA’s time during the Open would be better spent on dramas than tennis. So ESPN and the Tennis Channel came in to take the final Grand Slam tournament of the year starting in 2009.

USA will still have a presence with NBC during the Olympics, but they’ll only come around every two years. It won’t be the same. Maybe down the road, USA will get back into the sports business, but it certainly won’t be the same next year when the US Open becomes just another tennis tournament on ESPN2.