By Andrew Marchand, Richard Deitsch and Jenna West

ESPN will continue to air the US Open after signing a new 12-year agreement with the United States Tennis Association, the network announced Wednesday. The deal is worth $170 million per year and $2.04 billion in total, sources briefed on the deal said.

The network’s current 11-year deal to broadcast the Grand Slam tournament in Queens, N.Y., was set to expire after 2025. The new deal runs from 2026 to 2037, gives ESPN expanded streaming coverage and keeps Middle Sunday and the men’s final on ABC.

Other details of the deal include expanded Fan Week coverage with daily live coverage on ESPN2, daily Spanish-language coverage in the U.S. on ESPN Deportes and allowing fans to view all play across all courts daily.

“After many remarkable years of partnership, we are thrilled to extend our partnership with ESPN and the Walt Disney Company, a collaboration that has driven extraordinary growth for the US Open,” Lew Sherr, USTA’s CEO and executive director, said in a statement. “Our shared commitment to expanding the reach of tennis has contributed to (a) significant increase in participation. Together, we will continue to leverage the US Open as a powerful platform to promote our mission to inspire healthier people and communities.”

For more on the US Open, follow The Athletic’s live blog.

Every deal extension that ESPN does with its current properties has both a medium and long-term goal revolving around locking down as many assets as possible as it moves its portfolio to a DTC (direct to consumer) environment.

As part of its deal with the USTA, ESPN has an option to sublicense to another broadcaster some hours of the tournament within the first week. On that note, ESPN Executive Vice President, Programming & Acquisitions Rosalyn Durant told the Sports Business Journal: “We will be thoughtful about if we are to sublicense. There is a subset of potential platforms that we would sublicense with, so we’ll take all of that into consideration and make a decision.”

The company has aired the U.S. Open since 2015 and it’s a valuable property for them for several reasons: It brings in a high-income audience; it has cross-over appeal given the tournament fuses celebrity and sport; and it’s a valuable tool to use when it comes to the hospitality end of the media business. If the sport has a transcendent American star between now and 2037, the deal will pay for itself. It also takes the Open off the board for any of the deep-pocketed streaming players.

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