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hannel 9 has announced new broadcast deals as Nine secures broadcasting rights to the US Open, Stan Sport secures the rights to English Premiership Rugby and, expands Audience Match capability with Salesforce.

Channel 9 and Stan sport will take over from ESPN and SBS, securing the Grand Slam’s broadcast rights until 2024.

This partnership, commencing from 2022, will see US Open matches available in Australia alongside the already existing rights to the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon.

In addition to the US Open rights, Nine’s broadcast will include the Davis Cup, Billie Jean King Cup and Laver Cup and will also hold the rights to all summer lead-up tournaments to the Australian Open, including the ATP Cup.

Nine’s director of sport, Brent Williams, said: “We are thrilled to have one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events in the US Open coming to Nine and Stan Sport.”

“Today’s exciting announcement makes us the exclusive home of all four tennis Grand Slams.

“With the Australian Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros and now the US Open, we have expanded both our FTA and live streaming offering, with unprecedented coverage of elite tennis all year round.

“We are excited that fans will be able to access every superstar player, every thrilling match and every single point of these iconic tournaments on a Nine platform,” he said.

United States Tennis Association (USTA) chief revenue officer, Law Sherr, added: “We have always admired the Nine Network’s coverage of the Australian Open, so we know that the US Open has found a great home on Nine and Stan sport.”

“They have a proven commitment to tennis and a demonstrated ability to elevate and integrate the sport’s presentation across all their platforms,” Sherr said.

Nine’s Stan sport has also secured exclusive broadcast rights to the English Premiership Rugby in a new multi-year deal streaming over 130 matches of the game live and exclusive on Stan Sport.

Nine has signed a three-year deal with $100 million with the national governing body Rugby Australia for full rights to the code.

The deal includes the rights to the men’s Super Rugby and women’s Super W clubs’ competitions, The Rugby Championships, Bledisloe Cup games between Australia and New Zealand and the women’s Wallaroos test matches.

Nine has also expanded their Audience Match in partnership with software company Salesforce to begin in 2022, allowing Salesforce clients to activate customer data to Nine users.

The Australian-first partnership will allow advertisers using any Salesforce Cloud with Salesforce CDP and Salesforce Nine app to match their first-party consumer audiences against Nine’s ecosystem.

Audience Match allows marketers to activate a people-based audience across all of Nine’s properties using Adobe Audience Manager and Nine’s registered users.

After Salesforce partnered with Adobe a year ago, it now makes Nine the only Australian media organisation to have deals with both companies.

Nine’s director of sales for digital and publishing, Nick Young, said: “Today Nine can announce that in an Australian first, its Audience Match product will integrate with Salesforce.”

“The partnership builds on Nine’s market-leading on-boarding capabilities activated over the last 12 months, which have involved significant deals with key players such as Adobe and also LiveRamp, and ensures that regardless of the marketing technology provider a brand uses, it can utilise Nine’s Audience Match solution to onboard audiences to Nine.

“We’ll have more to say on this in the coming months, but for the moment, we are excited that regardless of what platform a brand is on in 2022, we’ll be able to help them with a seamless, safe and privacy-compliant solution allowing them to activate their audiences across all of Nine’s digital properties.

“Identity-based targeting opportunities that tap into Martech already embedded in your business: it doesn’t get better than that,” he said.

Salesforce Australia area vice president, Jo Gaines, added: “Its approach to the first-party data means marketers will be able to expand insights, deliver cross-channel personalisation and build even stronger relationships with customers in an environment which protects the privacy of the customer.”

“Customers are now digital-first.

“Every moment counts, no matter where, how or with whom it takes place.

“Relationships are built on a collection of moments

“Customers expect these moments to be connected, timely, relevant, human and built on trust.

“Data is the steel thread that connects every moment across the relationship between brands and consumers.

“With Salesforce, CDP marketers can engage with relevance, personalise every moment, and build trusted customer relationships,” she said.