Launched on May 15, 2003,[1] the channel is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and produces its programming out of an HD-capable broadcast center in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City.

[4] The channel officially launched on May 15, 2003, after its first live event, a Fed Cup tie in Lowell, Massachusetts, was broadcast in April as part of a "sneak preview".

[6] In 2005, after struggling viewership (having only reached a subscriber base of 5 million by 2006), attributed to a lack of coverage of high-profile tournaments (such as the Grand Slam), the channel's David Meister was replaced by Ken Solomon.

[14] In 2015, Tennis Channel acquired rights to the Citi Open, an ATP World Tour 500 and WTA International tournament in Washington, D.C., under a four-year contract.

[15][16] On January 27, 2016, Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest owner of over-the-air television stations in the United States, announced that it would acquire Tennis Channel for $350 million.

In the statement announcing the purchase Sinclair CEO David Smith said that Tennis Channel had high-quality content and advertisers, though it had been valued low and was under-distributed.

[21] In October 2018, it was announced that Tennis Channel had acquired rights to the 46 overseas events of the WTA Tour under a five-year deal beginning in 2019, replacing beIN Sports.

beIN had acquired the WTA Tour rights as part of a larger deal covering 30 countries, but the deal faced criticism from U.S. viewers due to the network's narrow carriage (only serving half as many households as Tennis Channel, with several top providers having also dropped the channel that August),[22] as well as frequent scheduling conflicts favoring soccer coverage.

Until 2025, Tennis Channel was the exclusive cable rightsholder of the French Open; while it previously sub-licensed portions of this coverage to ESPN, this arrangement ended in 2015.

[43] On September 4, 2011 during the US Open, Tennis Channel pulled its signal from Verizon FiOS, Cablevision, Suddenlink Communications, Mediacom, WOW!, Knology and General Communication Inc. systems after the providers declined to accept a new agreement that the Tennis Channel made with the National Cable Television Cooperative (a group which the seven providers are members).

In July 2012, the Federal Communications Commission ruled in favor of Tennis Channel following a three-year dispute between the network and Comcast over placement on extra-fee sports tier.