By Richard Pagliaro | @TennisNow | Thursday, September 12, 2024
Picture credit score: US Open/USTA
Tennis proved to be a dynamic energy supply in New York.
The 2024 US Open set a mission assertion to “Have a good time the Energy of Tennis” and realized a record-setting occasion that the USTA hopes will cost lapsed leisure gamers to returning to the game within the coming months.
The Flushing Meadows main is the primary US Open to eclipse the 1 million fan mark, drawing a file 1,048,669 followers over your entire three-week occasion.
Each single session in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong stadium bought out.
The 1,048,669 followers who got here to the USTA Billie Jean King Nationwide Tennis Middle all through the total three weeks, that features qualifying performed throughout Fan Week, represented an eight-percent enhance over 2023.
The USTA stories attendance for the 2 weeks of the principle draw reached a brand new excessive mark of 832,640, and each Arthur Ashe Stadium (25 classes) and Louis Armstrong Stadium (14 classes) bought out each session. As somebody who sat in each stadiums all through the match, I can report these sell-out stats are correct.
Even early-round matches in Armstrong had been full of followers. After all, that is nice information for the USTA’s backside line (keep in mind they misplaced a whole 12 months of income internet hosting a fan-free 2020 Open in the course of the pandemic) and nice information for American tennis when you think about attendance figures in Indian Wells, Miami, Cincinnati and New York this 12 months.
Do not cry in your beer (or your Honey Deuce) over the USTA’s fortunes. Subsequent time you attain for the Gray Goose contemplate, the 2024 US Open served up 556,782 Honey Deuces, the signature cocktail of the US Open, at $23 a pop. I am not a math main or a bar tender however that is about $12.8 million in Honey Deuce gross sales alone.
Although pickleball could also be kicking tennis’ posterior on public courts all through the nation (not less than on some close to me), attendance at prime American occasions stays robust.
Nonetheless, should you attended the US Open this 12 months throughout peak hours, then you recognize simply strolling from the fountains to get inside Armstrong was as arduous as attempting to squeeze via a packed 7 Practice throughout rush hour: an overflow of humanity.
Curiously although attendance soared, TV scores for each males’s and girls’s finals fell a bit flat although each featured American finalists taking part in maiden main title matches.
World No. 1 Jannik Sinner’s victory over Taylor Fritz on ABC drew about 1.7 million viewers, down from the two.3 million who tuned into Novak Djokovic’s victory over Daniil Medvedev within the 2023 last.
It additionally the primary time since Dominic Thiem rallied from two units down defeating a skittish Alexander Zverev within the pandemic period 2020 US Open last {that a} US Open males’s last failed to attract greater than 2 million common TV viewers.
On the ladies’s facet, Aryna Sabalenka’s 7-5, 7-5 win over Buffalo-born Jessica Pegula drew about 1.8 million viewers, a dramatic dip from the three.4 million viewers that tuned in to see Coco Gauff rally from a set all the way down to defeat Sabalenka within the 2023 last. For comparability, qualifier Emma Raducanu’s victory over Leylah Fernandez within the 2021 US Open ladies’s last elicted a median TV viewers of two.4 million for ESPN.
Listed here are some information and figures from right now’s USTA press launch on the 2024 US Open:
Fan Week Firsts Embrace Greater than 216,000 Attendees
The US Open noticed a 37-percent enhance in Fan Week attendance over 2023, with 216,029 followers making the most of the total, eight-day tennis and leisure pageant that includes free grounds admission and a full slate of actions and signature occasions. These included: The brand new US Open Combined Insanity offered by IHG Motels and Resorts and the fan-favorite Stars of the Open offered by Chase signature occasions totaled practically 40,000 attendees mixed. Arthur Ashe Youngsters’ Day noticed a file crowd of 47,875.
Louis Armstrong Stadium made its official debut as a bonafide live performance venue and showcased its versatility, internet hosting ‘Sounds of the Open’ headlined by Dierks Bentley to kick off Fan Week and later the third annual Flavors of the Open offered by DOBEL Tequila meals tasting, which featured choices from as many as 10 superstar cooks. T
he US Open’s Fan Entry Move – the digital useful resource unlocking a mess of Fan week advantages and past – noticed 205,000 registrants this 12 months, a 20-percent enhance from 2023. Greater than 300,000 distinctive gadgets visited the Fan Week Part on USOpen.org, a 30-percent enhance over final 12 months.
Twelve-12 months Cope with ESPN Inked; Expanded World Distribution
The USTA and ESPN introduced in the course of the US Open an extension of their relationship that can hold ESPN the unique rightsholder of the US Open within the Americas via 2037.
Total broadcast highlights from 2024 embody: Over 15,000 hours of US Open protection from all competitors matches had been distributed throughout on 60-plus channels in additional than 200 nations and territories.
Home broadcast highlights from ESPN and its networks’ 2024 protection included over 170 hours on TV, by way of ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC. ABC’s expanded slate included stay protection of the center Sunday of the principle draw, and for the primary time ever, the lads’s championship. Greater than 1,000 hours of protection from all matches and courts streamed stay on the ESPNApp, throughout ESPN+ and ESPN3. Partaking Extra Folks than Ever Earlier than via Digital and Social Channels
The US Open’s official social media channels achieved 2.3 billion complete engagements – surpassing the 2-billion mark for the primary time – in the course of the Open’s three weeks, a 39-percent enhance over 2023. The US Open’s official YouTube channel registered a further 110 million complete views over the occasion’s three weeks. The US Open’s digital platforms, powered by IBM, totaled practically 40 million visits from 12 million distinctive gadgets over the occasion’s three weeks.
Tennis Storm, the Minibox PVP Fortnite recreation created completely for the US Open, noticed seven million gamers play a million matches because the recreation launched on August 12. US Open: Champions of the Court docket on Roblox surpassed six million complete world visits since its debut in 2023.
Historic Champion and American Participant On-Court docket Success
Aryna Sabalenka gained her first US Open and third profession Grand Slam ladies’s singles title. Profitable each the US Open and Australian Open singles titles in 2024, she grew to become the fifth participant within the Open Period to win each ladies’s singles hardcourt Grand Slams titles in the identical season.
Sabalenka is the ninth completely different girl within the final 10 years to win the US Open. Serena Williams, who was welcomed by Ashe Stadium followers with an enormous ovation, is the final girl to efficiently defend the US Open. Serena gained three in a row from 2012-2014 earlier than Roberta Vinci denied her calendar Grand Slam quest in 2015. Flavia Pennetta defeated Vinci within the famed all-Italian 2015 last..
Jannik Sinner gained the lads’s singles title, turning into the primary Italian US Open males’s singles champion and the third man within the Open Period to assert his first two Grand Slam titles in the identical season.
Singles finalists Taylor Fritz and Jessica Pegula carried the requirements established by Individuals. Fritz and Pegula made the 2024 US Open the primary since 2002 to function an American males’s and girls’s singles finalist.
Semifinalists Emma Navarro and Frances Tiafoe additionally made this the primary Grand Slam to function two American males’s and girls’s singles semifinalists because the 2003 US Open.
Lyudmyla Kichenok postponed her wedding ceremony to win the ladies’s doubles title with Jelena Ostapenko, whereas the Aussie tandem of Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson gained their first males’s doubles title collectively.
Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori gained the blended doubles title over American wild-card tandem Taylor Townsend and Donald Younger, who made a dream run to the ultimate in Younger’s last professional tennis occasion earlier than retiring. US Open
Junior championships had been captured by Mika Stojsavljevic (women’ singles), Rafael Jodar (boys’ singles), Emily Sartz-Lunde and Malak El Allami (women’ doubles), Maxim Mrva and Rei Sakamoto (boys’ doubles), American Charlie Cooper (boys’ wheelchair singles), Yuma Takamuro (women’ wheelchair singles), Rio Okano and Takamuro (women’ wheelchair doubles) and Ivar van Rijt and Benjamin Wenzel (boys’ wheelchair doubles).
