By Richard Pagliaro | @TennisNow | Thursday, September 12, 2024
Photo: US Open/USTA
Tennis proved to be a dynamic source of energy in New York.
The 2024 US Open established a mission statement to “Celebrate the Power of Tennis” and delivered a record-breaking event that the USTA hopes will inspire lapsed recreational players to return to the sport in the coming months.
The Flushing Meadows major is the first US Open to eclipse the 1 million fan mark, drawing a record 1,048,669 fans throughout the three-week event.
Every single session at Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium was sold out.
The 1,048,669 fans who came to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center over the entire three weeks, which includes qualifiers played during Fan Week, represented an eight percent increase over 2023.
The USTA reports that attendance for the two weeks of the main draw reached a new high of 832,640, and Arthur Ashe Stadium (25 sessions) and Louis Armstrong Stadium (14 sessions) sold out every session. As someone who sat in both stadiums throughout the tour, I can report that those sellout stats are accurate.
Even the early round games at Armstrong were packed with fans. Of course, this is great news for the USTA’s bottom line (remember they lost a full year of revenue by hosting a fanless 2020 Open during the pandemic) and great news for US tennis when you consider the numbers participation in Indian Wells, Miami, Cincinnati and New York this year.
Don’t cry in your beer (or Honey Deuce) over the fortunes of the USTA. Next time you get to consider the Gray Goose, the 2024 US Open served 556,782 Honey Deuces, the US Open’s signature cocktail, at $23 a pop. I’m not a math major or a bar tender, but that’s about $12.8 million in Honey Deuce sales alone.
Although pickleball may be taking off from tennis on public courts across the country (at least in some near me), attendance at major American events remains strong.
However, if you attended the US Open this year during rush hour, then you know that simply walking from the fountains to get inside Armstrong was about as arduous as trying to squeeze onto a 7-pack train during rush hour: a flood of humanity.
Interestingly, although attendance was up, television ratings for the men’s and women’s finals fell slightly flat even though both featured the American finalists playing their first title matches.
World number 1 Jannik Sinner’s win over Taylor Fritz on ABC drew about 1.7 million viewers, of the 2.3 million that helped Novak Djokovic beat Daniil Medvedev in the 2023 final.
It is also the first time since Dominic Thiem rallied from two sets down to defeat Alexander Zverev in the pandemic-era 2020 US Open final that a US Open men’s final failed to attract more than 2 million average TV viewers.
On the women’s side, Aryna Sabalenka’s 7-5, 7-5 win over Buffalo-born Jessica Pegula drew about 1.8 million viewers, a dramatic drop from the 3.4 million who tuned in to watch Coco Gauff’s rally from a set down to defeat Sabalenka. in the 2023 final. By comparison, qualifier Emma Raducanu’s win over Leylah Fernandez in the 2021 US Open women’s final drew an average television audience of 2.4 million for ESPN.
Here are some facts and figures from today’s USTA press release on the 2024 US Open:
The first weeks of fans include more than 216,000 participants
The US Open saw a 37 percent increase in Fan Week attendance during 2023, with 216,029 fans taking advantage of the full eight-day festival of tennis and entertainment, with free on-court admission and a full slate of signature activities and events . They include: The new US Open Mixed Madness presented by IHG Hotels and Resorts and the fan-favorite Stars Open presented by Chase Signature Events combined to reach nearly 40,000 participants. Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day saw a record crowd of 47,875.
Louis Armstrong Stadium made its official debut as a full-fledged concert venue and showcased its versatility, hosting “Sounds of the Open” headlined by Dierks Bentley to kick off Fan Week and later the third annual Flavors of the Open presented by DOBEL Tequila tasting food, which presented offers from more than 10 famous chefs. T
that of the US Open’s Fan Access Pass — the digital resource that unlocks a host of Fan Week benefits and beyond — saw 205,000 registrants this year, a 20 percent increase from 2023. More than 300,000 unique devices visited the Week Section of Fans on USOpen.org, a 30 percent increase over last year.
12-year deal with ESPN Inked; Expanded global distribution
The USTA and ESPN announced during the US Open an extension of their relationship that will keep ESPN the exclusive host of the US Open in America until 2037.
Overall broadcast highlights from 2024 include: Over 15,000 hours of US Open coverage from all tournament matches delivered to over 60 channels in more than 200 countries and territories.
ESPN’s in-house broadcast highlights and its networks’ coverage for 2024 included over 170 hours on TV, via ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. ABC’s expanded slate included live coverage of the main draw and, for the first time ever, the men’s championship. More than 1,000 hours of coverage from all games and fields broadcast live on the ESPNApp, across ESPN+ and ESPN3. Engage more people than ever before through digital and social channels
The official US Open social media channels achieved 2.3 billion total engagements – surpassing the 2 billion mark for the first time – during the three weeks of the Open, a 39 percent increase over 2023. The official US Open YouTube channel recorded a total of 110 an additional million views during the three weeks of the event. The US Open’s digital platforms, powered by IBM, reached approximately 40 million visits from 12 million unique devices during the three weeks of the event.
Tennis Storm, the Minibox PVP Fortnite game created exclusively for the US Open, saw seven million players play one million matches since the game launched on August 12. US Open: Champions of the Court on Roblox surpassed six million total worldwide visits since its debut in 2023.
All-time champion and success of the American player on the field
Aryna Sabalenka won her first US Open title and third career Grand Slam women’s singles title. By winning both the US Open and Australian Open singles titles in 2024, she became the fifth player in the Open Era to win both Grand Slam women’s singles titles in the same season.
Sabalenka is the ninth different woman in the last 10 years to win the US Open. Serena Williams, who was greeted by fans at Ashe Stadium with a massive ovation, is the last woman to successfully defend the US Open. Serena won three in a row from 2012-2014 before Roberta Vinci was denied her calendar Grand Slam quest in 2015. Flavia Pennetta defeated Vinci in the famous 2015 Italian final.
Jannik the Sinner won the men’s title, becoming the first Italian US Open men’s champion and the third man in the Open Era to win his first two Grand Slam titles in the same season.
Singles finalists Taylor Fritz and Jessica Pegula upheld the standards set by the Americans. Fritz and Pegula made the 2024 US Open the first since 2002 to feature an American men’s and women’s singles finalist.
Semi-finalists Emma Navarro and Frances Tiafoe also made it the first Grand Slam with two American men’s and women’s singles semifinalists since the 2003 US Open.
Lyudmyla Kichenok postponed her wedding to win the women’s doubles title Jelena Ostapenkowhile the Aussie tandem of Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson won their first men’s doubles title together.
Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori won the mixed doubles title against the American wild-card tandem Taylor Townsend and Donald Young, who made a dream run to the final in Young’s final pro tennis event before retiring. US Open
The junior championships were captured by Mika Stojsavljevic (girls’ singles), Rafael Jodar (boys’ singles), Emily Sartz-Lunde and Malak El Allami (girls’ doubles), Maxim Mrva and Rei Sakamoto (boys’ doubles), American Charlie Cooper (boys wheelchair singles), Yuma Takamuro (girls wheelchair doubles), Rio Okano and Takamuro (girls wheelchair doubles) and Ivar van Rijt and Benjamin Wenzel (wheelchair doubles for boys).
