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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 document 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 complete three weeks, that features qualifying performed throughout Fan Week, represented an eight-percent enhance over 2023.
The USTA studies attendance for the 2 weeks of the primary draw reached a brand new excessive mark of 832,640, and each Arthur Ashe Stadium (25 periods) and Louis Armstrong Stadium (14 periods) bought out each session. As somebody who sat in each stadiums all through the event, I can report these sell-out stats are correct.
Even early-round matches in Armstrong had been filled with followers. In fact, that is nice information for the USTA’s backside line (keep in mind they misplaced an entire yr of income internet hosting a fan-free 2020 Open through the pandemic) and nice information for American tennis when you think about attendance figures in Indian Wells, Miami, Cincinnati and New York this yr.
Do not cry in your beer (or your Honey Deuce) over the USTA’s fortunes. Subsequent time you attain for the Gray Goose think about, 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 high American occasions stays sturdy.
Nonetheless, when you attended the US Open this yr throughout peak hours, then you already know simply strolling from the fountains to get inside Armstrong was as arduous as making an attempt to squeeze by way of a packed 7 Practice throughout rush hour: an overflow of humanity.
Curiously although attendance soared, TV rankings for each males’s and girls’s finals fell a bit flat regardless that each featured American finalists enjoying maiden main title matches. As a number of readers have identified, DirecTV dropping ESPN through the event is a big motive for diminished viewers as viewers couldn’t watch.
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 ultimate.
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 ultimate {that a} US Open males’s ultimate failed to attract greater than 2 million common TV viewers.
On the ladies’s aspect, 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 right down to defeat Sabalenka within the 2023 ultimate. For comparability, qualifier Emma Raducanu’s victory over Leylah Fernandez within the 2021 US Open ladies’s ultimate elicted a median TV viewers of two.4 million for ESPN.
Listed here are some details 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 profiting from the complete, 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 introduced by IHG Lodges and Resorts and the fan-favorite Stars of the Open introduced by Chase signature occasions totaled practically 40,000 attendees mixed. Arthur Ashe Youngsters’ Day noticed a document 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 introduced by DOBEL Tequila meals tasting, which featured choices from as many as 10 celeb 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 yr, a 20-percent enhance from 2023. Greater than 300,000 distinctive units visited the Fan Week Part on USOpen.org, a 30-percent enhance over final yr.
Twelve-Yr Take care of ESPN Inked; Expanded International Distribution
The USTA and ESPN introduced through the US Open an extension of their relationship that can hold ESPN the unique rightsholder of the US Open within the Americas by way of 2037.
Total broadcast highlights from 2024 embrace: Over 15,000 hours of US Open protection from all competitors matches had been distributed throughout on 60-plus channels in additional than 200 international locations 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 reside protection of the center Sunday of the primary draw, and for the primary time ever, the lads’s championship. Greater than 1,000 hours of protection from all matches and courts streamed reside on the ESPNApp, throughout ESPN+ and ESPN3. Participating Extra Individuals than Ever Earlier than by way of 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 – through 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 units over the occasion’s three weeks.
Tennis Storm, the Minibox PVP Fortnite sport created solely for the US Open, noticed seven million gamers play a million matches because the sport 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. Successful 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 totally 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 ultimate..
Jannik Sinner gained the lads’s singles title, changing into the primary Italian US Open males’s singles champion and the third man within the Open Period to say 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 marriage 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 ultimate 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).
