By Richard Pagliaro | @TennisNow | Thursday, September 12, 2024
Photo credit: US Open/USTA
Tennis proved to be a dynamic power source in New York.
The 2024 US Open set a mission statement to “Celebrate the Power of Tennis” and realized a record-setting event that the USTA hopes will charge lapsed recreational players to returning 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 over the entire three-week event.
Every single session in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong stadium sold out.
The 1,048,669 fans who came to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center throughout the full three weeks, that includes qualifying played during Fan Week, represented an eight-percent increase over 2023.
The USTA reports attendance for the two weeks of the main draw reached a new high mark of 832,640, and both Arthur Ashe Stadium (25 sessions) and Louis Armstrong Stadium (14 sessions) sold out every session. As someone who sat in both stadiums throughout the tournament, I can report those sell-out stats are accurate.
Even early-round matches in Armstrong were packed with fans. Of course, that’s great news for the USTA’s bottom line (remember they lost a complete year of revenue hosting a fan-free 2020 Open during the pandemic) and great news for American tennis when you consider attendance figures in Indian Wells, Miami, Cincinnati and New York this year.
Don’t cry in your beer (or your Honey Deuce) over the USTA’s fortunes. Next time you reach for the Grey Goose consider, the 2024 US Open served up 556,782 Honey Deuces, the signature cocktail of the US Open, 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.
Though pickleball may be kicking tennis’ posterior on public courts throughout the nation (at least on some near me), attendance at top American events remains strong.
Still, if you attended the US Open this year during peak hours, then you know just walking from the fountains to get inside Armstrong was as arduous as trying to squeeze through a packed 7 Train during rush hour: an overflow of humanity.
Interestingly though attendance soared, TV ratings for both men’s and women’s finals fell a bit flat even though both featured American finalists playing maiden major title matches.
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