Sports rights-holders have proven increasingly adept at attracting tastemakers and trendsetters to the viewing gallery. That gravitational pull has proven instrumental in bringing broadcaster money and commercial sponsorship cash to tournaments and competitions, with their increasingly rare access to mass, highly engaged and often affluent audiences taking on an outsized importance for consumer brands.
Operators within international tennis, with its longstanding connections to fashion and luxury, have been among the most savvy — this year’s U.S. Open was as notable for its influencer appearances as for Carlos Alcaraz’s victory.
Over the last decade, Australian Open CEO Craig Tiley has worked hard to take the first tennis grand slam event of the year from another stop on the tennis circuit to a “bucket list event,” by taking control of both media production and the cultural circus that surrounds the sport. The Australian Open is now the best-attended of tennis’s major events and produces other tournaments, such as the Laver Cup. And in support of its ongoing task to tempt more American sports fans to hop over the Pacific and attend in person, the Open’s begun staging wild card games and fan events across the U.S.
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