Tennis Has Never Been Hotter — So Why Is It Becoming Harder to Watch?

Arthur Ashe once said: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

It feels particularly relevant as another US Open gets underway in New York. Fan Week opened with extraordinary demand, to the extent that the US Open’s own RSVP allocation for Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day had already closed before the weekend began.

On one level, that should be celebrated. Tennis organisations around the world have spent years discussing how to broaden the sport’s audience, attract new participants and make major events feel relevant to people beyond the traditional tennis community.

The crowds arriving at Flushing Meadows suggest that much of that work is succeeding. But there is another side to the story. Fan Week is free. The tournament that follows most certainly is not.

For many families, particularly those discovering tennis for the first time, Fan Week is therefore not simply an enjoyable warm-up before the main tournament. It may represent their only realistic opportunity to experience the US Open. And that matters because the people increasingly interested in tennis are changing.

Tennis has found millions of new customers

US tennis participation has increased dramatically since 2019, rising from 17.7 million players to 27.3 million — growth of approximately 54% and almost 10 million additional players in six years.

Importantly, this growth is not simply being generated by tennis's traditional audience. Around 70% of those new players have come from Latino, Black and Asian communities, with participation growth among those groups significantly outpacing the wider market.

The USTA clearly believes there is considerably more potential ahead. Its stated ambition is to reach 35 million American players by 2035, equivalent to approximately 10% of the US population.

Globally, the picture is similarly encouraging. The ITF's latest participation figures put the worldwide tennis-playing population at approximately 106 million, representing growth of more than 25% in five years.

For anyone working commercially in racket sports, these numbers should command attention. Tennis is not simply attracting more players. It is expanding its addressable market. And the evidence can increasingly be seen in the stands.

Record crowds are becoming the norm

This is not really a tennis comeback story because, arguably, tennis never disappeared. Instead, the more interesting story is that major tournaments are repeatedly breaking attendance records.

The 2026 Australian Open attracted 1,368,043 spectators across its three weeks, setting another record after record-breaking editions in both 2024 and 2025.

Indian Wells welcomed 527,626 spectators, its third consecutive record year, while Miami attracted more than 420,000, compared with approximately 405,000 the previous year.

Roland Garros recorded attendance of 727,500, approximately 6% higher than a 2025 figure that was itself a record.

Perhaps even more interesting from a business perspective was what happened during qualifying.

Around 138,000 people attended Roland Garros Opening Week, an increase of approximately 35%, helped by lower ticket prices and expanded free seating.

Rather than maximising the revenue available from each individual spectator, organisers effectively lowered barriers to entry — and generated significantly greater demand.

Wimbledon subsequently welcomed 550,151 spectators, another record, while Toronto and Montreal attracted a combined 525,364 fans.

In Toronto, tickets for Filipino star Alex Eala's opening match reportedly sold out within 30 minutes of her appearance being announced. Tournament officials pointed towards demand from communities that would not necessarily have traditionally considered themselves core tennis followers.

Montreal also broke its attendance record despite rain disruption and the absence of several leading players.

Cincinnati then passed 300,000 spectators for the first time, welcoming 300,288 fans and recording its third consecutive attendance record.

Across eight major tournaments in 2026, the pattern has been remarkably consistent: eight tournaments, eight attendance records. The market is not simply filling existing events either. New professional tournaments are appearing because promoters increasingly believe there is sufficient consumer demand to support them.

Tennis, in other words, has an enviable business problem. There are more people who want to participate in the product.

The problem is getting through the gate

That makes the economics surrounding US Open tickets particularly interesting.

The USTA's face value for a grounds pass ranges from approximately $65 to $135 depending on the day. At the lower end, that is broadly comparable with grounds access at Wimbledon and Roland Garros. Face value, however, only tells part of the story.

Verified resale tickets through the tournament's marketplace have been appearing at substantially higher prices, with grounds passes reportedly reaching between $235 and $450. A $65 opening-day grounds pass has, for example, appeared on resale at around $363 — almost six times its original price.

There are several reasons. Full-series ticket holders can resell individual sessions at market prices, while professional resellers and automated purchasing systems inevitably compete for tickets when general sales open.

Whatever the mechanics, the commercial outcome is the same. Those able to pay significantly more — or able to access inventory fastest — have an advantage. That creates a potentially uncomfortable contradiction for an organisation whose wider objective is to grow participation.

The communities helping to drive tennis's recent expansion are precisely those the sport needs to convert from casual participants into long-term players, fans, customers and advocates.

Yet its biggest event can be extremely difficult for many of those people to access. Other Grand Slams have taken different approaches.

Wimbledon restricts resale of grounds passes. Roland Garros controls resale through its official system at face value, while the Australian Open places restrictions on resale mark-ups. There are therefore different models available for managing exactly the same problem. The debate is not whether demand exists. It is how tennis chooses to manage that demand.

The commercial opportunity extends far beyond ticket sales

Ticket prices are also only one part of the US Open economy.

The Honey Deuce cocktail has become a fascinating case study in sports event merchandising and sponsorship, reportedly generating around $17 million in concession sales in 2025 alone. That success demonstrates what modern sports properties increasingly understand: the value of an attendee extends far beyond the entrance ticket.

Food, drink, merchandise, hospitality, sponsorship exposure, digital engagement and future ticket purchases all contribute towards lifetime customer value. This is why accessibility deserves to be viewed as a commercial question rather than simply a social one.

Getting somebody through the gates for the first time can create a relationship lasting decades. Pricing them out can end that relationship before it has started.

Even Fan Week, historically the US Open's most accessible entry point, has evolved. A Fan Access Pass is now required to enter the grounds, while some of the week's highest-profile exhibition entertainment has moved towards paid ticketing.

None of these decisions is commercially irrational in isolation. When demand dramatically exceeds supply, raising prices or monetising previously free inventory is an understandable business response. The more important question is whether maximising short-term yield risks undermining a much larger long-term opportunity.

Is tennis approaching its basketball moment?

There is an interesting comparison with basketball.

In 1984, around the beginning of David Stern's transformative period as NBA commissioner, the league generated approximately $165 million in annual revenue. By 1999, that figure had grown to around $1.75 billion. Basketball itself had not suddenly become a fundamentally different sport. What changed was everything surrounding it.

Basketball became intertwined with music, sneakers, streetwear, entertainment and popular culture. Consumers no longer needed to play basketball — or even regularly attend games — to feel part of basketball culture. That dramatically expanded the industry's addressable market.

Brands including Nike recognised that opportunity early, while designers and musicians helped turn basketball clothing and footwear into cultural products that existed far beyond the court. The important commercial shift was from selling a sport to building a culture around a sport.

Tennis increasingly appears to be experiencing something similar.

Fashion brands are embracing tennis aesthetics. Players are becoming mainstream personalities. Celebrity attendance at tournaments has become content in its own right. Tennis-inspired clothing is appearing far beyond tennis clubs, while major events increasingly resemble entertainment festivals rather than simply sporting competitions.

For businesses operating across tennis — from tournaments and governing bodies to equipment manufacturers, clubs, technology businesses and retailers — this could represent an enormously important transition.

The potential customer base is no longer limited to people who identify themselves as serious tennis players. It includes anyone who wants to participate in the culture developing around the game.

Growth creates another challenge

There is, however, a warning in the basketball comparison.

Basketball's cultural expansion eventually produced enormous demand and enormous pricing power. Tickets to the biggest NBA games now routinely cost thousands of dollars, particularly on the secondary market.

The audience helped build the culture and, eventually, parts of that audience found themselves priced out of experiencing it in person. Tennis may be approaching an earlier version of the same crossroads.

The sport has spent years attempting to move beyond its reputation as an expensive pastime primarily associated with private clubs and affluent communities. Participation figures suggest significant progress has been made. The challenge now is ensuring the commercialisation of that growth does not recreate the barriers the industry has worked so hard to dismantle.

That does not mean major tournaments should artificially suppress every price or ignore basic supply-and-demand economics. Major events are businesses and need to generate revenue.

But there is a difference between premium pricing and uncontrolled scarcity, particularly when secondary-market pricing rather than the event organiser itself captures much of the additional consumer spend.

From a business perspective, that should prompt a broader discussion around how tennis values access.

Tennis has already won the hardest battle

For decades, tennis organisations have asked essentially the same question: how can the sport attract more people?

Right now, the market appears to be providing the answer. Participation is growing. Tournament attendance is breaking records. New demographics are entering the sport. Brands outside tennis are paying attention. New professional events are being launched and tennis is becoming increasingly visible within mainstream culture.

The industry's challenge may therefore be changing. It is no longer simply about creating demand. It is about deciding what to do with it.

The USTA wants 35 million Americans playing tennis by 2035, and reaching anything close to that figure would create significant opportunities across the entire tennis economy — from court operators and coaches to equipment companies, retailers, technology providers, tournaments and sponsors.

Those millions of additional players should not simply be viewed as participation statistics. They are the sport's next generation of customers.

The US Open is tennis's biggest shop window in the world's largest sports market, which makes the question of who can access it more than a ticketing debate. It is a question about what kind of industry tennis wants to become.

Tennis appears to be standing close to the point basketball reached several decades ago: moving from being simply a popular sport towards becoming a significantly larger cultural and commercial ecosystem.

The demand is already there.The golden ticket for the tennis industry may be making sure enough people can still get through the gate.