Tennis needs better social media fast

The sport is losing the attention of younger generations thanks to poor online content

Author

Tim Farthing
September 09, 2024

Social media is often the first interaction a prospective player or fan will have with a sport and has proven to be a hugely effective medium for growing participation in other sports, so why is tennis so bad at it?

There’s a British golfer called Rick Shiels who you’ll never have heard of unless you are a fan of that sport, but what’s he’s done for golfing in terms of engaging with amateur golfers is quite astounding.

For example, he’ll make hilarious and interesting videos where he tries to beat a professional golfer and each video will receive upwards of 5 million views. They are fun but they also resonate with amateur golfers who will undoubtedly be thinking things like “What’s it like to play against a professional?” and “Can I hit a shot as good as a pro?”.

Another example.

My daughter loves gymnastics and tennis. She trains hard at both sports and has weekly coaching and competes in competitions.

I often find her watching videos on social media which are ALWAYS about gymnastics and NEVER about tennis.

She recently showed me a video from social media influencer Xia Capretta who posted a short video about trying gymnastics again for the first time since she was a child. The video has received 4.9m views and growing and I can 100% see why my daughter enjoyed watching it.

Then I switch on the TV and try and encourage her to watch a tennis match and even I had to admit that it’s boring for a 9 year old.

The nearest I could find in tennis to the successful social media influencers from other sports is the ‘Tennis Brothers’. They’ve been doing a great job at recording their journey to try and make it as professional tennis players. Their most popular video has received 836k views.

So where is tennis going wrong?

It seems like the tennis authorities think that simply showing professional’s hitting winners and collecting trophies is enough to engage and enthuse the next generation of club tennis players. Well they are 100% wrong.

Younger generations need to feel engaged with a sport on platforms where they spend their online lives, such as Instagram and TikTok. Engagement means creating content which those generations will want to watch again and again and then embed into their own lives. New players can’t relate to watching Zverev boom down a serve at 130mph then pick up a cheque for $1m because it’s so far from the reality of their own lives.

Why is there so much golf and gymnastics social media content and so little tennis content? 

It’s because those sports and the people that enjoy them have been far more proactive about creating engaging content online, which encourages more fans to create more content, hence it snowballs.

Until tennis realises this and the organisations involved in tennis start opening up to the benefits of vast amounts of varied online content then tennis will never grow like other sports.

Influential figures like Patrick Mouratoglou are doing a great job in trying to change the tennis landscape with his introduction of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown but tennis needs more of this and it needs to get the Slams/ATP/WTA on board for the journey rather than leaving it to others.