[danton]

Here in the UK we definitely have the problem that the tennis tournaments are heavily oversubscribed and getting a seat at all, let alone a decent one on a showcourt, can require military planning or long queuing. Even the smaller tournaments like ATP Nottingham or WTA Eastbourne do not have problems getting bums on seats.

Exactly but the media will still tell you Tennis is a minority sport:cuckoo: and that's why you get bugger all on TV unless you pay for Sky for the TMS tournaments. BBC sports editor said exactly that ' it's a minority sport'.

Even in the tiny courts in Ukraine where we played our last davis cup there were plenty of Brits supporting. It's not just about Wimbledon I think we are quite a big tennis nation even if we do it sitting on our backsides.

Didn't get Wimbly or Stella tickets this year - as Scoobs said - if I go this year it is going to take a lot of planning, patience and perseverance.

Given how difficult it is to get into Brit tournaments it's kinda shoking to see often how empty courts are at the US open.

 

[Lee]

How are the attendance numbers for Montreal so far? On TV it looks terrible, empty seats all over the place during the day and night sessions.

Are we watching different matches?

From what I saw so far, the upper decks were pretty crowded and the lower decks gradually filled up at later time.

 

[Volcanic Tennis]

It's always the most attended one-week tournament of the year.
And I can confirm there are tons of people

 

[RickDaStick]

How are the attendance numbers for Montreal so far? On TV it looks terrible, empty seats all over the place during the day and night sessions.

:haha: :haha: If you have been watching on ESPN which i am sure you then you would of heard the numerous times they mentioned how attendence is great and they are setting all kinds of records. Of course next week in Cincy it will look the same on TV but you will be telling us how great the attedance is

 

[tangytennis]

^^ Actually, I thought the seats looked empty at Cincy too but like Lee said, the stadiums would fill up as the match went along. People have to take their food/bathroom/cigarette breaks I guess.

On that note, the 2007 Cincy attendance numbers are in:

NOTEWORTHY - The final three sessions of the W&S set tournament attendance records. For the finals, 10,848 paid to watch Federer battle Blake, while 10,666 saw the Saturday day session and 10,796 viewed the Saturday night session.

Overall, the paid attendance was 165,422, slightly ahead of last year's 163,872.

 

[tangytennis]

For those who are interested to know.

U.S. Open tennis tournament sets attendance, Web traffic records

September 19, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- Attendance at the U.S. Open rose 12 percent to a record 715,587 this year, up from 640,000 last year, and the tennis tournament's official Web site drew more than 30 million visits for the first time.

The event's previous high total attendance was 659,538 in 2005.

The U.S. Tennis Association also announced Wednesday that the number of player-challenged line calls increased 40 percent, from 229 in 2006, to 320 this year. Players were right 31 percent of the time -- the same rate as last year, when the replay system made its debut.

U.S. OPEN TV RATINGS

The 4.2/8 for CBS' coverage of the U.S. Open men's finals, which saw Roger Federer defeat Novak Djokovic for his fourth straight title, is down 17.6% from last year's Federer-Andy Roddick final match, which earned a 5.1/10 overnight.

On Saturday night, the 2.6/5 for Justine Henin's victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova in the women's finals, is down 18.8% from a 3.2/6 for the Henin-Maria Sharapova final from '06.

Earlier on Saturday, CBS earned a 1.8/5 overnight rating for the Djokovic-Ferrer semifinal, down 5.3% from the time slot in '06, and a 2.1/5 for the Federer-Davydenko semifinal, a re-match of the '06 finals, down 19.2% from the time slot last year.

On Friday, the Henin-Venus Williams semifinal from 4:00-6:15pm earned a 2.4/6 overnight on CBS, up 20%, while the Kuznetsova-Chakvetadze semifnal earned a 1.6/5, down 11.1%.

Earlier on Friday, the men's doubles finals earned a 1.8/6 overnight rating on CBS from 12:30-2:00pm, up 38.5% from a 1.3/5 last year.

 

[NYCtennisfan]

Huge crowds at the Open, great weather throughout...it was a lot of fun. This is the 2nd time in the last 3 years that we basically went an entire USO without any rain. In 2005, they had a 30 minute delay during one night session (Nadal and Jenkins were playing) and the rest of the days were perfect.

 

[Neely]

Huge crowds at the Open, great weather throughout...it was a lot of fun. This is the 2nd time in the last 3 years that we basically went an entire USO without any rain. In 2005, they had a 30 minute delay during one night session (Nadal and Jenkins were playing) and the rest of the days were perfect.

booooo... we didn't have enough complaining about how slow and with what antiquated means they are drying the courts I think I remember something like that from the past when one started to complain about like: "In the land of technology they are drying the courts with towels and don't even have covers" and then soon there was a chorus "US Open sucks" ... "worst Slam ever", "Americans don't care about tennis" and all like this. This spiral was funny :lol:

 

[tangytennis]

AO reports/attendance/ratings are in and it's good. :yippee:

Australian Open ratings not down under
January 25, 2008

ESPN reports a 12 percent ratings increase over last year for its Australian Open coverage, and those should get a boon tonight when Maria Sharapova takes on Ana Ivanovic in the prime-time women’s final (9:30 p.m. EST) on ESPN2. The average rating for its programs beginning between 7 and 11 p.m. (it has fluxuated) is 0.56, which doesn’t sound a lot but is reasonable for tennis’ first major of the year.

Neither finalist is American, but both trained here and are popular subjects for magazine shoots. According to the Australian magazine “Melbourne Age,” Ivanovic “was recently voted, on some tennis site or other, as the sexiest woman in tennis, beating Sharapova.”

ESPN2’s 3:30 a.m. sessions (which is prime time in Melbourne) have increased 107 percent, thanks to two matches that extended well into late morning U.S. time. The Lleyton Hewitt-Marcos Baghdatis match began just before 8 a.m. Saturday U.S. time and ended about 12:40 p.m. That match got a 0.61 rating, including 1.18 for the final hour.

-------------------------------------------

From Bob Larson's Tennis News:

Australian Open 2008 - A Tournament Summary

Australian Open 2008 has set crowd records with the current number of fans through the gates during the tournament standing at 584,476 (at the end of Day 13), already surpassing last year’s previous record for overall attendance of 554,858. It is the ninth consecutive year that the tournament has attracted more than half a million patrons.

Day four of the tournament saw another record set with the highest ever Grand Slam day/night combined attendance, with 62,885 fans through the gates. This broke the record of 61,083 which was achieved by the US Open on Saturday 1 September 2007.

A star-studded men’s and women’s singles draw included eight men’s Grand Slam champions and seven women’s Grand Slam champions and all of the top 32 women and 30 of the top 32 men . A total of 45 nations were represented in the singles main draws (32 countries in the men’s singles and 37 countries in the women’s singles).

Those who couldn’t get along in person made sure they kept in touch through the official website www.australianopen.com powered by IBM. At the close of play on Day 13, 6.6 million different people had already visited the official Australian Open website, up nearly 50% on last year’s figures for the same time. To date they have made over 30 million visits to the web site, with 30 percent of those visits from Europe, 22 percent from the USA, 16 percent from Australia and 14 percent from Asia. Overall www.australianopen.com has delivered more than 200 million page views , an increase of 55 percent on the same figure for 2007.

Click here to read more.http://www.tennisnews.com/exclusive.php?pID=23518

 

[Action Jackson]

Yes, they broke attendance records, yet matches at the Vodafone area were half filled for the majority of time.

 

[tangytennis]

USTA press release:

2008 US OPEN BIGGEST IN 40 YEAR HISTORY
BREAKING ALL-TIME RECORDS

FLUSHING, N.Y.
September 9, 2008

-- The USTA today announced that the 2008 US Open was the biggest and most successful US Open in its 40-year history as revenue, attendance, website traffic, and concession sales hit all-time highs and American players excelled during the competition.

Attendance:
-A new all-time attendance record of more than 720,000 fans topped last year’s record
-Arthur Ashe Stadium was sold to a record 99% of capacity for the first time, with 23 of 26 sessions sold out
-Attendance has climbed by 180,000 vs. 10 years ago, and by 100,00 vs. 5 years ago
-The US Open remains the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world

Website:
-Total visits to USOpen.org, the official website of the US Open, topped 39 million visits for the first time, an increase of 33% vs. last year
-Unique visitors, from more than 200 countries, topped 9 million for the first time, an increase of 26% over last year’s record total
-Total page views exceeded 222 million for the first time

Television:
-The women’s final rating was up 57% vs. last year, and was the highest since 2002
-CBS’s ratings for the men’s semifinals was up 16% vs. last year

Competitive Americans:
-Americans captured four of the titles at the 2008 US Open: Women’s Singles (Serena Williams), Men’s Doubles (Bob and Mike Bryan), Women’s Doubles (Liezel Huber) and Girls’ Singles (CoCo Vandeweghe)
-Americans were runners-up in Women’s Doubles (Lisa Raymond) and Boys’ Singles (Devin Britton)
-Seven American juniors reached the quarterfinals for the first time in 20 years
Player Challenges:
-Now in its third year after its Grand Slam debut at the 2006 US Open, player challenges increased by 50% this year (an extra challenge per set was added for the 2008 US Open)
-A total of 477 calls were challenged with 155 (33%) of the calls being overturned

Celebrity Attendance:
-The USTA experienced its highest demand for celebrity ticket requests as the elite of sports, business, entertainment and music world descended on the 2008 US Open

-Entertainers attending the US Open included Will Ferrell, Anne Hathaway, Cameron Diaz, Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, John Hurt, Luke Wilson, Alec Baldwin, Steve Guttenberg, Chazz Palminteri, Rosie Perez, Sally Field, Kim Cattrall, Michael J. Fox, Kelsey Grammar, Glenn Close, John Turturro, David Blaine, Forest Whitaker, Greg Kinnear, John Lithgow and the cast of Entourage, and more

-Fashion world attendees included Oscar de la Renta, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Anna Wintour, Christie Brinkley, Martha Stewart, Brooklyn Decker and Naomi Campbell

-Athletes attending the event included Eli Manning, Greg Norman, Sergio Garcia, Nick Faldo, Paul Azinger, Annika Sorenstam, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Rick DiPietro, Curtis Martin, Don King, Johan Santana, Omar Minaya, Reggie Jackson, Pudge Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Jeff Gordon, and Olympians Aaron Piersol, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak

-Business and television personalities included Sir Richard Branson, Ted Forstmann, Jann Wenner, Donald Trump, Regis Philbin, Howie Mandel, Charlie Gibson, Matt Lauer, Bob Schieffer and Tom Brokaw

-Musicians included Rob Thomas, Tony Bennett, Paul Simon, Vanessa Carlton, Constantine Maroulis, Neil Sedaka, Paula Abdul, Boyd Tinsley, Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker and Harry Connick, Jr.

"This year’s record-setting US Open was the ultimate convergence of sports, celebrity, business and entertainment," said Arlen Kantarian, CEO Pro Tennis, USTA. "We are extremely appreciative of our fans coming out in record numbers -- more than 720,000 strong -- particularly in the midst of a challenging economy."

--------------------

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080903.TEBBUTT03/TPStory/TPSports/Television/
U.S. Open should give it a rest
Scheduling semi-finals and finals without day off in between exposes sport's top players to risk, fans to diminished performances


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090901841.html
US Open Schedule Is a Double Fault
The biggest surprise of the just-ended U.S. Open was not that Roger Federer won his 13th major title or that Serena Williams won her ninth. It was that the men's final didn't start at 11:30 at night.

 

[nobama]

I'm guessing those headlines at the bottom of your post were not part of the USTA's press release.

 

[Action Jackson]

Bump for the newbies.

Tennis is nearly always better live, especially in the first days of a Slam where you can see matches on the outside courts that don't have cameras.

Positive and negative experiences of any tournament is worth reading and why they were that way.

 

[.-Federers_Mate-.]

if anyone wants i can do some reports with proper english and grammar.. on the heineken open as i will be there all week..i can also put in lots of pics

 

[Action Jackson]

if anyone wants i can do some reports with proper english and grammar.. on the heineken open as i will be there all week..i can also put in lots of pics

King Oscar Hernandez and Dani Gimeno-Traver pics would be appreciated. Good event the Auckland one.

 

[mandeep]

Bump for the newbies.

Tennis is nearly always better live, especially in the first days of a Slam where you can see matches on the outside courts that don't have cameras.

Positive and negative experiences of any tournament is worth reading and why they were that way.

I am planning on going to the US Open next year, Are there any threads with comments from people who have attended the tournament in the past?

 

[.-Federers_Mate-.]

King Oscar Hernandez and Dani Gimeno-Traver pics would be appreciated. Good event the Auckland one.

Don't they have to qualify didnt know hernandez was coming...hopefully they put him on centre court instead of boredo and ferrer

 

[Action Jackson]

Don't they have to qualify didnt know hernandez was coming...hopefully they put him on centre court instead of boredo and ferrer

They will be there. King played your mate this year G.D Jones in qualies. It's all a bit of match practice and perhaps a few parties.

 

[Springer89]

BARCLAYS ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS

Barclays ATP World Tour Finals Sets Visitation Records Onsite & Online
London, England
by ATP Staff
09.12.2009

THE O2 - LONDON, ENGLAND, 9 December 2009 – The ATP today announced that the week of the 2009 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals (22 – 29 November) saw record attendance and shattered previous-year visitation to ATPWorldTour.com, BarclaysATPWorldTourFinals.com, and ATP Official Live Scoring.

Following a record Opening Day crowd of nearly 35,000 (afternoon and evening sessions combined), the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals concluded the week-long season finale event with attendance reaching 256,830 – making it the highest attended indoor tennis tournament ever.

The audience also swarmed online to watch live streaming, video on demand and live scores with 8 million total weekly visits to ATP official web sites, 75 percent above previous-year record figures, consuming more than 175,000 hours of video content with average visit duration exceeding an hour.

ONSITE
• The tournament set the all-time indoor tennis attendance record of 256,830
• The tournament began with a record opening day attendance of 34,937
• 11 of 15 sessions sold out – the first time the season-ending event has ever had multiple daily crowds of equal to 35,000 in a given year.

ONLINE
• ATPWorldTour.com, BarclaysATPWorldTourFinals.com, and ATP Official Live Scoring online had a record 8 million total visits, a 75 percent increase from last year’s record numbers, and 3.5 million unique users during the week, an 85 percent increase from 2008.
• Video-on-demand streaming recorded more than 1 million total streams and 25,000 total hours of consumption, an increase from last year of 365 percent and 170 percent respectively.
• Live streaming on TennisTV.com grew 425 percent from last year to 360,000 total streams with total play time of approximately 150,000 hours.
• Visits to ATP Official Live Scoring grew 50 percent from last year to more than 1.6 million with average visit duration exceeding an hour (65 minutes).

ON TV
• Globally, the tournament was televised by more than 50 Broadcasters in 180 countries.
• In the UK, more than 60 hours of coverage was featured live on Sky Sports and 13 hours on terrestrial television on BBC.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2009/12/Finals-Visitation-Records-Onsite-And-Online.aspx

 

[.-Federers_Mate-.]

They will be there. King played your mate this year G.D Jones in qualies. It's all a bit of match practice and perhaps a few parties.

i think they are only letting one kiwi into the Heineken open this year..as they will all fight it out to get a WC. G.D won't make it in..Dan-King Turner or Rubin Statham will.