U.S. Open Report Card: A
By Liza Horan
New York—The U.S. Open as a sports-meets-entertainment vehicle enjoyed fantastic success this year. Enough to earn an A+, except for one thing:
- Attendance: The tally of 715,587 people handily breaks the previous record of 659,538, set in 2005. This event remains the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world.
- TV Hours: USA Network's coverage of the U.S. Open has grown steadily over its 24 years of broadcasting the event—from 25.5 hours in 1984 to 107 hours in 2007. CBS marked its 40th anniversary of covering the U.S. Open with about 40 hours of coverage. The total number of viewers is estimated at 95 million.
- Web Traffic: USOpen.org drew 11 percent more activity than last year's figure of 166 million page views over 14 days. That's more than 30 million visits to the website.
A slew of new features—including the ability to track favorite players, an interactive draw sheet, and original video programming—contributed to the boost in traffic. And each of those features carrying a sponsor contributed to the website being "a very robust business," according to Jeffrey Volk, director of USTA Advanced Media. "Online is becoming more and more important to our partners as a way of reaching tennis fans from all touchpoints," he says. "USOpen.org is a profitable enterprise."
While the tournament runs two weeks, Volk says managing the website is a 12-month operation and is one among 375 websites in the USTA network. IBM is responsible for hosting, production and development of the site and Volk's team works alongside that of IBM's Kristina Kloberdanz in a newsroom-style set-up deep inside Louis Armstrong Stadium. IBM has been the U.S. Open technology partner for 16 years, and Volk calls it a "full partnership" that uses IBM's technology to further how tennis is experienced. "We sit down and innovate with IBM and the other Slams. We're all trying to promote tennis."
- Newsflash: The staggering $20 million purse is news alone, but Roger Federer's record payday of $2.4 million on Sept. 9 for his singles championship and U.S. Series performance is worthy of its own headline. It's the highest payout in tennis history and surely ranks among the top across any industry. That kind of news makes the news outside of tennis.
- Economic Impact: The U.S. Open brings $425 million to the New York City economy, according to Arlen Kantarian, Chief Executive of USTA Professional Tennis.
New York—The U.S. Open as a sports-meets-entertainment vehicle enjoyed fantastic success this year. Enough to earn an A+, except for one thing:
It also set a record as probably the only U.S. pro sporting event to close the locker room to reporters. (Tournament management opened the player lounge between certain hours to accommodate the loss of access to players in the locker room.) For that, the grade drops slightly. Some say it's another step to insulate players from the press and to put them on a pedestal, while others say something along the lines of what one writer for a major newspaper said: "I prefer talking to my news sources when they have their clothes on."
Nevertheless, the public consumed had record-breaking access to tennis on a variety of platforms.
Here's a quick report:
- Attendance: The tally of 715,587 people handily breaks the previous record of 659,538, set in 2005. This event remains the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world.
- TV Hours: USA Network's coverage of the U.S. Open has grown steadily over its 24 years of broadcasting the event—from 25.5 hours in 1984 to 107 hours in 2007. CBS marked its 40th anniversary of covering the U.S. Open with about 40 hours of coverage. The total number of viewers is estimated at 95 million.
- Web Traffic: USOpen.org drew 11 percent more activity than last year's figure of 166 million page views over 14 days. That's more than 30 million visits to the website.
A slew of new features—including the ability to track favorite players, an interactive draw sheet, and original video programming—contributed to the boost in traffic. And each of those features carrying a sponsor contributed to the website being "a very robust business," according to Jeffrey Volk, director of USTA Advanced Media. "Online is becoming more and more important to our partners as a way of reaching tennis fans from all touchpoints," he says. "USOpen.org is a profitable enterprise."
While the tournament runs two weeks, Volk says managing the website is a 12-month operation and is one among 375 websites in the USTA network. IBM is responsible for hosting, production and development of the site and Volk's team works alongside that of IBM's Kristina Kloberdanz in a newsroom-style set-up deep inside Louis Armstrong Stadium. IBM has been the U.S. Open technology partner for 16 years, and Volk calls it a "full partnership" that uses IBM's technology to further how tennis is experienced. "We sit down and innovate with IBM and the other Slams. We're all trying to promote tennis."
- Newsflash: The staggering $20 million purse is news alone, but Roger Federer's record payday of $2.4 million on Sept. 9 for his singles championship and U.S. Series performance is worthy of its own headline. It's the highest payout in tennis history and surely ranks among the top across any industry. That kind of news makes the news outside of tennis.
- Revenue: The USTA reports that concession sales were up 20 percent over last year, and the 2007 U.S. Open counted more sponsors and partners than ever before. In other words, indications are that the U.S. Open made more money than ever before.
- Economic Impact: The U.S. Open brings $425 million to the New York City economy, according to Arlen Kantarian, Chief Executive of USTA Professional Tennis.
RESULT: USTA spending on promoting the game through pro tennis and community efforts hopefully will be less impacted by the cost of constructing the indoor facility, reported to cost $60 million, at the National Tennis Center.
I wish i had been one of the 715,587. Maybe next year. But the TV coverage as fantastic! I was glued.
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