How can tennis better promote its non-Grand Slam tournaments? Boardroom talks with ATP stars, as well as WTA and Tennis Channel executives, to discuss this important issue.
Three million people in the U.S. tuned in to ABC to watch Carlos Alcaraz defeat Jannik Sinner in the U.S. Open men’s final earlier this month, capping off a three-week tournament that captivated the tennis world and captured the country’s cultural zeitgeist as the it way to close out the summer.
But how many of those fans know what’s next on the tennis calendar? This may sound crazy, but the ATP and WTA tours do actually continue to operate the rest of the year, even after the completion of the season’s last grand slam.
The ATP began its Asian swing earlier this month with the Laver Cup and Davis Cup competitions mixed in, culminating with the Shanghai Masters from Oct. 1-12, the Paris Masters at the end of October, and the Tour Finals in Turin from Nov. 8-16. The WTA‘s Asian schedule includes the China Open in Beijing at the end of September, another 1000-level tournament in Wuhan, and other tournaments in China, Japan, and India before the WTA Finals conclude the season in Riyadh.
While the Grand Slams serve as an amazing entry point for fans to start following the sport, the challenge for professional tennis is letting the fans know that there are still two more months of the highest quality tennis still left on the schedule this year, with tens of millions of dollars and the tour championships at stake.
So, what do the ATP and WTA tours need to do in order to better promote the rest of the season and non-majors in general?
“With a season that spans more than 50 tournaments in 35-plus countries, our job is to work with our incredible athletes and our media partners to engage fans in this ongoing narrative, where there are new stories to tell each week,” Marina Storti, WTA Ventures’ CEO, told Boardroom. “Beyond the four Grand Slams, we know that many of the most compelling storylines unfold week in and week out at our WTA 1000s, 500s, and 250 tournaments.”
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The WTA claims a cumulative global audience of more than 1 billion, but is constantly looking to grow that number. WTA Ventures was established in 2023 with a key focus of engaging fans more deeply and making its athletes even more famous and impactful. Over the last couple of years, Storti said the tour has utilized social media with a renewed focus on bringing its players and events to life, showcasing their personalities and season-long journeys. Total social video views have doubled over the last year, and followers have increased by 25%.
“This is just the start,” Storti said, “and with a powerful new brand identity launched earlier this year, we will continue celebrating the stories of athletes at all levels of the Tour and exciting even more fans through the drama of tennis.”
In a Q&A posted to the ATP website last month, tour chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said it was shifting toward bigger events, profit sharing with players, greater long-term value, and more returns for players and tournaments. That’s all great for the players, but those gains don’t necessarily translate toward fan interest.
As part of my U.S. Open roundtable on the biggest issues in tennis, several ATP stars were asked how the tours can promote the tournaments outside the Grand Slams to fans around the world on TV and social media.
“I think they’re doing a pretty good job of promoting it and getting other players more excited, but it’s just tough,” Frances Tiafoe told Boardroom. “The players shouting tournaments out and letting people know that you’re coming helps events a lot, because people want to see players and actually care about the event.”
Tennis veteran and 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Čilić wants the tours to peel the curtain back more and show how players prepare, how they’re feeling, and how they operate more behind the scenes. He also said each tournament, which has its own boards and governing bodies independent from the ATP and WTA, should do a better job showcasing and highlighting what they bring and what makes their stop on tour unique and worth watching.
“So fans can actually feel more of the soul of each tournament,” Čilić told Boardroom.
The tours have made a greater effort to make their stars more visible on social media, with a particular emphasis on TikTok in 2025. This includes signing up players for accounts and granting access to outlets like Overtime, which regularly interviews and engages with players on the platform.
“I think social media is actually doing a good job,” Holger Rune told Boardroom. “But the way to make the sport a little more hyped is to have fewer players in tournaments and do shorter events. And to me, ATP is doing the opposite.”
Tournament expansions do mean longer tournaments and less rest for the players, but give the fans more opportunities to see their favorite players on a regular basis. The main way to accomplish that in the States is through the Sinclair-owned Tennis Channel, which broadcasts ATP and WTA tournaments year-round and offers a direct-to-consumer streaming service with original content and 10,000 hours of live and on-demand matches. It recently hired Jeff Blackburn as chairman and CEO after 24 years at Amazon and partnered with a company called LTN to migrate from satellite to IP-based distribution, attempting to help offset lower pay TV household distribution with fast channels on Amazon and Roku.
“Tennis Channel is active in promoting the sport and connecting fans with it every day of the year, serving as the definitive hub for year-round tennis,” Liz Buhn, Tennis Channel’s senior vice president of marketing, told Boardroom via email. “Our strategy is to meet fans wherever they are.”
That strategy includes partnerships with Atmosphere TV, which shows match recaps in 12,000 sports bars, restaurants, and gyms; Reach TV bringing highlights to airport gate lounges, bars, restaurants, and hotel rooms; Fuel Media TV bringing highlights to thousands of gas stations across the U.S.; Outfront providing live scores on thousands of digital screens in major American cities; and deals with media provider SendtoNews and elevator news provider Captivate. These partnerships, Buhn continued, are central to how Tennis Channel elevates those non-Slams.
“They allow us to reach millions of people beyond the traditional tennis ecosystem every day,” she said. “And these efforts are resonating.”
The network reported record viewership in August, highlighted by the 1000-level ATP Masters tournament in Cincinnati, which was the most-watched 1000-level tournament in Tennis Channel history. These events, which are the level below the four Slams, migrated from ESPN to Tennis Channel in 2021, and the WTA just signed a six-year media rights extension with Tennis Channel to air tournaments through 2032.
While Buhn described ways in which Tennis Channel was trying to reach casual fans outside traditional homes, bringing larger tournaments to linear TV or more prominent streaming services could potentially provide better tools for fans to be more engaged than the two months a year that the Grand Slams take place. In the back of my head, however, I still wonder whether the American tennis audience would now be better suited for the larger tournaments to be more widely available on more prominent platforms.
If fans want to watch the exciting two-month swing to end 2025, they generally know where to find it thanks to Tennis Channel. The challenge now is to consistently maintain the post-Slam momentum that happens four times a year, giving the ATP and WTA tours the year-round shine they deserve.
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