For many, Wimbledon isn’t just a sporting event – it’s a cultural fixture. Tennis becomes a two-week obsession every July and this year was no different. As we continue our summer of women’s sports series, we discovered that one in four of UK adults tuned into the Championships to watch matches involving women.
Our recent survey of UK sports fans tells us tennis is one of the few sports where interest across men’s and women’s matches is almost equal. Of those surveyed, 89% of tennis fans said they watch both men’s and women’s matches, and three in five said they watch women’s tennis as much as the men’s game.
The women’s singles final alone saw 4.1 million fans tune into BBC One to watch Iga Świątek’s win over Amanda Anisimova, while over 1 million streamed the match online. Earlier in the tournament, Emma Raducanu’s Centre Court clash against Aryna Sabalenka attracted a peak TV audience of 5 million viewers – the third highest viewership of a match outside the final in four years.
As the post-tournament buzz continued in the week following Wimbledon, we asked those who watched the event if they’d be interested in watching more tennis year-round. More than half said they would, with 58% of those aged under 35 expressing specific interest in watching more women’s tennis throughout the year.
Yet this is where the challenge lies for the sport as a whole – while the matches are being played, they’re not easy to access for fans. Big events like Wimbledon may pull big viewer numbers, but these numbers fall off throughout the year.
Widening the net for engagement
Tennis engagement in the UK is largely reliant on TV and digital access rather than in-person fandom. This creates barriers to engagement in between the big international tournaments. Given that the majority of events are played across the globe, it’s unsurprising to see fewer UK fans attending events when compared to cricket, football or rugby. Just 6% of tennis fans surveyed said they attend matches in person, which is far less than almost a quarter of football fans who attend semi or professional events.
While tennis tournaments do not fall weekly like football matches, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) each hold around 60 tournaments annually. A large number of smaller events are also hosted on the Challenger and International Tennis Federation circuits throughout the year. Yet most fans struggle to access these matches. Few events are available on free-to-air channels, rights are split across broadcasters, and the calendar isn’t always intuitive.
Even when matches are easily available, coverage isn’t always equal. At the French Open, only four women’s singles matches have been scheduled during prime time since 2021, including just one in the last two years. When a sport already enjoys a strong fanbase, the decision not to air women’s matches isn’t just a representation issue, it’s a commercial one. Fans have far fewer opportunities to follow individual female player journeys throughout the year – meaning the opportunity is also lost for the wider story of tennis to be told.
A different kind of fandom
Tennis fans tend to root for an individual player. With just over half of those who engage with men’s tennis saying they follow an individual athlete, and just under half of those who follow women’s tennis saying the same, brands, broadcasters and governing bodies could be missing a trick.
By the time Wimbledon is aired, many fans may not have followed preceding events that build anticipation and momentum. Beyond the rankings table available at the start of a tennis tournament, fans might not know which athletes are on good form, for example, or where exciting rivalries have developed over the year. Yet these are the stars and the stories that keep fans engaged year-round. If brands, broadcast platforms and bodies within tennis can explore ways to bring the narrative of both male and female players to an already engaged fanbase, it could benefit tennis as a whole.
While men’s tennis has long centred around epic on-court battles with the same dominant players winning year after year, women’s tennis offers a comparably strong narrative with equally big personalities – Aryna Sabalenka made headlines after her heated exchange with opponent Amanda Anisimova during this year’s semi-finals and fans are hungry for more, both on and off the court.
Female tennis players are already making an impact on social media conversations, brand partnerships and global narratives. Sabalenka boasts 3.2 million Instagram followers and Iga Świątek saw her follower count shoot from 1.9 million pre-tournament to 2.2 million following her Centre Court victory. While large social media followings are not unique to tennis, the opportunity they present for tennis right now is one to explore.
Big personalities present big opportunities
Each of the top-ranked female tennis players boasts an impressive list of sponsorships that include obvious brands like Nike and New Balance. Yet there are less obvious choices such as Red Bull and Porsche. These big names tap the big-value opportunity presented by an international event like Wimbledon, but how do they fare in terms of carrying the narrative in between events?
With no affiliation to a club or a team (outside of national events like the Billie Jean King Cup), tennis players have the freedom to fully express their personalities. And given that there’s been no single dominant female player since Serena Williams in the late 2010s, the women’s game becomes all the more competitive and the narrative all the more exciting. What’s more, with our data showing comparable levels of fan engagement across men’s and women’s tennis (unlike most other sports), this opens up a myriad of unexplored brand and broadcast opportunities that could bring immense value across the board. The same stands for governing bodies, giving them a platform to grow ongoing engagement beyond the Grand Slams and secure the future of the sport for all.
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Insights on Wimbledon viewers is provided by Yonder’s Omnibus. Our Omnibus solutions deliver timely, nationally representative insights on consumer attitudes, behaviours and trends, helping businesses and agencies stay ahead in a rapidly changing landscape.