This year’s U.S. Open has been unable to reach the highs set last year.
Coverage of the U.S. Open has averaged 822,000 viewers across ESPN and ESPN2 through Wednesday’s quarterfinals, down 31% from 1.2 million last year, the highest average for the tournament on cable since 2009.
Wednesday’s primetime window, which featured Serena Williams‘ three-set win over Simona Halep, scored a tournament-high 1.23 million viewers on ESPN2 — down 6% from last year (1.3M) and down 12% from 2014 (1.4M). Daytime coverage featuring Andy Murray‘s five-set loss to Kei Nishikori had 811,000 on ESPN (-1%).
Primetime coverage the previous night had 1.21 million on ESPN, down a whopping 64% from last year, when ESPN scored its second-largest tennis audience for coverage featuring Serena against her sister Venus Williams (3.3M). Versus the comparable night in 2014, viewership still dropped 13% from 1.4 million. A sleepy day session, featuring a pair of straight set blowouts, had 722,000 (-27%).
On Labor Day, primetime coverage scored 1.1 million viewers on ESPN2 — down 51% from last year (2.2M) but up 43% from 2014 (769K). Daytime coverage featuring Venus Williams’ three-set loss to Karolina Pliskova had 1.3 million, down 14% from last year (1.5M) and down 34% from 2014 on CBS (1.9M).
In other holiday weekend action, Sunday’s day session had 1.1 million (-25%) and the night session 979,000 (-14%). Saturday’s day session had 800,000 (-22%) and the night session 843,000 (-17%).
