Serena Williams‘ return lifted the US Open to its best start since her pursuit of the calendar Grand Slam three years ago.
Day one of the US Open averaged 639,000 viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, up 22% from last year (524K), up 32% from 2016 (484K) and the highest since 2015, when Williams was pursuing a calendar Grand Slam (805K).
The night session, featuring wins by Williams and Rafael Nadal, had a 0.6 rating and 889,000 viewers on ESPN2 — up 46% in viewership from last year (609K), up 77% from 2016 (501K) and the highest since 2015 (962K).
Notably, the tennis matches on ESPN2 earned a higher rating and a larger audience than the competing White Sox-Yankees Major League Baseball game on ESPN (0.5, 767K).
Viewership was not up as sharply for the afternoon session, but the average audience of 484,000 still increased 15% from last year (422K) and 4% from 2016 (464K).
In other action, Arthur Ashe Kids Day had a 0.37 and 480,000 on ABC — up 15% in ratings and 6% in viewership from last year, but down 8% and 16% respectively from 2016 (0.4, 574K). Viewership for the event has yet to return to CBS levels; it had 686,000 on that network in 2014.
[Numbers from Nielsen via Programming Insider 8.28]
