Sports Ratings Tracker

Last week’s U.S. Open mixed doubles semifinals and final averaged 492,000 viewers, up 43% from last year, which was the first year of the revamped mixed doubles tournament. That figure includes 552,000 for the final.

The previous day’s mixed doubles coverage averaged 363,000, peaking at 502,000 during the 5 PM ET quarter-hour that included the pairing of Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz.

The full US Open tennis tournament averaged 1.1 million viewers on the ESPN networks, up 39% from last year and the highest since Serena Williams last played the event in 2022. Keep in mind that between Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” methodology and its February expansion of out of-home viewing, this year’s figures have a built-in advantage over past years.

For more on the numbers, see this article.

Sunday’s Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner US Open men’s final averaged 3.0 million viewers on ABC, marking the largest audience for the event in a decade and an 82% increase over last year’s final between Sinner and Taylor Fritz.

The previous day’s Aryna Sabalenka-Amanda Anisimova women’s final averaged 2.4 million, up 50% from Sabalenka-Jessica Pegula a year ago.

Keep in mind that Nielsen as of last week began using a new methodology that combines its existing panel with “Big Data” for set-top boxes and smart TVs, a figure that will generally be higher than the panel-only numbers that were the currency previously.

Having said that, the year-over-year gains were so substantial that it is highly likely viewership would have been up considerably all things being equal.

(Correction 9/10: The men’s final had 3.0 million, not 3.2 million. The 3.2 million figure is the decade-ago 2015 figure.)

Coverage of the US Open tennis tournament has averaged 710,000 viewers across the ESPN family of networks through the second round, up 29% from last year. That includes an average of 784,000 for the opening day of play last Sunday on ABC and ESPN2 (1.06M on ABC alone), up 78% from last year’s Monday start.