How did tennis get so hot? A data-driven analysis of its surging popularity

From the words of Mugatu from Zoolander, tennis is “so hot right now”. 

The US open starts August 26th and within the first hour of the tickets being available, ticket sales were double what they were last year, and pre-sale tickets were up by 65%.

Participation is also up especially among the younger crowd, and in countries like Canada 25% of people under 12 played tennis last year. 

And even if people aren’t playing - they’re dressing like they do. 

Unless you live under a rock, you’ll have also noticed that the tenniscore aesthetic is all the rage. Big name brands like Alo, Lululemon and Free People now all sell a tennis line, and Depop reports that there has been a 53% increase in searches for tennis skirts. 

So when did tennis start to become more trendy? 

Taking a look at Statista chart below, you can see that since 2019 tennis in the US has been on the rise, after a decade of participation levels that stayed relatively the same or even dipped at times: 

So what causes something to trend? Well we don’t have the exact answer for that one - I mean who can explain fidget spinners or bleached eyebrows. 

But when it comes to tennis, we do have some theories. It was a mix or a snowball of different things that has made tennis become more and more popular and we’re going to explore them in this blog post, just in time for the US open. 

Outside influences 

The pandemic helped the popularity

We hate to bring up the pandemic, but in this case we have to give credit where credit is due. 

Tennis and golf were both sports people could still play during the pandemic while social distancing and it definitely helped boost their popularity - it also introduced the sport to a lot of people who had never played before. 

This is further proven by the fact that sales for entry-level racquets grew by 40% in 2020. 

Tennis was pushed by many medical professionals as being low risk and people really took that to heart. 

The movie ‘Challengers’ made tennis look hot

This movie was huge for the tennis movement. It made tennis look sexy. 

It was also loved by audiences new to tennis and not so loved by actual tennis fans - who could catch the discrepancies in the games within the movie. 

Movies are always a huge catalyst to making something trend but Challengers went extra hard when promoting the movie. They used similar tactics as the Barbie movie, having actress Zendaya really play into the tennis theme throughout the movie’s press tour: 

This movie is also interesting because when we look at the movie’s audience, the majority (like we guessed), were not previous tennis fans. 

The Challengers audience above is made up of primarily females aged 25-34 from the US, and based on an overview of their interests and the clusters that emerged, there is nothing that directs us to believe that they were tennis fans going to see a tennis movie. Instead, they were Zendaya fans, who went to see the tennis movie, and likely this movie persuaded some of this audience to try playing tennis, or dress like they do. 

The smallest cluster (The tennis Fanatic cluster) however is a group of Zendaya fans who already played tennis prior to seeing the movie 

So Challengers can definitely be attributed to why tennis has become more popular. 

Influencers and tennis-core

It used to be that tennis fans would follow tennis stars, and by proxy would then follow their significant others. For example, many Novak Djokovic fans also follow his wife Jelena Djokovic, who has 729K followers. 

Now it’s the other way around. 

People are following popular influencers, who end up dating tennis stars, and by proxy then follow that tennis star - bringing even more people to the sport. 

Case in point, when we look at Paige Lorenze and US tennis star Tommy Paul, Paige who is a TikTok influencer has significantly more followers than Tommy, and her followers now follow Tommy too. And there were no tennis fans in her audience previously. 

In fact, you can see below that within her audience there are “Sports & Business Fans” who are primarily interested in football and “Toronto Sports Fans” who are hockey fans, but no tennis fans. You of course have a lot of Influencer, social media, and entertainment focused clusters as well. 

Influencers like Paige give us a more intimate look at the life of a tennis star and their partners. We get an insider look at the events, the outfits, the meals, the hotels - everything you don’t normally see. 

In turn, more women are coming to the sport because of that insider look and the lifestyle it portrays (of course that’s not the main reason, but it’s one reason some women are). 

Influencers have so much, for a lack of a better word, “influence” over their fans, that someone like Paige Lorenze can even create a line of tennis clothes and have it sell out - and she doesn’t even play tennis professionally, she just watches her boyfriend play tennis. 

There is also something to be said about the luxe lifestyle tennis portrays that fits naturally with a lot of these influencer’s aesthetics. 

The clothes being worn by these influencers at the tournaments are posh/fancy dresses and flashy designer sunglasses and bags - which arguably couldn’t be worn at any other sporting events (minus polo and horse racing). 

Below is a photo of massive influencer Alix Earle going to watch her NFL football boyfriend play, versus Paige dressed up to watch a tennis match:

Influencers in general are bringing people to many different sports, but this is especially true for  tennis. 

The US open last year also had an outrageous number of celebrities in attendance, and when Novak won his 24th grand slam, he ran up into the crowd to hug his family, and Actor Matthew McConaughey - talk about worlds colliding. 

Fans of these influencers and celebrities are getting increasing exposure to the world of tennis, which further encourages those fans to play. 

Younger generations of players

The younger champions reign 

There are new stars in town, and they are a lot younger, so in turn they are captivating younger fans and bringing them to the sport. 

Serena Willlliams for a long time was regarded as the best female tennis player in the world (319 weeks at number one), and then was beat out by a new younger champion Naomi Osaka at the US open in 2022, beginning her retirement. 

Anyone who watched that game knows it was a bit more complicated than that, but the point is that the older generation has been following Serena since the get-go, and now the younger generation is being brought to the sport by these younger stars.

The older generation of tennis fans look a lot different in terms of the things that matter to them, for example because this audience is older they are into home improvement, politics and social issues, and traveling. This is what the interest data points to below: 

Whereas the younger generation of tennis fans are interested in entrepreneurship (specifically female entrepreneurship) and music festivals. 

This is all to say that as the tennis audience gets younger, the way the game is broadcasted to them and the way brands advertise to them need to reflect their interests too. 

More diversity and inclusion 

Naomi is the first Asian player to be ranked No.1, which means she is bringing the Asian representation that the sport has been somewhat missing. This is no doubt bringing more Asian players to the game. She continues to bring diversity to the game, just as Serena and Venus have done in the past. 

D.A. Abrams, The Chief diversity and inclusion officer of the U.S. tennis Association has quoted saying "There's certainly more diverse activity from an ethnic standpoint since they came on the scene, and at junior tournaments at higher levels, they're more diverse ethnically than they were in the past."

When capturing the worldwide tennis audience in SOPRISM, we can see just how popular tennis has become across the globe. 

Tennis is widely popular across Europe and Central America, but slowly it’s popularity is picking up within African and Asian countries as well - again thanks to players like Serena Williams and Naomi Omasaka. 

Women’s tennis in general has seen a surge in popularity due to the success of players like Naomi, or Iga Swiatek (the current No.1), and their efforts to promote gender equality. 

In fact, all four major tennis tournaments offer equal prize money. No other sport makes as big of a commitment as tennis to decrease the pay gap. 

We love to see it. 

For popularity to continue to grow for tennis among women, brands, tennis broadcasting networks, and advertising teams need to cater more to the female audience. By using a tool like SOPRISM brands and tennis organizations can understand what is going to resonate with the female tennis audience: 

Brands like Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein, or luxury brands such as Christian Dior or Jimmy Choo can take these interest signals above as a green light to spend more of their advertising budget on different tennis tournaments and across tennis media channels, to capture the female tennis fans audience.  

Social Media 

Social media is the main culprit to the spread of most trends and tennis is no exception. 

It has to be said that these new young tennis champions are putting a lot more behind their social media presence than the older players ever had to, and this is bringing them more fans and exposure as well. 

They talk to their fans through their IG stories, share their personal lives which makes it more fun to cheer on these stars when it’s game time. 

Social media also offers a lot more visibility for sponsors, which is changing up the amount and the type of tennis sponsorships we are seeing. 

The traditional tennis sponsorship is changing

Lululemon, Alo, Hugo Boss, Armani, and even Free People are joining the list of tennis brand sponsors. 

Free People, in your mind, is a brand that is probably more associated with boho hippies than it is tennis players, but that’s the beauty of these new sponsorships. 

We’re used to seeing the usual suspects like Nike, Adidas, and New Balance, but the younger players are looking for new brands to work with and express themselves. 

tennis player Sloane Stephens, and Free People ambassador, thinks this speaks to the power of tennis as now being a global sport. She made the point that “Brands are recognizing the platform we have as players and are wanting to get involved. I think it's a great thing for the sport. Also, tennis clothes are just cute. Period.”

Above is a photo of Sloane sporting a custom made Free People tennis uniform. 

It’s interesting to note that when looking at the younger generation of tennis fans in SOPRISM, they are way more into the luxury look and lifestyle that tennis attire exudes: 

Above, you can see that when analyzed in SOPRISM, this younger audience shows an affinity towards topics like luxury watches, luxury goods, shoes, and beauty & personal care. 

Whereas the older generation is more into tennis for the love of general sport and they don’t care as much about the tennis aesthetic as much as they do the sport in general. 

Based on their interests and the content they gravitate towards, we can see that they are very active sports players, so beyond tennis, they are into things like mountain climbing, running, basketball, and cycling. 

So there is room for more brands, especially luxury ones, at the table. 

Accessibility & Exposure 

Tennis is accessible

With tennis, all you need is a racket and a ball. This is probably why these new younger tennis champs we spoke about above are able to bring so many new people to the sport - because they showcase just how accessible it is to play. 

Other sports, like golf or hockey are much more expensive.

60% of parents say sports like these are a financial strain. But tennis is almost affordable to everyone. 

Parks also dominate the landscape of tennis facilities, hosting 45% of all the tennis courts in the US - meaning residents have free access and many different places to play across the country. 

With so many kids now being priced out of popular sports, it’s no wonder that so many are taking up something as accessible as tennis. 

Within Audiense we can see that Hockey parents have a higher household income than Tennis parents - which is probably the reason someone can be a Hockey parent, while other parents are forced to find more accessible/ affortable sports like tennis. 

Hockey parents 

The data tells us that there is a higher percentage of Hockey parents that fall into the $75K- $250K household income range than Tennis parents, when looking at the entire audience overall. 

Tennis parents 

Netflix

Behind every trend is a Netflix show. Whether or not this is true it sure feels like it is. 

Netflix has the ability to make no named actors overnight superstars, just by releasing a new show. This is called the “Netflix effect” and the same goes for its ability to propel sports trends. 

Recently, tennis centered shows like Break Point, The Prince of tennis, and the Naomi Osaka story have become popular on Netflix. 

Because Netflix accounts for 25% of our daily digital video time (in the US), the platform is synonymous with helping make something popular. 

Netflix really is just a marketing machine and tennis has seen the benefit. 

So who or what is responsible for the rise of tennis?

Without knowing for sure, we can guess with confidence that it has to do with a mix of all of these things mentioned; the pandemic, movies and Netflix shows, influencers, more diversity and inclusion efforts, increased accessibility, younger stars and of course social media. 

It would be interesting to apply all of these same tactics to sports in decline, like Baseball who saw its viewers decline by the millions in the past couple years. 

We don’t think there is any slowing down for tennis either, and you’ll see that reflected in the amount of new sponsorship deals, commercials, partnerships, influencers and celebrities that we’ll see make their debut at the US Open this year. 

To track trends and understand the audiences behind them, try Audiense and SOPRISM today! Whether you're a brand, marketer, or sports organization, these tools can help you connect with the right audiences and capitalize on emerging trends.