Tennis has seen a resurgence in the US amid the pandemic, with more people hitting the courts than in previous years. Growing popularity on the court has influenced interest in tandem. Viewership for the 2021 US Open rose 33% from the previous year.  

With a new Netflix series set to showcase the sport, we’re predicting professional tennis will see audience growth around the globe.  

But what does that mean for advertisers that want to cash in before the tennis wave hits its peak.

Using SponsorPulse, we take a closer look at how tennis is trending in Europe to uncover:

• Which Grand Slam tournament is the most popular?
• In which countries are fans most engaged?
• How does athlete performance impact fan engagement?
• What sponsorship opportunities exist for brands?

Wimbledon’s prestige reigns supreme

To understand which Grand Slam tournament is the most popular, we compared fan engagement for Wimbledon, the US Open, the Australian Open, and Roland Garros across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Wimbledon comes out on top across all countries, except for in France, where we see Roland Garros take the top spot.  

Athlete performance drives national engagement

Looking at engagement, Spain leads the pack, boasting higher engagement across all four grand slams compared to other countries. This no doubt can be tied to the reign of Rafael Nadal.  

There’s no doubt that having an athlete to rally around drives engagement. It will be interesting to see how engagement in Italy, currently the second most engaged country, is impacted with the arrival of Matteo Berrettini on the circuit.  

Opportunities for improvement

Across countries, the Australian Open shows the most room for growth when it comes to engaging the European audience.  

Germany, France and Portugal, whose total engagement lags, have ample opportunity to drive engagement across the board.  

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