Rising stars were a huge hit American audience at the Australian Open.
ESPN reports a 4% audience growth for its 2020 AO coverage compared to the 2019 tournament.
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The network's live coverage averaged 365,000 viewers up from 352,000 in 2019. It's the second straight viewer increase as the 2019 tournament audience was up 28% from 2018. Among demo groups, leading the way was a 33% increase for viewers 18-24.
AO champion Sofia Kenin's 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-0 fourth-round win over 15-year-old phenom Coco Gauff made a major impact with the American audience drawing nearly three-quarters of a million viewers.
The 14th-seeded Kenin's victory over Gauff was ESPN's most-viewed telecast from Melbourne. The entire six-hour telecast on Saturday, January 25th averaged 725,000 viewers (+24% vs. the same telecast a year ago), making it the most-viewed Australian Open telecast since the 2017 men’s championship (920,000 viewers).
It also was the largest audience for an AO round of 16 telecast in a decade (January 24th, 2010, 912,000 viewers).
The women’s final performed notably strong.
The three-set victory by Kenin over Garbine Muguruza for her first Major championship was seen by an average of 673,000 viewers, second best of any telecast for the two-week tournament. That represents an increase of 27% over last year’s championship (531,000). Both matches started at 3:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve