Five ways tennis is a huge growth business

With the Australian Open well under way, we’ve collected some fascinating facts and figures about the growth of game.

"The business of tennis brings an estimated $239 million in economic benefit to the state of Victoria every year along with 1440 jobs."
Louise Eyres, Group GM Marketing at ANZ

1. Events

In January each year, the world’s leading male and female players, support teams numbering in the thousands, over 600 journalists and more than 1,000,000 fans attend tennis events across Australia.

The pinnacle event is of course, the Australian Open in Melbourne. This year’s prize pool at the 2015 event, sponsored by ANZ, is a record $40 million, double the $20 million offered in 2007.  

The business of tennis brings an estimated $239 million in economic benefit to the state of Victoria every year along with 1440 jobs.

2. Crowds

More than 640,000 people attended the Australian Open in 2014. Eleven per cent of these attendees are from overseas and stay an average of eight nights in Australia. This growth in tennis-based tourism in the region has even extended to P&O Cruises which conducted its first Australian Open Cruise in 2014.

Of international visitors, 17 per cent come from the Asia Pacific region, nearly threefold growth from 2004. Ticket sales from Chinese tour operators increased 82 per cent in 2013 alone.

In 2014, more Australian Open travel packages sold were within China and the Asia Pacific than ever before.

3. Media

A total of one local (Channel 7) and 13 international television networks from the Asia Pacific region will be on site at Melbourne Park this year, while 35 broadcasters will take the host feed live into their markets.

Last year, there were 57 accredited print, radio and online media and photographers from eight different Asia Pacific nations attended. The tournament had a total audience of 342 million with 177 million being from Asia Pacific.

4. Social

Social media has changed how fans and sponsors connect with tennis’ biggest players and the events in all languages and markets.

The official Australian Open account has 623,000 followers. Men’s world number one Novak Djokovic, the face behind ANZ’s #rallyforgood campaign, has 3,500,000 Facebook fans, 500,000 Instagram followers and 4,000,000 Twitter followers.  

The Australian Open YouTube channel will live stream matches to over 25 countries across the globe and ANZ has already seen the social reach and impact of its Your Game, Your Way series surpass the levels of connection, reach and engagement achieved in 2014.

5. Kids Tennis

The growth of tennis is also fuelling an increase in participation in Australia, especially at the primary school level and encouraged through the ANZ Hot Shots Program.

ANZ Hot Shots has seen a 54 per cent increase year on year in registered participants, with nearly 850 primary schools running the program and over 320,000 students experiencing tennis lessons.

The program aims to be the leader of its kind for primary school aged children in Australia within the next three years.

Louise Eyres is group GM Marketing at ANZ. Follow Louise on twitter @eyres1.

ANZ is the official sponsor of the Australian Open. Figures from Tennis Australia.