Burgers, beer and designer Beyonce: Inside the Australian Open transformation

Finally we have globalization (observation areas are such a hit, let’s build one in Singapore where people can watch tennis next to a giant koala).

And it’s working: In 2023, when the Open renamed qualifying week “Opening Week,” 63,120 attended. This year, there were 217,999, up 87 percent from 2025, according to the tennis website First submission.

However, there are questions and complaints, many of which center around the queues snaking around the venue.

There were fans who waited for four hours outside the Kia Arena on Thursday night in a futile attempt to watch the doubles match between Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis. Some say the modern Australian Open is too crowded, too commercial and too difficult to get on court to watch an actual match.

However, Serbian superstar Novak Djokovic, a record 10-time champion, is not among them.

“Having too many people at this or any other tennis tournament is a very good problem to have,” Djokovic said. “Every tournament wants record attendance and ticket sales … it’s a good sign. Obviously, we want more attention and more people coming and wanting to watch tennis live.”

Innovation in Opening Week

The Opening Ceremony and One Point Slam — which allowed everyday “amateurs” to face the pros in a do-or-die venue — went some way to assuaging the major criticism Eddie McGuire, broadcaster, live sports producer and chairman of the SportNXT Summit, had of tennis as a sporting spectacle.

“There was a big knock on tennis that you never saw the players,” McGuire said TheAge.

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“Now they have charity matches and One Point Slam. Carlos Alcaraz has his smile and even Sinner is trying. Players are now forced by social media to give a little more. It’s great.

“They’ve come and gone in the past. Now to watch them play by one point in the tournament was great. They got into it and stayed.”

Alcaraz himself told a packed Rod Laver Arena in a post-game interview Thursday how much he liked the new action after his hilarious mock protest when he was ejected.

Festivals are happening in other sports too, says McGuire, including how the AFL turns everything into an event, from Round Zero to the Gather Round – and now the wildcard round for placing in the finals comes into play.

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Record wallet

This year’s prizemoney is a record $111.5 million, although that hasn’t stopped players clamoring for a big share of the revenue, while the extraordinary attendance follows superstars like Federer, Serena Williams and Nadal who have retired in recent years.

But Tiley knew that the focus on tennis itself would always have an attendance limit, so he went off the court.

Many people waiting for the Open aren’t watching a single shot on the course, instead indulging in everything else the event has to offer.

This includes Sydney’s Quay boss Peter Gilmore cooking up a barbecue for premium guests atop the Rod Laver Arena; cook and author Alice Zaslavksy hosts family cooking demonstrations; munching on an $18 Shake Shack burger direct from the US; and concerts with headliners such as The Kid Laroi and Spacey Jane.

“I think it’s a cultural festival. It’s rooted in tennis, but I think there are so many different segments,” says Tennis Australia director of partnerships and international business Roddy Campbell, who once called the Australian Open the “Super Bowl” of the Asia Pacific.

The tournament even features Es Devlin, the production designer of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, bathing the Rod Laver Arena in images of Australian sun and sea before the players take to the court dramatically.

Indeed, the nautical theme was a perfect match for Naomi Osaka’s ethereal jellyfish dress, which the world number 17 wore as she stepped out umbrella in hand for her first round match against Antonia Croatian Ruzic.

It was a viral moment Osaka worked on for six months with her team of designer Robert Wun, collaborator Marty Harper, sponsor Nike and Tiley, who ensured it got prime time and maximum exposure for a potential cumulative global TV audience of 1.91 billion people.

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Singapore expansion

While the long queues around the Kia Arena, as Djokovic points out, are a nice problem, Campbell is more concerned with the crowds around Clarke Quay in Singapore. That’s where TA, along with Visit Victoria and regional broadcaster beIN, will set up AO at the Quay on Thursday night, featuring live food and drink, shopping, a giant koala and replica blue Open tennis courts.

One supporter will be flown to Melbourne Park for the men’s and women’s finals. “It shows how accessible the ‘Happy Slam’ is for fans in the region,” says Campbell.

Also within reach for overseas fans: regionalization of advertising. In Melbourne, the official AO beers are Asahi or Balter, Mick Fanning’s brand. But in China it is Tsingtao.

“Viewers watching TV in China see the official brand on their TV [in the form of] on-court advertising, which is Tsingtao beer, which hosts amateur tournaments in China,” says Campbell.

“We recently added Stella Artois as a regional partner in Brazil, a market with significant interest in tennis inspired by new stars like Joao Fonseca.”

Brand consultant Ricardo Fort, a former Coca-Cola marketing executive who now runs his own consultancy, describes as a marketer that going to AO was like going to Disneyland. What he saw inside beauty retailer Mecca Cosmetica was particularly impressive.

“I was shocked at the number of teenagers in the store,” says Fort.

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“And what I loved about it is that these are fans who aren’t necessarily your traditional tennis fans. They’re here to have fun, to party, to learn tennis and eventually become tennis fans. It doesn’t happen by accident — it happens on purpose.”

What is all the money for?

The Open claims to be the biggest economic generator in Australian sport, with $533.2 million in contributions to the Australian economy, according to the TA’s annual report. The action’s strategy is simple – commercial partnerships help it develop the game and it can reinvest funds.

Meanwhile, cash-strapped Saudi Arabia is floating plans to introduce a new event which the Open fears could disrupt the calendar at the start of the year.

There is a push for more revenue share from the competition that recently attracted this repost from Tiley v Australian Financial Review: “I would remind players … they also have the option to go and generate their own income as an independent contractor and as their own brand.”

As the controversy rages, Rowen D’Souza, founder of Glam Slam and former president and chief executive of Pride Tennis Worldwide, says the critical narrative of over-commercialisation is “unfair” and that non-profit Tennis Australia is helping him organize events such as the Glam Slam, which will feature nearly 300 LGBTQI players on the weekend of the finals.

“They’re breaking records every day in Melbourne. It’s because more and more people are seeing that they belong at the Australian Open, that there’s something for them,” D’Souza said.

According to him, Wimbledon and Roland-Garros are different. “You really only see middle- and upper-class people attending. It’s just not for everyone.”

But the Australian Open is far more egalitarian.

“You go here and people actually come to you. They sit on the property and enjoy themselves.”

Read more about our Australian Open coverage