2023 Australian Open attendance breaks records

The two weeks of the Australian Open saw multiple attendance records broken with 839,192 fans passing through the gates at Melbourne Park.

With the tournament one of the high points of Melbourne’s sporting calendar, the attendance broke the compared with the previous record of 812,174 set in 2020, while a further 63,120 fans attended events during Qualifying Week bringing the three-week total to 902,312 fans.

In addition, 299,740 people attended ‘summer of tennis’ events held in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Perth and Sydney in the lead-in to Australian Open 2023.

Kids Tennis Day returned to Melbourne Park on the Saturday before main draw with 15,649 people - the majority of which were children getting the chance to see their heroes and try out Tennis Hot Shots.

From a total of 817 players from 68 nations competing - including qualifying, singles, doubles, junior and wheelchair events - Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka were crowned the Australian Open singles champions, with Djokovic winning a record-extending 10th Australian Open title.

Broadcast
Away from Melbourne Park, Djokovic’s defeat of Stefanos Tsitsipas in the men’s final drew a peak national audience of 2.311 million viewers with an average audience of 1.747 million while the women’s final between Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina peaked at 1.437 million viewers, with an average audience of 1.036 million

The fourth-round match between Australia’s Alex de Minaur and Djokovic on the second Monday of the tournament peaked at 1.315 million viewers.

National cumulative reach for tournament was 10.064 million viewers.

The Men's Final recorded the highest ever live Broadcaster Video-On-Demand (BVOD) audience for an Australian Open match of 245,000 up 8% on 2022.

Social Media
On social media more than 450,000 new followers were acquired across the tournaments social platforms including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter during the tournament.

5418 posts on the Australian Open across social platforms generated over 780 million impressions, 29 million interactions and 470 million video views.

In-stadium production
The Australian Open Sonic Light and Sound show staged on Rod Laver Arena prior to every night session featured more than 200 moving lights installed around the arena and 360-degree video elements across the digital walls. 

In-stadium production was showcased on 4928 LED Panels across the precinct, totalling 1826 square metres and 118,538,944 pixels.

The LEDs featured 1236 bespoke digital wall content pieces.

Seven Australian Open Startups unveiled
AO StartUps is the latest step in Tennis Australia’s innovation program which helps early-stage companies pilot their cutting-edge technology at the Australian Open and other areas of Australian tennis.

The companies are:

• Data analytics platform Amperfii

• Cleantech startup Calyx

• Compression garment manufacturer CAPE Bionics

• Gender equity platform equidi

• MATCHi - The world’s fastest growing booking system for racquet sports including Padel Generative AI-based text-to-video technology Recut

• Live immersive video experiences in VR/360 creator YBVR and Xtadium.

To coincide with the introduction of in-match coaching across all draws of Australian Open 2023, the Game Insight Group also introduced GIG PlayerBox Analytics for the tournament.

Workforce
More than 12,000 team members from Tennis Australia, Melbourne & Olympic Parks and Delaware North helped deliver the tournament.

More than 80% of this workforce were retained from the 2022 tournament

Melbourne’s Sporting Calendar
Victoria’s calendar of major sporting events will continue in 2023 including the AFL Premiership Season, Super Rugby’s Super Round Melbourne, Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, Bledisloe Cup and the huge FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.

Melbourne’s cultural events are also drawing huge crowds - with more than 123,000 people heading into the city for the first weekend of Midsumma on 21st and 22nd January, and more than 80,000 visitors attending Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse at the NGV since it opened on 11th December 2022.

Images: Australian Open action at the Rod Laver Arena (top, credit: Dan Leaver), Kids Tennis Day (middle) and Quayclean staff outside the Rod Laver Arena (below).