2011 U.S. Open Sees Record Number of Attendees and Viewers

The USTA has announced that despite facing a hurricane at the start of the tournament and then overcoming two days of rain resulting in the need to reschedule the final five days of the tournament, the 2011 U.S. Open still attracted more than 650,000 fans to the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The tournament also saw increased television ratings on CBS Sports and numerous traffic records set online at USOpen.org.

Attendance highlights included the all-time Labor Day Weekend attendance (Saturday, Sept. 3-Monday, Sept. 5) of 186,186. The men’s final, featuring Serbian Novak Djokovic capturing his first U.S. Open title over defending champion Rafael Nadal of Spain on Monday, also set the all-time attendance record of 24,713 in Arthur Ashe Stadium and on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, as did the men’s semifinal attendance of 24,071 on Saturday, Sept. 10. In all, 11 sessions of the 2011 U.S. Open sold out.

Approximately 53.1 million viewers watched all or part of this year’s U.S. Open on CBS Sports, up 17 percent from last year. Ratings overall for the U.S. Open on CBS Sports, which includes broadcasts of Labor Day Weekend and Finals Weekend, saw overall ratings increase over the past three years, matching the ratings of 2007.

This year’s women’s singles final on Sunday, Sept. 11, achieved a 3.3 national rating, with 13.1 million viewers watching all or part of the final, an increase of 93 percent from viewership of the Kim Clijsters-Vera Zvonareva final which aired in primetime on Saturday last year. In addition, the men’s singles final was seen in all or part by 11.8 million viewers.

Despite two days of rain interruption, USOpen.org set a new site record for unique visitors (15,421,675) surpassing 2010’s total by 24 percent, and total visits to the site topped 51 million (51,868,345), the second most in history. Additionally, more than 3.1 million hours of live streaming was viewed, an increase of 12 percent from last year’s record. USOpen.org also saw record mobile traffic across its mobile-friendly Web site (m.usopen.org) and the official iPhone and Android Apps, with more than 84 million page views (84,350,596), a 173 percent increase over 2010.