LTA's HSBC Championships delivers dramatic growth in tennis audiences
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Audience figures from the first ever two week HSBC Championships at The Queen’s Club saw a dramatic growth in both TV and digital audiences for tennis.
This year we staged a women’s WTA 500 event at the Queen’s Club for the first time in over 50 years and it had an immediate impact on audience and engagement figures.
BBC TV audiences
The combined audience for the two weeks of the HSBC Championships saw BBC viewing figures surge when compared to the equivalent two-week period last year (ATP 500 week at the Queen’s Club and WTA 500 week at Eastbourne)
A peak audience of 1,715,000 tuned in to the BBC for the men’s final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jiri Lehecka a rise of 64% on the 2024 peak. Across the fortnight the average audience was 651,000 (up 51% on 2024) and the share of TV audience rose to 11.7% (up 64% on 2024). There were over 7.5m online viewing requests during the Championships – a rise of 65% on 2024.
Digital engagement
Meanwhile digital engagement during the fortnight also surged. There were nearly 1.4m interactions with the HSBC Championships Instagram account during the WTA week. A huge 152% increase on content compared to the Eastbourne WTA 500 in 2024.
The ATP 500 week at the HSBC Championships saw over 2.7m interactions on Instagram as well - an increase of nearly 40% on 2024.
In total there were nearly 4.1m interactions on the HSBC Championships account during the fortnight.
Tickets
The HSBC Championships saw strong in person attendance as well. There were over 62,000 spectators on site at The Queen’s Club for the women’s WTA 500 event. This equates to 88% aggregate attendance across the 7 days, with the final 3 days selling out entirely. This is one of the highest attendances for a standalone WTA event anywhere on the Tour, just behind Charleston and the Canadian Open.
Meanwhile the men’s ATP 500 event once again sold out for the 7 days with an attendance of 71,000.
Chris Pollard, LTA Managing Director, Commercial and Operations said, “We’re delighted that the new women’s event at the HSBC Championships has driven such impressive audience figures. When we decided to change the grass court season calendar, our objectives were to grow interest in tennis, and particularly women’s tennis, earlier in the summer.
"These figures show that has been delivered with big uplifts in both TV audience and online engagement across the event compared to 2024. The men’s event has also continued to grow its popularity and ranks as the largest tennis event outside of Wimbledon in this country. With 10 of the 14 days across the fortnight selling out completely, we are proud to see the popularity of both the HSBC Championships and tennis surging.”
