Mixing sport and entertainment at the Australian Open

The lines between sport and entertainment are becoming increasingly blurred, but is this necessarily a bad thing?

Every facet of the entertainment sector is under increasing pressure to attract our eyeballs and take our hard-earned cash, and the sports industry is no different.

The question of why should we watch, let alone attend live, sports events when there are so many other demands on our time and our wallets, is not lost on the organisers of an event such as the Australian Open.

The pressure isn’t just on the athletes to perform, there’s also pressure on events to produce an entertainment product that is as attractive to knowledgeable fans as it is to casual observers.

Each year the Australian Open sets new attendance records. In 2017, 728,763 patrons attended the tournament, up by around 8000 on the previous year.

But do these healthily increasing attendance figures suggest a growth in the popularity of the sport itself, or is the merging of entertainment with sport responsible?

Today, a trip to the tennis is very different to what it once was, even as recently as the turn of the century. Gone are the days when your options were either a pre-purchased seat in one of the arenas, or a ground pass.

Today, a visit to the may involve seeing no tennis played whatsoever. In some ways, this isn’t necessarily different from a day at the races during Melbourne’s Spring Carnival, where many punters are lucky to leave the betting ring and see a nag run along the straight.

And this point is not lost on the Australian Open’s organisers. Tournament commercial director Richard Heaselgreave explained that a key part of the strategy in attracting more patrons and television viewers, particularly from overseas, is in developing the Open into a festival as opposed to a mere tennis event. They have focused on celebrating tennis and the Australian summer.

After all, overseas audiences are shivering through a bleary winter, and what better antidote can there be than watching a few hours of tennis from much sunnier climes?

The Australian Open is also able to take advantage of the large complex it is housed in, with Tennis Australia harnessing Melbourne Park’s sprawling nature by careful event planning.

Heaselgreave says the layout of Melbourne Park is not dissimilar to that of a theme park, with a clear segmentation of areas.

“The site is very clear now. It’s over two and a half kilometres from one point to another and we segment different areas,” Heaselgreave says.

It is this segmentation of the site that separates the more adult activities of the bands on the AO Oval, just up from the Birrarung Marr entrance, to the laid-back atmosphere of Grand Slam Oval, which is separate to the kids’ area that is now situated behind Rod Laver Arena.

The danger in expanding events like the Australian Open with its offerings of food, music and a party atmosphere is that the tennis gets lost. It’s easy to be a cynical spectator who harks back to the good old days, when sports events were a lot less commercial and people attended to see the world’s best tennis players in action rather than to party the day away nowhere near a court.

However, Heaselgrave is adamant that “the tennis content is sacrosanct” and not a sideshow.

Obviously, tennis is not the only sport merging with entertainment in order to attract the casual fan.

Cricket Australia’s strategy with the Big Bash League has successfully engaged younger and more casual audiences. Over at the AFL, the focus is on introducing a women’s league as its most likely point of expansion.

But the stadiums they are played in constrict these sports in developing an entertainment package that allows fans to dip in and out of the action, unlike the Australian Open. It’s hard to have a festival atmosphere on the forecourt of the MCG.

Another important element to the growth of events such as the Australian Open is in engaging fans through social media. This is especially important for reaching out to the casual fans who may not be tweeting the tennis action, but are instead Instagramming the event’s atmosphere.

According to Sean Callanan of SportsGeek.com.au, “Developing the ambiance and fun vibe is vital. It will ensure people return as well as amplifying the event on patrons social media.”

Some of us may hark back to the days when sport was less commercial, and attending live was the domain of the knowledgeable fan.

But in the 21st century, sport is entwined with entertainment, and it is the growth of the casual fans’ dollars that will be central to the success of events such as the Australian Open.

And of course the increased revenue Tennis Australia earns from the Open finds its way back into the game’s grassroots, which can only be a good thing.