Australian Open 2023: TV ratings fall off a cliff after $500m broadcast deal, Channel 9, Nick Kyrgio

The Australian Open has been a living nightmare for Channel 9 with damning figures highlighting just how bleak things truly are.

Nine splashed $500 million to extend their Australian Open deal until 2030, but viewership has fallen off a cliff in 2023.

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The hits for the Australian Open came in thick and fast before the first serve was even sent across the net.

Aussie golden girl Ash Barty hung up the racquet not long after her Grand Slam victory. That hit alone would have left network executives reeling.

But then came the loss of world number one Carlos Alcaraz, the supremely talented 19-year-old who took the world by storm last year.

Arguably the biggest hit to the Open however came on the opening day when Nick Kyrgios announced his withdrawal.

The 27-year-old is the biggest box office drawcard on the face of the planet for tennis and his departure spelt disaster for the network and the tournament.

After a horrid opening night which saw the figures fall behind Channel 7’s Home And Away, things didn’t get any better for the network throughout the tournament.

During Saturday night’s women’s singles final and the men’s doubles final, the ratings peaked at 1.437 million viewers.

While those figures are good, they don’t even come close to last year’s women’s singles final and men’s doubles final which peaked at 4.261 million viewers.

Records tumbled during the 2022 edition of the Australian Open as Nine reached a national audience of 12.5 million viewers across two channels.

One year later and the numbers are coming in three to four million down on what unfolded during a stunning tournament last year.

With the hits piling up the figures were never going to repeat last year’s record-breaking tournament, but the severe drop would be a major case of concern after a $500m gamble.

Media analyst Steve Allen told the Herald Sun the ratings bomb would be causing sleepless nights for Nine executives.

“There are so many of the global seeded players who do have star power not appearing here so it was always going to be lower ratings. Even so the ratings are a bit lower than I would have expected. It‘s dramatically down, 30 or 40 per cent down,” he said.

A contributing factor to the damning drop off can be associated to Nine pushing their chips to the centre of the table on Novak Djokovic.

Despite Djokovic being arguably the greatest player of all time, when it comes to ratings he doesn’t deliver like he does on the court.

“We know Djokovic really isn‘t a ratings drawcard in my mind so the fact of him being part of it this year, I think doesn’t make any difference,” TV expert Colin Vickery said to the Herald Sun.

“The world of tennis is lacking TV ratings drawcards at the moment, it is in a transition phase. The drawcards who are reliable like Ash Barty, (Roger) Federer, they have gone and there are very few coming through right at this moment.”

Those remarks from Vickery echo the dire warning Kyrgios stated during his Australian Open doubles run last year.

The 27-year-old was asked where he’d like to see the sport in five-to-ten years and he painted a bleak picture of what was to come.

“I just think that tennis has done a really poor job with accepting personalities in the past,” he said.

“I think they have kind of really only marketed three players for the last decade and now it’s kind of caught up with them, so hence they have tried to push some of the Next Gen guys … tennis has really struggled to embrace different personalities, like when people go about it differently.

“Like something about Thanasi when I watch him play singles it glues me to the TV, whether he’s losing or whether he’s winning, it’s just the way he goes about it.

“I think tennis needs to embrace that more.”

Channel 9 should have listened to the advice of the Canberra born superstar.

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