{"id":455331,"date":"2026-02-05T11:17:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/455331\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T11:17:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:17:02","slug":"alcaraz-vs-djokovic-ao-final-a-ratings-hit-for-espn-tennis-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/455331\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcaraz vs. Djokovic AO Final a Ratings Hit for ESPN \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, February 4, 2026
Photo credit: Australian Open Facebook<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz hit historic heights at the Happy Slam.<\/p>\n

Rallying from a set down, the 22-year-old Alcaraz powered past Novak Djokovic 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-5 to capture his first AO championship and make history as the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"tennistennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n

Alcaraz wasn\u2019t the only major winner in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

ESPN reports the AO men\u2019s final was its most highly-viewed AO men\u2019s final in nine years, since Roger Federer defeated Rafael Nadal 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 in the 2017 final.<\/p>\n

Though Melbourne is 16 hours ahead of the United States\u2019 Eastern time zone, many of you either got up early or stayed up late to watch the men\u2019s final. ESPN reports 730,000 viewers tuned it to see world No. 1 Alcaraz defeat Grand Slam king Djokovic to win his maiden Melbourne major.<\/p>\n

Overall, the 2026 AO was ESPN\u2019s most widely-viewed Australian Open coverage since 2020.<\/p>\n

Here are some stats from ESPN\u2019s news release on increased AO viewership:<\/p>\n

Championship weekend highlights
The men\u2019s and women\u2019s championships on ESPN drew a 34% YoY [year over year] increase, marking the most-viewed Australian Open championships since 2017.
The men\u2019s championship, featuring No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz defeating No. 4 Novak Djokovic in four sets, delivered 730K viewers and was up 57% YoY, ranking as most-viewed since 2017.
The women\u2019s championship, which saw No. 5 Elena Rybakina defeat No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, delivered 487K viewers, increasing 8% YoY and ranking as the most-viewed since 2020. <\/p>\n

The men\u2019s semifinals across ESPN, ESPN2 and the ESPN App were up 53% YoY, making it the most-viewed Australian Open semifinals since 2017. The Carlos Alcaraz\/Alexander Zverev 5-set thriller match averaged 743K viewers and ranking as the second most-viewed men\u2019s semifinal since 2014.<\/p>\n

The AO delivered strong ratings for ESPN climaxing with a riveting championship weekend.<\/p>\n

The tournament began with controversy as many American viewers hit out at ESPN changing to a tiered pay wall for its AO streaming.<\/p>\n

Tennis Now writer Erik Gudris reported on the backlash in his ESPN Faces Backlash Over New Streaming Pay Wall article here.<\/a><\/p>\n

From Erik Gudris\u2019 report: Officially, \u201cESPN Unlimited\u201d and the rebranded ESPN+, now \u201cESPN Select\u201d, launched in August of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new unlimited tier cost $29.99 a month and states, as part of its benefits, \u201cAll ESPN networks (ESPN, ESPN2, etc.) and services, including ESPN+.\u201d<\/p>\n

The standard tier, which used to be ESPN+, is now called \u201cESPN Select\u201d and costs $12.99 a month. That tier used to offer matches on all courts, but now it only covers the outer courts in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Consequently, ESPN cashed in on American viewers adding that second, more expensive, paywall.<\/p>\n

Obviously, ESPN is not the only network to monetize multi-layered streaming\u2014Tennis Channel charges extra for its \u201cT2\u201d streaming and the NFL has streamed games over Peacock and Amazon\u2014however some American fans told Tennis Now they felt ESPN was \u201cgouging\u201d loyal tennis viewers adding that second paywall for this AO coverage.<\/p>\n

Judging by the Nielsen numbers for championship weekend, ESPN is likely highly satisfied with that move.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, February 4, 2026Photo credit: Australian Open Facebook Carlos Alcaraz hit historic heights at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-455331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}