In less than one year, Australian Open TV has doubled its subscriber-base on YouTube, with the channel surpassing two million subscribers last month.
It follows in the footsteps of the Australian Open’s official TikTok account, which cracked the two million-follower mark last December and has since hit 2.3 million.
These numbers represent the highest on these channels among the four Grand Slam tournaments, noting that Wimbledon’s TikTok account also sits with 2.3 million followers.
It also reflects the fact that fans have responded strongly to the engaging, innovative content on both platforms.
Australian Open YouTube’s offering is impressively varied, with multiple highlight formats, classic matches, iconic moments, interviews, speeches, celebrity content and behind-the-scenes footage all featured on the channel.
Seven Australian Open YouTube videos have generated more than six million views, while YouTube shorts have attracted even more eyeballs, with three AO YouTube shorts surpassing 100 million views.
Similarly-huge numbers have been reported on TikTok, with the four most-popular videos each earning more than 50 million views.
“Our approach on TikTok is to make content that is widely accessible and entertaining for both the tennis diehards and people who don't know anything about tennis,” said Matthew Bickerdike, video content creator at Tennis Australia.
“We tailor our tone of voice in the titles and descriptions to suit TikTok's younger, more tennis-casual audience. And the content itself is mostly made up of the best points and the funniest on-court moments, especially from the legends exhibition tournament.”
TOP FIVE AO TIKTOK VIDEOS
[As of 21 June 2024]
This approach has struck a chord; the most popular video on the AO TikTok platform, with almost 80 million views, features the racquet wizardry of French-Iranian former pro Mansour Bahrami.
Brie Stewart, TA’s Head of Content Strategy & Operations, said TikTok’s significance as a platform was especially evident during Australian Open 2024.
“Over the three weeks of the competition, 400 TikTok videos were posted – up from 260 videos last year – and accumulated 458 million views,” she said.
“Viewer engagement was a key focus, and TikTok-oriented content filled out five of the top 10 places for most-viewed Australian Open 2024 content created by Tennis Australia out of an overall production of more than 6,000 pieces of content.”
In April 2023, we reported on the roll-out of full Australian Open matches on the AO YouTube channel, the result of a digitisation project in which hundreds of AO matches from the VHS archive were converted and released.
[Editor’s note: Some of these full matches have features in the “AO Flashbacks” article series, for fans wishing to dive deeper into the context surrounding the matches, and what unfolded, as told by people who were there in the stadium.]
At that time, Australian Open TV had just under one million subscribers, a threshold crossed on 27 June 2023.
Within a year those subscriber numbers doubled, surpassing two million on 25 May.
“Over the past two years we've made a focused effort to increase the quantity and quality of new content for AO YouTube,” explained Xavier Muhlebach, Tennis Australia’s Head of Original Content.
“We know we have great content, so it's amazing to see the public response when we post more of it.
“We're currently the most-subscribed-to Grand Slam tournament in the world, but with Wimbledon nipping at our heels we're not slowing down.”
MOST POPULAR ON YOUTUBE
[As of 21 June 2024]
These subscriber numbers means Australian Open TV sits in the top 0.005 per cent of channels on YouTube.
Muhlebach said fans yet to join this growing number were assured of being the first to know about fresh uploads, should they choose to subscribe.
“Videos not only include full matches deep from the archives or recent matches, but also new content from our AO Originals documentary team,” he explained.
“Our goal is to make the AO YouTube channel the home of incredible tennis video content. And not just for Australian Open fans, but for all tennis fans.”