WASHINGTON – Once again, crowds will flock to Queens, New York, by the thousands as the U.S. Open gets underway next week. Tennis greats like Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are among the hundreds of hopefuls looking to etch their names into the 2014 Tiffany & Co. trophy.
The tournament is the last of the four annual international tennis events that comprise the Grand Slam –the Australian Open in January, the French Open (also known as Roland Garros) in May and June, Wimbledon in London in July and finally the U.S. Open in August at New York’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
If spectators find themselves growing weary of polite applause or relentless rallies, here are some significant numbers they can mull over at this year’s Open:
1881: The first year of the U.S. Open. The tournament took place on the grass courts at Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island, and was played exclusively by men. The first U.S. open winner was Richard D. Sears of Boston. The wooden racket-toting Harvard student went on to win the next six U.S. Open titles.
150,000: The dollar amount of the average annual income of a tennis fan, according to the U.S. Tennis Association. That number is considerably higher than other sports (according to CNBC, the average annual income of a football fan is approximately $94,000 and baseball and basketball fans earn approximately $92,000 a year). The six-figure income confirms the racket sport as a bastion of wealth in the sporting arena.
713,026: The number of people who attended the U.S. Open last year, making it the most attended annual sporting event in the world. For comparison, an estimated 82,529 people attended the Super Bowl this year (although the two-week tennis extravaganza has a leg up on the football game, being 13 days longer).
3 million: Prize money each winner of the men’s and women’s singles earns at the U.S. Open. 1973 marked the first year women earned prize money equal to their male counterparts.
755: The average cost in dollars of a ticket for the U.S. Open men’s finals match. Ticket prices range from $98 for fans willing to sweat it out in the nosebleeds to $1,500 for highly coveted courtside seats, often occupied by A-list celebrities such as Kevin Spacey, Justin Timberlake, and Anna Wintour.
1: The number of times No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic has won the U.S. Open. The Serb won in 2011 and lost in the finals the next two years (to Spain’s Rafael Nadal and Britain’s Andy Murray). Djokovic is the reigning Wimbledon champion and is looking to add another title to his resume next week.
Published in conjunction with 