The women's final at the 2023 US Open was more watched than the men's, and it's not a surprise because it featured an American player.
When it comes to supporting their own, very few do it better than the Americans, so people showing up for Coco Gauff was a given. She's had plenty of prominent figures watch her match, and the media reporting on every match created this excitement that spread across the country.
Much like Emma Raducanu's US Open final was closely followed in the United Kingdom, so was Gauff's final in the United States. After all, it's been a while since the country saw one of their own win a Grand Slam and the US Open. The American didn't disappoint, turning around the match against Sabalenka and ending up with the trophy.
According to reports, the final was watched by 3.4 million people around the US, which is a much bigger number compared to the 2.3 million that watched the men's final between Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev. Both of these trail the most watched sports event of the week (NFL), which had 24 million people tune in, but that's in line with the popularity of the sports.
As popular as tennis is around the globe, it's not that huge in the United States itself, at least not compared to some other more popular sports. Even so, it's great news for women's tennis to have a championship match be followed more than the men's throwing in spade into the whole 'women's tennis is uninteresting' narrative.
Now, obviously, an American playing in the final greatly helped, and the number is probably inflated because of that, but it's still a win. Hopefully, we see viewership for WTA tennis increase more in the coming years, which should help the sport allocate more funds towards that side, getting us closer to pay equality at most events.
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