The showpiece men’s and women’s singles finals at the French Open (Roland Garros) proved a massive TV draw in the US, delivering “record-breaking” interest in its debut on pay-TV heavyweight TNT Sports.
Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz defeated Italy’s Jannik Sinner in the men’s final, while US star Coco Gauff beat Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka.
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Both matches featured come-from-behind victories, and the tension between the top players translated into strong viewership audiences.
Gauff in particular powered a massive viewership gain, with the prospect of a homegrown US start winning a grand slam major drawing an average of 1.5 million viewers, up 94% on the 2024 final, making it the most watched women’s Roland Garros final in the US since Serena Williams last made the final in 2016.
The men’s final, the 12th meeting between Alcaraz and Sinner since 2021 and the fourth time they have met in the final of an event, also proved a draw as the pair’s rivalry continued.
Average viewership across the marathon 5-hour and 29-minute match stood at 1.8 million, up 8% year-on-year and serving as the most-watched Roland Garros men’s final since 2021.
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By GlobalDataAcross the entirety of the tournament, from the early rounds through each final, TNT coverage averaged 399,000 viewers, up markedly by 25% from 2024.
Social media buy-in for the tournament also reached record levels, as WBD-owned digital content businesses Bleacher Report and House of Highlights delivered highlights, shoulder coverage, and behind-the-scenes content around Roland Garros, drawing over 800 million video views across the collective range of social media platforms, making it the “most socially viewed tennis tournament by a media partner ever” according to WBD.
All this serves as a massive seal of approval for WBD’s coverage (matches were also shown on the TruTV entertainment network) in its debut edition of Roland Garros.
WBD acquired the tournament’s rights in 2024 in a 10-year, $650 million deal beginning with the 2025 event, taking over from Comcast-owned US national network NBC, its Peacock OTT platform, and the Tennis Channel.
NBC had shown all but three editions of Roland Garros between 1983 and 2024, posing a major challenge for WBD to follow up on such a long-running rights steward.
