The United States Tennis Association (USTA) has announced a major $800 million investment into New York City’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center hub, which includes a “top-to-bottom” refurbishment of the iconic Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The venue, which hosts tennis’ annual US Open, one of the sport’s four Grand Slam majors, will be refurbished in stages so as not to disturb the 2025 and 2026 stagings of the iconic event, with construction set for completion for the start of the 2027 US Open.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Architecture firm Rossetti, the architects of the Arthur Ashe Stadium in its original form and the firm behind its 2018 revamp, will once again lead the modernization of the venue.
For the Arthur Ashe Stadium, already the world’s largest tennis-specific arena, this will mean an expanded capacity with 2,000 more seats, luxury hospitality suites, and a 40% larger concourse with expanded food and drink, retail, and dining offerings around the venue also planned.
Elsewhere at the Tennis Centre, a new $250 million player performance center will be constructed to aid player development and enhance the experience of top-level athletes competing at the event.
This investment will be entirely funded by the USTA, with no public funding required, with USTA chief executive and executive director Lew Sherr stating: “This project enables us to maintain the greatest stage in tennis—Arthur Ashe Stadium—which was constructed more than 25 years ago, and modernize it in a way that will set it up for the next 25 years.”
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataAs tennis has grown in recent years, so too has the US Open, which in 2024 attracted a record attendance of over one million fans for the first time.
The 1,048,669 total over three weeks marks an 8% increase over 2023, itself a record-breaking year, while attendance for the two weeks of 2024’s main draw reached a new high of 832,640.
This made the 2024 championships at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center the first to surpass the seven-figure mark.
The 2024 edition was the first to feature a seven-day US Open Fan Week, which was attended by over 219,000 fans, featuring signature events and activities each day and night of the week.
A year prior, in 2023, a record TV audience was measured, with 3.4 million viewers on ESPN tuning in to watch US star Coco Gauff's maiden US Open victory, he most-watched women’s final of all time on major sports broadcaster ESPN.
The men’s final that year, a record-setting victory for Novak Djokovic, drew 2.3 million viewers, which was the most-watched men’s final since 2019.
Though the 2024 edition fared less well, with the men’s final notching 1.7 million viewers and the women’s final 1.8 million, a carriage dispute between ESPN owner Disney and cable TV service DirecTV saw the pay-TV sports channel pulled from DirecTV amid the final week of the tournament, adversely affecting viewership.
