US Open Planners Want Concerts to Take Center Court

Every year, the US Open brings in stars including Mariah Carey, Fat Joe, Queen Latifah, and, last year, Alicia Keys from her Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen, to amp fans up for the tournament. During the free Fan Week’s Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, performers including Justin Bieber, Rihanna, The Jonas Brothers, and Britney Spears have provided the soundtrack.

And moving forward, the Open is looking to continue to hit the right notes with fans.

This year, with Mustard on the beat remixing Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove,” the US Open is giving its tournament two stadium shows to entice fans: Putting Odesza in Louis Armstrong Stadium on Sept. 6 and the Swedish House Mafia in Arthur Ashe Stadium after the Open on Sept. 11. Both shows sold out nearly immediately.

The Open first started holding shows before and after the tournament in 2024, and the latest concerts continue the strategy to create cultural gravity around the event—from its opening, free-to-the-public Fan Week to the finals and beyond.

Attendance spikes

During the Open itself, which takes place this year from Aug. 18 to Sept. 8, there’s little doubt that fans will embrace anything the USTA throws their way. The Open faithful endure five-and-a-half-hour matches, 95-degree heat, and the occasional weather delay despite the addition of covered surfaces in recent years. As a result, attendance in Flushing Meadows reached 1,048,669 in 2024—compared to 737,872 in pre-pandemic 2019.

The crowds during Fan Week alone surged to 219,000 last year, nearly double the 115,355 who came through the gates in the last US Open before COVID-19. An obscure freebie when it first launched eight years ago, Fan Week is viewed by the USTA as the moment when the Open is most accessible to new audiences. 

“We look at the data of fans attending during Fan Week, and half of the people, according to our most recent research, identify as people of color,” said Nicole Kankam, managing director of pro tennis marketing and entertainment for the USTA. “The US Open is already fairly diverse, but Fan Week itself is even more diverse, and we are bringing in a whole new crop of fans who are getting the chance to see the best tennis players up close and personal. There’s nothing else like that.”

For the Open, that means adding even more events to Fan Week, including a Friday night block party with DJs D-Nice and Beverly Bond and a Monday silent disco. For the USTA and the tennis center itself, it means considering new opportunities for Arthur Ashe Stadium, like the Fortnite World Cup esports finals in 2019 or All Elite Wrestling’s AEW Grand Slam events from 2021 through 2024.

With the US Open more regularly crossing into other corners of culture, and its facilities filling needs in Queens for events typically reserved for Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Long Island’s UBS Arena, or New Jersey’s Prudential Center—all smaller than Arthur Ashe Stadium’s 23,771 indoor capacity—the USTA’s team sees an opportunity to market its facility beyond the tennis calendar.

“Because we cater to everyone, whether you’re a tennis fan or not. I like to tell people we’re a food and wine festival and, by the way, we play tennis,” said Chris Studley, managing director of event services at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. “It’s a little tongue-in-cheek there, but it’s so true, because we’re trying to find a new fan and introduce tennis to the folks that may not have come out, and this is a way for people to find our site.”

A breath of fresh air

If the tennis center does become a concert and entertainment hub, it can trace its upward trajectory back to the pandemic.

Studley noted that during the pandemic, as a rare outdoor facility with a roof in New York City, organizations began approaching the USTA to hold socially distanced events. Schools throughout the region asked them to hold outdoor graduations, and, once parents and students arrived at the facility, they wanted to come back for the US Open. That, he said, helped fuel the enthusiastic post-pandemic response to Fan Week.

They also got a glimpse at how easy it was to reach the facility. Fans have known for years to catch the 7 train into Willets Point. However, when the Long Island Railroad stop that served the tennis center on game days became a full-time stop for a pandemic-era vaccination center in 2021 and then, by public demand in 2023, it got even easier to access the site.

Now, with Major League Soccer’s New York City FC opening its Etihad Park nearby in 2028 and a casino potentially being built near the Mets’ CitiField, there’s potential for even more visitor traffic in the area—with a window for outdoor events from roughly April through mid-October.

“People are traveling to events, people see Queens as a viable opportunity to host events,” Studley said. 

Team sport

Much like its regional competitors at MSG Entertainment or Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment, the USTA has no shortage of deep-pocketed brand supporters willing to serve gaps in the local entertainment landscape.

Kankam noted that sponsor J.P. Morgan Chase has previously backed the USTA’s Sounds of the Open concert series, while noting that relative newcomers, including Aperol and Dobel Tequila, may have an interest in attaching themselves to shows at the tennis center. 

Meanwhile, the USTA works closely with New York City Tourism + Conventions to see if there’s an opportunity for it to host entertainment connected to larger events (think the 2026 World Cup, which holds its finals in New Jersey), bringing in production partners for the finer details. Having worked at Atlantic Records and MTV before her time at the USTA, Kankam hasn’t so much returned to those roots as they’ve returned to her and the tennis center.

“We have seen where folks want to be associated with the US Open or, in the case of the Alicia Keys collaboration last year, where it was great being called to put a spotlight on her musical and creating music,” Kankam said. “People are looking at when the eyes of the world are on the US Open and looking at it as a place to see and be seen.”