As sports rights-holders compete for cultural cachet, the Australian Open has gone on tour across the U.S.

Over the last decade, Australian Open CEO Craig Tiley has worked hard to take the first tennis grand slam event of the year from another stop on the tennis circuit to a “bucket list event,” by taking control of both media production and the cultural circus that surrounds the sport. The Australian Open is now the best-attended of tennis’s major events and produces other tournaments, such as the Laver Cup. And in support of its ongoing task to tempt more American sports fans to hop over the Pacific and attend in person, the Open’s begun staging wild card games and fan events across the U.S.

Speaking to Digiday in San Francisco, where the Laver Cup is being staged this year, Tiley explained how the Open has carved out a cultural niche.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Sports events like Formula One, soccer and tennis are now also major cultural moments. How has the Open managed to harness that?

We festivalized the sport.

We made a conscious decision to expand [the Australian Open] far beyond a tennis event — make it about an experience, make it about entertainment.

In our first year, we had over 80 bands over the course of two weeks. It’s now extended to a three-week event. We added food: the gastronomic experience in Melbourne is pretty awesome, probably among the best in the world. This year, we’re adding a beauty and wellness pillar. We dabbled a little bit in the past with Mecca Cosmetica, Australia’s largest beauty brand, and we’ll be really ramping that up this year. 

One of the challenges that I do put on the team is that the event has to be 50% different from year to year. If you come in 2025 … at a minimum, your experience is going to be completely different in 2026. If you enjoy music, if you enjoy food, if you’d like to visit Australia, then we’ve got something for you. It’s the largest event in Australia, [and ] it’s the largest annual sporting event in the southern hemisphere.

We have over 800 players that come to the Australian Open. This year, 1.2 million fans came through the gate over those three weeks. It’s the most-attended of the grand slams and we’ve built it to be about more than watching great tennis, but about having a great time. 

Is the aim to increase visitor numbers, or commercial sponsorship revenue?

In the first instance, the priority was exposure: how do we elevate and how do we amplify the AO brand to something that becomes aspirational? The first thing we really had to do was tell stories. We told those stories through gaining control of our production rights [which were previously outsourced]. That turned to partnerships. When I started 10 years ago, most of our brand partnerships were Australian.  Today, I think we only have one or two. We’ve now purposely gone after global partnerships. [Commercial partners include New Balance, Marriott, Mastercard, Chubb and Mars].

The second objective is [to] incentivize an audience to come to Melbourne. Visitation from the United States has been growing exponentially, especially from the west coast as it’s one flight to Melbourne. If you’re a die-hard tennis fan, you’re going to go to all four slams and we’re going to be on the list. People sometimes tend to wait to go to the Australian Open, because [it’s] further. But we’re finding now that more and more people want to come.

The third objective was to make sure that every player was in Australia for the entire month of January. We made a big investment in compensation prize money. Today, we offer over $120 million in prize money. You’ve got the talent there, you’ve got the platform to do it, and then you’re gonna get to the people to come.

What does the tour you’re staging in the United States do to tempt American fans to Melbourne?

In the U.S., tennis is growing. We’ve recognized that, and we want to get those tennis players to come down to the Australian Open. We’ve had launch events for the Australian Open at New York [the U.S. Open] and Indian Wells this year. You’ve got the die-hard tennis audience at them, and then potentially people there that want to have an entertainment experience. That’s what we offer.

You’re also staging an event at the Laver Cup, run by Roger Federer.

We’re in partnership with Federer and Team8 to deliver this event. It’s the Ryder Cup of tennis: Europe vs. the rest of the world. Our team does the broadcast and on-court production, a lot of operational work in partnership with them, a lot in the media, [and] media sales. 

Are you supporting that with any kind of paid media? Are there any specific channels that you lean on predominantly?

We do some. But this is the beginning of our journey with that. We lean on our existing partners. ESPN is a good example. We want to be more strategic and more purposeful with how we approach the promotion and storytelling … We’ve been very focused on building a product and building the experience. You can’t tell a story unless you have something that people want to come [to]. 

Is there enough bandwidth for every open event to become a cultural bucket list event? Aren’t you competing with Wimbledon and the U.S. Open for that status?

I think there’s a limit. [But], thirty years ago, the Australian Open wasn’t on people’s minds. In fact at one point, there was a debate as to whether or not it should be a Grand Slam. It’s not only [remained] a Grand Slam, but been made into much more.