Breaking records on YouTube for the Australian Open 2026
CHALLENGE
Our long-term client, the Australian Open, has seen incredible results in previous years, but they came to us with a major ambition: to deliver the highest viewership and engagement generating tournament period in all of tennis on YouTube.
With limitations around broadcast rights and geo-restrictions, we had to develop a content strategy across VoD, Shorts and live streams that maximised the geographies we had access to, the timeframes in which we could publish content, and the footage available to us. This was no easy task, with many broadcast partners across the globe holding the short-term rights to match footage after play had finished – the period when viewer interest is at its highest.
The goal became even more challenging with the addition of geo-restricted sponsored content taking over the majority of the Shorts we published — the primary driver of viewership during any in-tournament period.
SOLUTION
We worked out a dynamic strategy for content publication surrounding match highlights. Various lengths, released in different geographies that suited the restrictions we had to maximise the exposure that the Australian Open’s content had globally. This was complimented by the match-based content that was produced, such as on-court interviews and memorable moments, and the non-match-based content like the Bluezone show, and the Pod Laver Arena podcast. These alternative content types expanded our reach across various audience types. This year's event introduced a viral new format, the 1 Point Slam, which had massive success due to its innovative style of presenting tennis to the audience. This marked one of tennis’ most prevalent social-first formats.
Working with strategic agility, our content publication plan was adapted several times throughout the in-tournament period to favour content that would help us achieve such a lofty goal, based on data-led insights which we reviewed and reported daily.
The result? Australian Open’s 2026 Summer of Tennis recorded over half a billion views and has become the most successful Grand Slam on YouTube in history, extending their lead as the most viewed tennis channel on the platform.
With a team that worked around-the-clock to ensure all content was optimised and published. Thumbnails were optimised to maximise click-through rates, and the editorial was optimised to increase audience retention. With this attention to detail for each piece of content, we were able to achieve record-breaking results and solidify our position as in-tournament content strategy specialists.
results
526m On-Channel Views
9m Hours of Watch Time
1900 videos published
1.5m Likes
170k New Subscribers
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