Australian Open Just The Beginning For Brands Hoping To Ace 2024

As the superstars of world tennis prepare to start their Australian Open campaign, this January marks the beginning of a blockbuster year of sport across Nine’s assets to serve up a grand slam of marketing opportunities for brands.

Nothing unites millions of Australians like sport, and with the Australian Open extended to a historic 15-day feast of the world’s best tennis, Nine will serve up the biggest marketing platform for brands to ace the start of 2024.

With Qantas Frequent Flyer and Uber unveiled as the major partners for this year’s Open, a line-up of some of Australia’s most recognised brands have signed on as sponsors, including APT Luxury Travel, Bunnings Warehouse, Bupa, Chemist Warehouse, Domain, Chubb Insurance, Google, Kia, Peters Ice Cream, Stan, McDonald’s and Visit Victoria, who will all leverage the full suite of Nine’s Summer of Tennis premium assets.

To further support Tennis Australia’s official group of partner brands, Nine will be showcasing the on-ground Melbourne Park activations for Ralph Lauren, Aperol, LifeSpace and Mastercard via its customised Extender level.

With more than 11.7 million Total TV viewers tuning into last year’s Australian Open, unleashing the marketing power of tennis is the ultimate platform for brands wanting to connect with Australians with the help of the Wide World of Sports.

January marks the beginning of a massive year of sport that will take in all four Grand Slams, the NRL and NRLW, the men’s and women’s State of Origin series, the Olympics and Paralympics, the Gangwon Youth Winter Games, the UEFA Champions League final, Bledisloe Cup, US Masters and Australian Open Golf, the Doha long course swimming championships and the Brisbane Olympic swimming trials as well as a raft of other sporting events.

With brands leveraging off Nine’s unrivalled combined assets spanning Total Television, Publishing, Digital and Audio, Australia’s greatest sporting epic staged every January gives brands the advantage to ace the new year with an unparalleled audience.

For the first time, Google has joined the Summer of Tennis this year to launch their Google Pixel 8 Pro. Nine’s approach to working with brands in the sporting arena draws on ground-breaking ways to tell a brand’s story in the most effective way possible, and there is no better way to show the power of tennis than with an integration showing never before captured vision courtside from the Pixel 8 Pro.

There will also be a disruptive TVC that takes the renowned element of silence in tennis to demonstrate the new phone’s audio editing feature.

Meanwhile, Visit Victoria shows the state is ‘every bit different’ with a series of disruptive TVCs putting iconic Victorian sights on the court. Visit Vic will also present a highly anticipated brand new edition of Andy Lee’s The Hundred at The AO.

This year will see Nine’s on-ground studio, Court 9, relocate to an exciting new location in between Rod Laver and Grand Slam oval. This new location centres Nine in the heart of Melbourne Park central to tens of thousands of fans as they explore the festival of Tennis that is the AO.

From a special edition of Tennis, Brought To You By Good Weekend magazine to special 9Podcasts and seamless brand integration throughout the broadcast, partners have an entire ecosystem to reach Nine’s 20 million signed in users.

“Nine’s Summer of Tennis engages with millions of Australians, culminating in the pinnacle and world’s best grand slam, the Australian Open. Starting for the first time on a Sunday, the AO continues to provide brands the ultimate launch platform to start their year and environment to engage with fans. We are thrilled to see our returning partners and the addition of new brands capitalising on our exclusive platform as we head into Nine’s biggest year of sport,” said Matt Granger, Nine’s director of sales – sport, Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“Nine’s 2024 Summer of Tennis will be an intrigue-loaded event for Aussie audiences and brand partners. If history tells us anything, it’s that there’s always another outstanding generation to redefine the game, delivering an even more exciting competition to watch, with a dynamic mix of creative, young players challenging the status quo. That generation is here and they are dominating now. We can’t wait to see records broken this year!” said Nine’s director of content partnerships – sport, Olympic and Paralympic Games, Anne Gruber.