Quaint Wimbledon traditions like tennis whites, strawberries and cream, and the overnight queue for affordable same-day tickets overshadow one fact: The tennis tournament is a money-making blockbuster.
Wimbledon will generate well more than half a billion dollars in revenue in this year’s two-week annual championship ending Sunday. Last year the London finals pulled in £409 million, or $555 million at current exchange rates. That’s up 7% from 2023 and is 162% greater than a decade ago, according to reports filed by The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC), which operates the tournament and the playing grounds. AELTC shares 90% of its Wimbledon profits with The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), Great Britain’s governing body for tennis.
Not surprisingly in this day and age, the bulk of Wimbledon’s revenue comes from media contracts, which account for just under half of the total—mainly from ABC and ESPN parent Walt Disney Co. in the U.S. and the BBC in the U.K. Ticket sales and marketing partners (those “official supplier of…”) are the two other primary sources of revenue, though their contribution isn’t specified.
Broadcast revenue will likely help Wimbledon continue to grow. Current U.K. broadcast rights holder BBC pays about £60 million ($82 million) for Wimbledon annually through 2027, with rights then set to go up for bidding. Interest is expected to be strong, with Sky Sports and TNT Sports, which currently shares rights with the BBC, interested in expanding their tennis portfolios. Still, a U.K. law saying culturally important sporting events must be available on a free broadcast in the country will probably tamp down bidding to some extent.
The BBC said 225 million hours of Wimbledon were watched over the two weeks last year, with the U.K. audience peaking at 7.5 million for the men’s final in which Carlos Alcaraz defeated Novak Djokovic, and at 4.1 million for the women’s final, won by Barbora Krejcikova for her first Wimbledon title. ESPN has American rights through 2035.
The half-billion-dollar haul for a two-week tournament isn’t unique in tennis. The USTA generated $581 million in 2023, its most recent disclosed year, the vast majority from the U.S. Open in Queens, N.Y. Like the U.S. Open, Wimbledon’s big cost is providing sizable purses to attract tennis’ best talent. This year’s prize pot is £53.5 million, up from £50 million last year, with the men’s and women’s champs receiving £3 million apiece. Alcaraz is the favorite to win the men’s tournament for the third straight year; Amanda Anisimova will face No. 8 Iga Świątek in the women’s final. The lowest winnings are £4,500, split by the winners of first-round mixed doubled pairs, according to this year’s prize money table.
And what about croquet, the other sport the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club supports? While the leisurely lawn game is still played at Wimbledon, it has yet to catch broadcasters’ eyes. Non-Wimbledon tournament revenue of the group was just $709,000 last year.
(This story has been updated in the penultimate paragraph with the results of the women’s semifinals.)
