Intro

Owned and operated by ATP Media, Tennis TV is the official live video streaming service of the ATP World Tour. Broadcasting up to 2,000 ATP World Tour tennis matches each year, Tennis TV is available as a multi-device offering across web, smartphones, tablets, Apple TV, and other streaming devices and is also accessible through the ATP World Tour and tournament websites.

The BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open, presented by Itau, are two of the most popular events in the ATP World Tour calendar, and Tennis TV’s goal was to use Facebook to increase interest and drive tune-in to these events among tennis fans and create awareness of their product.

Goals

Strategy

Being a live-streaming platform, Tennis TV has unique access and rights to tennis content across the globe as well as a wealth of archive video content.

After spending time testing different types of posting strategies, Tennis TV identified video as a key driver in increasing reach and engagement among their fans. As well as creating daily wrap-up videos, Tennis TV gave fans near real-time replays of unmissable moments throughout the tournament and used Facebook Live to give fans exclusive access to their favorite players.

During the two tournaments, Tennis TV posted 212 videos and 32 Facebook Live broadcasts to give fans a first-hand look at major moments from the day’s matches, generating 26 million views and 235 thousand hours of total watch time.

Tennis TV also broadcasted live tennis matches on Facebook for the first time ever, with 957k people tuning in to watch Rafael Nadal and Bernard Tomic take on Pablo Carreno-Busta and João Sousa in a doubles match at the BNP Paribas Open. In total, fans were treated to four live matches throughout the month-long campaign, with 3.7m unique fans tuning in to consume a total of 22,436 hours of live content.

Results

Tennis TV saw a 377% increase in Facebook Page Likes compared to the same period last year with 73% of new users being under the age of 35. Tennis TV was also able to grow its reach by 221% year-on-year and engage 276% more fans. 61% of all engaged users were under 35.

“We’re really pleased with the excellent results from this campaign which highlights the strength of targeting tennis fans with rich and relevant video content before, during, and after key ATP World Tour tournaments. We’re committed to staying ahead of the curve and growing tennis audiences globally. Working closely with Facebook and our partners to optimize the ATP Media content offering has not only helped to increase the reach of our tournaments beyond our current user base but, in attracting new audiences of a younger demographic. The next phases of the strategy will see partnerships with our broadcasters on joined-up social media campaigns in their territories.”

Stuart Taylor, Digital Director at ATP Media