It’s that time of year at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Love — or rather, 40-love, game, set, match — is in the air.
But are U.S. TV viewers enamored of Wimbledon broadcasts?
Since 2001, Wimbledon telecasts have drawn average audiences of 2 to 2.5 million viewers. Last year’s fortnight of broadcasts drew an average of 2.29 million viewers per telecast — up slightly from 2006, when 2.06 million fans tuned in, on average.
While the 2000 Wimbledon broadcasts claimed the largest U.S. audiences in recent memory (4.07 million viewers per telecast), the early Eighties remain the true glory days of televised lawn tennis in the U.S. The 1980 and 1981 championships claimed the largest TV audiences to date, with 8.42 million and 7.98 million average viewers, respectively, per telecast.
View Nielsen’s historic Wimbledon broadcast ratings.
