Future-focused and fan-first: Craig Tiley’s bold vision for the Australian Open

Craig Tiley wants to make the Australian Open one of the world’s top sports entertainment events - and he’s not waiting for disruption to arrive.

“We’re trying to create our own disruption,” said Tiley, CEO of Tennis Australia, at the inaugural Sports Matters Sydney event. “If we don’t become creative as a sport, we will lose our audience.”

Tiley outlined a future-facing strategy built around personalisation, content innovation, and what he calls the “festivalisation” of tennis - transforming the Australian Open from a traditional sports event into a cultural phenomenon.

Content has been disrupted - now what?

At the core of Tiley’s vision is a radical rethink of content delivery. “The way fans consume content has been completely disrupted,” he said. “And we still have a top-down approach. That has to change.”

Tiley is pushing for a “bottom-up” content strategy built around personalisation and platform-agnostic distribution. Tennis Australia, he explained, has full production control across free-to-air, digital and streaming, with a mandate to tailor content to individual fan preferences.

One standout example? Animated match feeds - the wildly popular addition that began as an experiment, but has fast become the most-watched part of the annual summer tennis tournament.

“Our broadcast partners even picked it up. Kids went from watching live matches to watching the animation. It exploded.”

Tiley hinted at a broader plan to build a white-label content engine, giving global partners more tools to engage fans in new formats, with AI and immersive media set to play an expanding role.

Festival of sport, platform for brands

The Australian Open’s evolution is already well underway. Over the past decade, Tennis Australia has doubled down on direct fan relationships, brought production in-house and added new pillars to the Open experience: food, music, family and tech.

“We’ve added different layers so we appeal to the Fortniters and the Robloxers,” Tiley said. “Tennis is the core, but the younger fan is coming for everything else.”

The result? The youngest average audience of any Grand Slam, more than 1.2 million attendees and global broadcast reach.

“We pretty much own January,” he said. “And we’re proud to be the biggest annual sporting event in the southern hemisphere.”

The next phase of growth targets the real prize: the 99% of fans who aren’t in the stadium.

“The in-stadium audience is less than 1%,” he said. “The real revenue is the audience that’s not here. You’ve got to make sure you engage them.”

That means seamless, tech-powered experiences where fans don’t even take their phones out of their pockets - on site or online. “If they don’t get that, they’ll just enjoy the content at home,” Tiley said. “We need to make every interaction count.”

Big risks, bigger vision

Tiley said his team is planning with 2030 in mind, backed by a 15-year roadmap split into three cycles. The focus now is globalisation, innovation, and new revenue models that don’t depend on government funding.

“The challenge in five years will be access to funds,” he said. “Government support won’t flow as easily - we have to be self-sufficient.”

That mindset is shaping Tennis Australia’s appetite for innovation. “We’re going to take some big bets,” Tiley said. “And if you fail, that’s OK -just don’t do it more than twice.”

For brands, the opportunity lies in aligning with a sports property that’s actively redefining its role in the entertainment and tech ecosystem. “Sport is still the only live content where you can have real integrity,” Tiley said. “We’ve got to build on that.”

His message to marketers? Don't wait for change, be the one who drives it.