Morning, afternoon, evening everyone. Welcome to the 93rd edition of The SEG3 Report!

For this week’s edition: We dive into the Australian Open’s one-point, one-million dollar masterclass in format-led innovation after Tennis Australia’s success transforming qualifying week with the 1 Point Slam.

Without further ado, let’s get into it ⤵️

The first slam of 2026 kicked off last week - but it wasn’t the qualifiers that drew the crowds, or caught the eye on socials; that honour went to the 1 point slam (1PS).

In case any of you missed it, it was a pretty simple idea; one-point, amateurs and pros all able to take part, and a cool $1m dollars to be won.

No re-runs were allowed, players pride was on the line, and there was every chance an upset could occur.

And lo and behold, an amateur beat the world number one and won the whole thing. Poetic. The content and marketing teams couldn’t have pictured a better ending…

But despite the on-court success, I wanted to talk about 1PS, and why it’s a great example that you don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel to be able to get fans engaged, create value for your commercial partners, and build momentum ahead of your key moments in the calendar.

We’ve talked about the Australian Open’s (AO) willingness to experiment before (check out Edition #43 for more) - but the difference this time is that the driver of innovation wasn’t new technology or platforms. It was a change in format.

And it was these small tweaks in format, built with entertainment & shareability at their core, that made 1PS such a hit with stadium goers, but also those at home.

And I think that’s one of the biggest wins from 1PS for AO; it delivered for more than one audience at once.

If you were in the stadium, it perhaps felt closer to an exhibition. Music, reactions, risk-taking shots (amateurs hitting tweeners vs pros), and a crowd that was primarily there to be entertained first and foremost. As we know, that promise of an entertaining experience, akin to what the ECB do with The Hundred vs Test Cricket, or Baller League within small-sided football, attracts a very different audience to the traditional sport.

At the same time, the format was clearly built with social in mind. One rally deciding everything is basically a highlight by default - giving the AO an arsenal of quick, chaotic, high-energy, and easy to follow clips they can use to build awareness, interest and momentum online during opening week, with the objective of activating Kia (the partner) in a creative way, and hopefully supercharging the official tournament attendance and viewership.

There was no need to understand why the umpire was saying love, or what deuce was. The 1 point slam was self-explanatory, the length of game easily consumable, and the high probability of David knocking out Goliath added a level of entertainment/suspense not typically seen in early rounds of tennis tournaments.

And so, the result was fans in the stadium witnessing a great spectacle, but the content captured also had the right DNA that it could easily travel outside of typical tennis circles.

That simplicity matters when interest is either won or lost in seconds in today’s world, so having a light entry-point for newcomers into the AO ecosystem like 1PS can help to capture those audiences that would’ve leaked out of the funnel should they not have had a more light-touch option.

The tournament does have ground passes, but these are a hot commodity, and tickets for the main draw are often prohibitively expensive, pricing many people out.

Finding a solution that maintains the premium feeling to attending a major event, like a slam, whilst giving people an entry point at a more affordable level, is going to be a crucial balancing act for any major event organiser over the coming years if they want to maintain attendances and keep growing their audience.

That’s backed up by a recent Nielsen & SIG report saying “across every age group, affordability emerged as the number one concern for 67% of fans”.

So given the AO had a record-breaking attendance for opening week (218k attendees in 2026 vs 116k last year), it shows that the demand is there for sportainment experiences if they can be priced at affordable levels.

One of the hardest things for any major tournament is pulling people in before it gets to the games that will actually decide the winner.

So ‘Qualifying Week’ underwent a makeover, and ‘Opening Week’ was born, with 1PS becoming the core attraction for that week.

It gave fans an excuse to turn up early, access to a format they couldn’t see elsewhere, and the chance to see many of the big names be ousted by the local tennis coach. Jeopardy they wouldn’t find in the traditional tournament.

And of course fans being on-site early means…

The real brilliance behind it is that 1PS is new IP for AO to commercialise, but it doesn’t cannibalise the main event, nor does it require any further investment or infrastructure than is already being used for the main event the following week. All whilst now being able to:

In essence, by prioritising entertainment, the AO has created a new entry point for casual fans to experience tennis and engage with sponsors in a way the traditional product simply couldn’t deliver authentically, or within the same timeframe. 

When thinking about innovation, there’s often the desire to build ‘net-new’; a new app, a new platform, or something that lives off to the side and needs explaining or funding.

What I think Tennis Australia have done extremely well is create new IP in 1PS that appeals to an entertainment-first audience, without sacrificing what has made AO successful.

The core fan still gets elite tennis and tradition, whilst the newer or more casual fan gets something faster and more digestible.

And crucially, this wasn’t achieved by throwing more money at the problem, but by using what was already going to be in play for the main event. The same courts, the same stars etc - and a good dose of creativity.

That creativity has now given them new IP, new sponsor inventory, and a way to reach fans that the traditional product struggled to talk to.

So whilst change and evolution for new generations is necessary, sometimes innovation isn’t about contorting your flagship product to fit every audience, but about adding a side door for new audiences to enter through, without ever closing the front door on your core fan.

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That’s all for now everyone - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report, and if you found it of interest, please do consider sharing with a colleague or friend!