The 87 per cent boom that epitomises AO's remarkable four-decade transformation

Record crowds have flooded through the gates at Melbourne Park. (Photo: The First Serve)

The very crowded house that was Rod Laver Arena on a Saturday night that included a set from, yes, Crowded House symbolises the transformation of the Australian Open from the far more modest affair it was when Flinders/Melbourne Park shared this writer's Grand Slam debut almost four decades ago.

Since 2024, Saturday night has been tournament eve for the now-15-day event, but never like this, as a fireworks display at the inaugural stand-alone opening ceremony starring Roger Federer closed what organisers have determinedly called Opening Week.

Never mind that it was really just qualifiers, exhibitions and marketing opportunities driving the lucrative quinella of content and crowds.

Massive crowds. Almost 218,000 before a main draw ball was hit on Sunday (up by 87 per cent on last year) - thus giving the fans what they want and Open organisers another victory in the inexorable and unashamed grab for an even greater slice of January territory.

As tournament director Craig Tiley told Nine, "it's about entertainment, music and food and then tennis". Three full weeks of it, as part of a plan hatched five years ago to become the biggest of its kind in the world.

The First Serve Live returns on Monday February 2nd at 8pm AEDT for its 18th year on the SEN Network/App, Australia's only dedicated weekly tennis program on commercial radio running through till the end of November.

Indeed, the event itself is almost unrecognisable from the minnow-among-the-majors that was moved after 15 years at Kooyong; it had utterly outgrown to the purpose-built facility it so badly needed, where the reinvented Open was instantly transformed.

It has been a remarkable evolution since 1988. From the unveiling of that trend-setting retractable roof to monster infrastructure developments across the ever-expanding precinct, while the courts themselves transitioned from Kooyong's traditional grass to green hardcourts and then to blue.

The 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash, a singles finalist at both the old site's farewell final and the new venue's first, was a fan of Rebound Ace but not the controversial and short-lived Nassau balls, and says now that he was aware of what was possible, without quite realising what a colossus the tournament would become.

"Everybody shows up" these days, notes Federer, having been impressed by innovations including Wednesday's prime time climax of the wildly successful (if, arguably, overly lengthy) million-dollar One Point Slam.

"I knew the vision of where the courts would go and the opportunities and the space that they had to do this sort of stuff, but didn't quite see it as 'Times Square', which is what I call (the AO) now," Cash told The First Serve.

"I think Wimbledon is class, the US Open of course is what it is, and the French Open's got its own feel, so all the Slams have got their feel, and I like that.

"You go to the Australian Open, and you know people just have a great time. A great party. It's a festival with tennis happening in it as opposed to the rest of the Slams (which are) a tennis festival."

Similarly, as the esteemed Sports Illustrated writer Jon Wertheim recently wrote, the AO "can sometimes feel like a music festival in the middle of one of the great cities of the world—with some tennis tacked on".

"It's a beer event, not a champagne event," added Wertheim, while advising that there's plenty of both available on Grand Slam Oval, and suggesting readers "contemplate how a country with a smaller population than Texas can put on a national event of this scope and scale". It's a good point.

The growth has been phenomenal. In 1988, there was one roofed stadium, finals were daytime affairs, food options were usually fast rather than gourmet or Michelin-starred, and there was a single player restaurant rather than an entire complex dedicated to the athletes' every taste/comfort/desire. 

Grand Slam Oval (1996) and John Cain Arena (2000) were yet to be born, let alone the family-friendly AO Ballpark along Birrarung Marr and Gen Z-focused TopCourt. Etc, etc.

For better or worse, it was all about the tennis, which was officially confined to 14 days. Then again, the Olympic Games eventually realised the value of stretching the action across three weekends, and Roland-Garros started this whole extra-Sunday-land-grab among the Slams. Ker-ching. A Saturday start is surely a matter of time.

The impressive fruits of the almost-billion-dollar three-stage development of the prime CBD-adjacent site can be startling for those returning after a lengthy absence. As it was for one American journalist back for his first AO in a decade, who noted a strong "amusement park" vibe.

Yet the AO is not unique in making everything a marketing opportunity, with the big bucks flowing again after the crazy costs of the Covid years, and Tennis Australia's annual report revealing it generated almost $700 million in revenue in the 2024/25 financial year.

Qualifying? Buy a ticket and join the queues generating record numbers each day. Amazing. Merchandise? Even for Alex de Minaur's Thursday night charity exhibition against Carlos Alcaraz, there were stalls selling "limited edition" match day t-shirts ($50), tote bags and pins ($20). Limited until the next day's limited something else.

In its first year at Flinders Park, total prize money was roughly equivalent to about $4.6 million, inflation-adjusted), and wedded to a naming rights sponsor (Ford, but at least the Marlboro had been, ahem, extinguished), while a 90 per cent lift in attendance pushed the numbers through the turnstiles to 266,436.

How puny those numbers seem in 2026, with a $111.5 million purse headlined by $4.15 million for both singles champions, and last year's record crowd of 1,102,303 (inflated by 'Opening Week') already on track to be surpassed, emphatically.

"Everything about it is huge," says two-time doubles champion and 1972 singles semi-finalist Allan Stone, still commentating at both the Kooyong Classic and the AO, and the winner of Tennis Australia's 2025 Spirit of Tennis Award. "You'd have to think, 'how much more room for improvement is there in terms of room?' because there's no more space."

Cash, too, is amazed by the facilities and, unsurprisingly for a keen guitarist, excited by the rock bands. "The only thing that has disappointed me is the money going into the development of Australian juniors and young players has not kept up with the growth (of the tournament)," he said.

"It has increased. I'm not saying they've ignored it, but for such massive profits… But that's another whole subject, really."

Media-wise, players and their entourages are more cocooned, almost quarantined, than during the decades when everyone was housed under RLA and shared the same narrow hallways.

And what once was a temporary small press conference room that - given the demand for more desks for the burgeoning press pack - was replaced by an awkward theatrette that forced interviewees to stare up into bright lights, is now cinema-standard.

Yet for some tennis fans, the AO is also becoming a festival of queues, crushing crowds and rising costs (dynamic pricing for a men's final seat hit $10,000 pre-tournament), as facilities strain to accommodate the ever-growing numbers. Ground pass sales were paused due to demand before noon on Day 1.

So what of the general balance between sport and entertainment that has shifted so greatly, with one long-time photographer now describing it as "a big pub"?

As this journalist saddles up for AO No.38, let's go back to Allan Stone, who has experienced an extraordinary 60 in his lifetime as a competitor and commentator.

"I think they have got it about right," Stone told The First Serve. "But they have to keep their eye on the ball, so to speak, so it doesn't overtake the importance of the tennis."

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