How ESPN’s Australian Open coverage left some American tennis fans cold

MELBOURNE, Australia — Tennis fans in the U.S. know the drill.

For decades, when the cold and darkness of January rolled around, they have had ESPN’s coverage of the Australian Open to get them through the post-holiday blues.

The images of the sun-splashed blue courts and their fellow tennis lovers waltzing through Melbourne Park in shorts and T-shirts serve as a sweet, temporary antidote to the grimness of winter, alongside the best players in the world strutting their stuff 10,000 miles or more away.

This year, a good deal of American tennis fans got ready to stream the 2026 tournament through their ESPN apps, and hit a roadblock. In past years, subscribers to ESPN+ could watch most of the courts, but especially the main show courts. No longer.

Matches on the three major courts— Rod Laver Arena, Margaret Court Arena, and John Cain Arena — are now only accessible to those willing to pay an extra $30 a month for ESPN Unlimited. Cable and satellite television customers do receive ESPN Unlimited at no additional charge.

For some fans, making the upgrade caused apps to glitch or fail entirely. The additional, unheralded paywall, at least to fans who had not read the company’s pre-tournament media announcement — which does not cite the $30 figure — led to widespread anger on social media.

ESPN declined to make an executive available to discuss the decision to put streams of the show courts behind another paywall. A spokesperson said the pre-tournament announcement explained that the show courts were available on flagship channels too, but a channel can only show one or two matches at a time. Television coverage often doesn’t start until several hours into the day session in Australia, which is 16 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone and 19 ahead of the Pacific time zone.

ESPN’s coverage includes two one-hour highlight shows on the middle and final weekends, an app that allows viewers to watch four matches simultaneously and highlights and streams through Disney+ for all Disney+, Hulu and ESPN bundle subscribers.

It has also revamped its commentator roster for the Australian Open, with longtime analysts Pam Shriver, Brad Gilbert and Darren Cahill not associated with the Australian Open coverage.

Putting the stadium courts behind the paywall makes the Unlimited service more desirable. The network said it makes decisions about which events are shown on ESPN Unlimited on a sport-by-sport and event-by-event basis. The same thing could happen during Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. How much the response from tennis fans plays into that decision remains to be seen.