When the dust finally settles in the days after Sunday’s eagerly awaited US Open men’s final, the United States Tennis Association will issue its annual victory-lap press release. It will tout another record-setting Open: more than a million fans through the gates, unprecedented social-media engagement, double-digit growth in food and beverage sales, and hundreds of celebrities packed into suites from Rolex to Ralph Lauren. It will beam about growing the game, championing diversity and turning Flushing Meadows into a pop-culture destination.
But for all the milestones the USTA is preparing to celebrate, this year’s tournament will be remembered for a different kind of first: the governing body’s lamentable decision to ask broadcasters not to show dissent against Donald Trump. In making that pre-emptive concession, the USTA has committed an unforced error that can’t be undone: sacrificing authenticity and credibility in order to shield a politician – any politician, regardless of party, ideology or affiliation – from the sound of public disapproval.
According to internal emails obtained by outlets including PA and Bounces, the USTA instructed its television partners to “refrain from showcasing any disruptions or reactions” when Trump appears on screen during Sunday’s final. A separate note reminded staff he would be seated in Rolex’s suite as a client guest. The 11-word statement to the Guardian on Saturday night from a USTA spokesperson – “We regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions” – is so weak it could buckle under the weight of its own hypocrisy. (Rolex did not respond to a request for comment.)
This is, after all, the same tournament that happily televised a climate protester gluing himself to a seat for nearly an hour during Coco Gauff’s semi-final win over Karolina Muchova two years ago, along with countless other fan disturbances. The same tournament that shrugs at the drunken buffoonery behind its US Bro-pen reputation. The Open practically invented televising distractions. Chaos is its brand. For the USTA to draw the line at showing boos for a sitting president is not “policy consistency” but capitulation.
And to what end? Because of the fear that Trump – once a fixture at the US Open but loudly booed on his last visit in 2015, three months after announcing his first presidential campaign – may once again be exposed as unpopular before a global audience? Because of the fear that a chorus of jeers could overshadow the match itself? But that fear misunderstands both sport and democracy.
Crowd dissent on broadcasts is not a breakdown of civic order. It is its expression. Then UK home secretary Theresa May was booed at the 2012 London Paralympics. French president Emmanuel Macron was whistled during the 2023 Rugby World Cup opening ceremony in Paris. In the US, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is all but guaranteed a chorus of boos during public appearances, and that’s practically a standing ovation next to the venom reserved for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman from fans. And Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have been given hostile receptions by sports crowds. Somehow the United Kingdom, France and the United States survived those incidents intact.
That the USTA thinks Trump must be insulated from reality hints at something darker. It is reminiscent of regimes where the leader’s image must be protected from public ridicule. It shows how much Trump’s first term – and his bullying of cultural institutions – still shapes behavior. In his first presidency, he was broadly reviled by athletes and sports bodies. Now, as Tom Dart wrote before this year’s Super Bowl, he is increasingly accommodated or treated with silence.
The Open is supposed to be New York’s tournament, brash and democratic, rowdy and unfiltered, vibrant and exuberantly multicultural, where the crowd is as much a character as the players on the court. By sanitizing its reaction, the USTA isn’t just shielding Trump. It is stripping the event of its unique character, authenticity and integrity.
That irony cuts even deeper because the Open has always been at the forefront of progress. It was the first of the majors to award equal prize money to women and men, long before other sports caught up. It platformed, embraced and celebrated LGBTQ+ athletes decades before it was fashionable to do so, from Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova in the 1970s to Renée Richards breaking ground as one of the first transgender athletes in professional tennis, to Open Pride nights today. And this year’s theme, “75 years of breaking barriers”, honors Althea Gibson, who in 1950 became the first Black player to compete at the tournament’s predecessor, the US nationals, and went on to clear a path for generations of Black players who followed. Her story is literally built into the grounds this fortnight, from the banners and installations designed by Melissa Koby – the first Black artist to create the Open’s theme art – to the constant reminders that the sport has prided itself on inclusion.
From a Maga vantage point, of course, it probably looks like the Woke Super Bowl: King’s name on the gates, Gibson’s silhouette over Ashe Stadium, Serena and Venus Williams lionized, rainbow-tinged “Open Pride” nights, and a governing body trumpeting diversity at every turn. Which, if we’re being honest, may be one reason Trump is showing up in the first place: a 4D chess move with the intent of turning a tennis match into another battleground of grievance. Getting booed by thousands of fans drinking $23 vodka-lemonades won’t exactly be a bad look for his base, especially in a corrupt, disgusting hellhole like New York.
Fans will still do what fans do. If they want to boo, they will boo. But millions at home may never see it, thanks to a governing body that has chosen to act less like a guardian of sport and more like a nervous producer of campaign stagecraft. For a sport that prides itself on honesty and clarity – the ball is in or out – it is a shameful retreat.
