How social media is changing Wimbledon from eminent tournament to ‘bucket list’ event

From high-profile influencers to live ticket-queue tracking, some fear aggressive marketing is ruining championships

F rom photos of influencers in crisp white linen dresses posing in front of floral displays at Centre Court to videos promising hacks to beat the queues and secure tickets, the hype around Wimbledon has never been bigger on Instagram and TikTok.

The social media frenzy has caused concerns that Wimbledon is increasingly becoming a tourist event rather than a tennis tournament, overrun with influencers using the championship’s iconic aesthetic to build their profiles and attracting attenders more interested in dressing up and taking photos than watching the games.

Many visitors said they had been inspired by social media posts and that they were coming more to enjoy the experience than for the sport.

Wimbledon has deliberately courted influencers in recent years to shake off its reputation for exclusivity and gain relevance for a younger generation.

Wimbledon’s director of marketing, Usama Al-Qassab, said the approach was working, with visitors “generally inching about a year younger year on year” over the past decade, and now averaging at mid-40s for those who obtain tickets in the ballot and about 35 in the queue.

Wimbledon works with content creators in the run-up to the tournament, but most people are invited by brands, he said. This year Wimbledon invited 12 people to attend the event from Japan, Germany and India, countries where it was hoping to boost awareness. In recent years the tournament has had a “slight growth in international attendees”, saidAl-Qassab, reaching 20% of the total.

Although some heritage sports tournaments do not permit cameras or telephones, such as the Masters golf championship at Augusta National in the US, Wimbledon allowed people to use their phones as it was “bucket list”, he said.

Al-Qassab said demand for the event had surged in recent years, with ballot tickets becoming more competitive. The first week this year reached nearly 300,000 visitors, making it busier than the first week in 2025, which was a record year.

He added that the All England Club’s planned expansion was intended to respond to the demand. “There is this appetite which we are struggling to [meet] without that opportunity,” he said.

Wimbledon’s growth reflects the explosion in popularity of tennis, with the number of people who play the game globally rising by nearly a quarter in the five years preceding 2024. The sport has been further boosted through films such as Challengers starring Zendaya in 2024, and the Tenniscore fashion trend on TikTok and Instagram.

Leah Gillooly, a former Wimbledon umpire who studies sports marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University, said her research into the queue suggested it had become younger, more international and busier in recent years and that people were arriving much earlier to gain entry.

She said: “That’s probably driven [by] social media … People are talking about how this is an amazing experience almost like being at a festival.

Gillooly said you could follow accounts on social media where tracking your queue card number was like “a badge of honour” which heightened the sense that Wimbledon was “a really desirable thing”.

Joanna Hughston, the marketing lead at the sports-focused Goat Agency, said brands know “a lot of eyes are on Wimbledon” and invite influencers and content creators to expand their reach in a way traditional sports sponsorship no longer does.

“For better and worse, in a way, [Wimbledon] has become more of a tourist attraction,” she said. “[It’s] driven by social media and celebrity, fashion, food and the culture that’s happening around Wimbledon itself.”

Sebastian Melrose, a professional racing driver and influencer with 383,000 followers on Instagram, was invited to Wimbledon by Evian. Although he hasn’t watched live tennis before, he felt Wimbledon suited his profile because he considered himself to be a “high-end creator, [who] works with high-end brands, that visually look good”, with his “quite aesthetic” post from the event reaching 54,000 views – more than his recent posts from Le Mans, despite Formula One being his main focus.

Lauren Siegel, who researches the role of social media in driving tourism, said Wimbledon was another example of how “people that may not have been interested in tennis or sports are now a lot more motivated to document that they were there and be part of that peer group or social status”.

She added that Wimbledon matched the “Instagram aesthetic”, including the all-white outfits, strawberries and cream, with its colourful flowers and aspirational connotations.

Mark Borkowski, a sports PR, said Wimbledon had “always been a social event”, and that the era of corporate hospitality, newspaper attention and celebrity spotting in the 1990s had evolved into social media and influencers.

The rise of social media-driven interest in tennis is felt courtside, too. The former tennis doubles champion Mike Bryan said: “From the fans, everyone’s taking shots, and are they really watching the match, or are they trying to make their channel look better?”

His brother, Bob Bryan, added: “The energy is a little different and people are more subdued because they’re capturing the moment instead of being in the moment.”