Wimbledon won’t allow influencers following US Open distractions
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Jason Fitz and Coley Harvey react to Wimbledon announcing that they won't allow influencers and content creators following numerous issues that influencers created at the 2026 US Open. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
Wimbledon does not plan on providing credentials to influencers next summer in hopes of avoiding the issues that have affected this year's US Open, according to the Press Association.
Players such as Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff have called for spectators to follow the sports etiquette after matches were interrupted.
It has become incredibly divisive, wildly at this point, that we've seen this story become such a viral story, which makes sense because it involves influencers.
But Coley, this is quite simple to me.
US Open turned around and said, "We're gonna invite a bunch of influencers to come in and show a different side of our sport to a different audience.
It's gonna help broaden the entire spectrum of audience that we have."
And now all of a sudden, I don't know why we're surprised, those influencers don't seem to necessarily be respectful of the, the, the, the traditions of tennis.
The tennis side doesn't seem to be really respectful of the influencers, and it's turned into a massive nightmare out of the gates.
I think the hard part is that there's somewhat disrespect by everybody involved in it, intentional or not.
Like, if you're an influencer, it's disrespectful to treat tennis the way that you're treating it.
You were invited there.
You can handle it with a certain level of coo- You could, but you choose not to, and I understand that.
That's just how you do your business.
But you, you took the invite.
Take the gig, do the gig the right way.
I see that.
I also see where for tennis, and you look around and you say, "Okay, we wanna grow to a younger audience," and you get talked into influencers.
The minute you make that deal, I don't wanna say it's a deal with the devil 'cause it's not.
I'm not This is not anti-influencer at all.
You are making a creative deal to bring them in to do their thing.
I don't know how you can be surprised when their thing doesn't really align with your thing.
I don't know how you can be surprised when they're doing things a little bit more aggressively, when their lights are on during the matches, when they're filming content everywhere they go.
Like, I don't know how you can be surprised when you welcome them.
You have to, you have to know their work.
You have, before they even walk in, you're looking at it and saying, "I want this influencer, because I want their audience, and also they align with my priorities."
If they don't, like I have said this a million times.
When I first got to ESPN, the first time I ever hosted First Take, they wouldn't let me take my jacket off because I have tattoos, and they didn't want my tattoos on air.
That was 2017, 2018 at ESPN.
Now McAfee stands up in a tank top and his tattoos show every day because you have to make certain concessions when you want audience.
You want that audience to come to you.
ESPN's changed.
Media has changed over the last several years because of some of these acquisitions that are made.
Tennis can't half-ass this change.
Either you're bringing the influencers in with the audience that they have because you wanna grow, which is fine, or you don't bring them in because you're gonna keep doing things the way that you do them.
You don't, in my opinion, get to bring influencers in, Coley, and then the first thing you do is cut 'em off at the knees and say, "Well, don't do this, this, this, this, this, this."
No.
You are bringing them in to acquire their audience.
If you don't like the way that goes, that's on you for not doing enough research before they walked into the room to who their audience is, how they get that audience, and how they act in front of that audience.
