How Arthur Ashe became the noisiest Grand Slam venue

At Wimbledon and Roland Garros, you’ll find fans swiveling their heads from side to side as they follow the bright green tennis ball darting back and forth. And they’re doing so in a hushed stadium, with the only noise coming from the ball hitting the racket, a player’s shoes squeaking on the court, and polite applause.  

Then there’s the US Open. At the final Grand Slam of the season, eyes are on tennis, sure, but they’re also on viral drinks and flashing cameras. Much has been said about the clout-chasing influencers and visitors who increasingly fill Arthur Ashe Stadium, the tournament’s main venue, bringing ring lights, fashion-ops and lots of chatter with them—even when it’s time to serve.

The lively, albeit disruptive, atmosphere in the 23,000+-seat stadium has become both a staple of the Open and a source of anguish for fans who were used to a game played in pin-drop silence.

“It’s so loud inside Arthur Ashe Stadium that most of the time it’s almost impossible to keep track of the sound of the ball. Almost like putting the TV on mute,” one user said on X.

Another added, “Arthur Ashe is so unbelievably loud it’s insane. I started chatting with my section usher and he said that the amount of people emailing the @usopen to tell them to tell people to stfu is unprecedented and he’s never heard it this loud before in his 25 years of working there.”

But beyond mere annoyance at influencers, the discourse is spotlighting an evolving fan demographic, one that clashes with both the stadium’s design and the sport’s etiquette. With tensions coming together under one roof, the controversy is challenging what a tennis venue for today’s American fanbase can, and should, be.

The biggest stage in the world, for tennis

Tennis stadiums are structurally different from stadiums built for baseball, football, or soccer. They feature a smaller playing area, which results in steeper seating overhangs versus the expansive arena setup you find in other sports. But it’s not necessarily the structure of Arthur Ashe that is causing the noise levels, experts tell Fast Company; it’s its sheer size and capacity.

Arthur Ashe is significantly smaller than nearby stadiums (MetLife Stadium in northern New Jersey seats around 82,500, for example), but it’s a giant in tennis. It’s the largest Grand Slam stadium in the world, fitting almost 10,000 more spectators than Wimbledon’s Centre Court and the Philippe Chatrier Court at Roland Garros, site of the French Open.

According to experts, it’s the stadium’s scale that influences how noise travels within its walls. A larger venue means longer reverberation time and lower sound absorption—the physics that lead to Arthur Ashe’s signature murmur.

“Acoustically, you’ve got a lot more vocal energy that you can create in the space because of that larger number of people,” says Joe Solway, principal and senior member of the acoustics, AV, theater, and experience design team at Arup, the global architectural, engineering, and design firm.

But acoustics can explain only so much. How people behave inside the stadium is the biggest factor in determining how loud it gets.

“The concerns that people are raising aren’t really about the architecture or the acoustic design of the space,” Solway says, “but more . . . a reaction to an expectation of what the sound levels should have been in the first place.”

The issue of expectations

New Yorkers—and sports fans in general—are used to a raucous crowd during sporting events. Just this summer, the city was filled with roaring fans during the Knicks’ historic NBA Championship win. Not long after, the FIFA World Cup brought together soccer fans from across the world, with stunts like loud chants or Norway’s rowing tradition taking over in the stands.

Tennis comes with different expectations. Historically, matches are watched in near silence, and from the seats—an etiquette that is being ignored by spectators at the US Open who get up midmatch, talk during serves, and pose for pictures with active play in the background.

The complaints raised this year (and in years past, for that matter), have gone beyond social media. So much so that, for instance, the umpire had to ask the talkative public to remain quiet during a game. Aryna Sabalenka, the world’s top woman player, complained about the fresh smell of weed during her serve. Following the disturbances, other Grand Slams have updated their policies; Wimbledon, for instance, will no longer allow ring lights or accredit influencers for next year’s tournament.

But experts agree that calling out or banning disruptive behavior is not necessarily an effective solution for today’s new tennis fan base.

“I think design is always evolving to address the needs of future audiences. So we always have to constantly think, ‘What is the kind of experience that people want to have in the future versus in the past?’” says Josh Tooill, principal and senior designer at the architectural firm HKS. 

Solway and Tooill agree that material and or structural changes can only do so much. Instead, design can be used to optimize the way fans engage with the venue, and could potentially mitigate misbehavior by giving fans other opportunities to get the shot or have a conversation.

“There were certainly things around whether you create moments outside of the main [playing area] itself where people can have Instagrammable moments. That’s not going to disturb the sport that’s happening,” Solway says. 

This could include providing Instagram-friendly spots for influencers outside the seating area, or setting up photo opportunities during off-game hours.

“It’s about getting into the psychology of the behaviors that are creating sound, [whether] it’s an Instagrammable moment or a livestream,” Solway says, “then thinking through how to create opportunities for that to happen . . . without negatively impacting the players or the people that are there to watch the sport.”

In a sense, tennis hasn’t changed, and probably won’t do so anytime soon. But its audience in the U.S. has. And whether longtime fans want it or not, they are meeting loudly at Arthur Ashe.

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