Mixed doubles has, in many cases, stopped being a secondary draw and become a tool for activating a tournament before the main competition begins. In tennis, several events have started using it as a showcase in the days leading up to the start of the main draw, with a very clear goal: to give the event more visibility before singles begins, attract greater media and commercial attention, and extend the public conversation from the start of the week. The most visible change has been in the names involved. Where doubles specialists once dominated, figures from the singles circuit now appear, such as Carlos Alcaraz, Emma Raducanu, Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, Daniil Medvedev and Mirra Andreeva.

Mixed doubles has begun to be packaged as a shorter, more concentrated and easier-to-consume competition, with shorter matches, less fragmented scheduling and a greater ability to retain viewers. Tournaments have found in it a useful formula to fill seats, activate sponsors earlier and reduce the audience drop-off that had characterised the previous format. At the same time, that revaluation of mixed doubles coincides with a broader trend in international sport: the International Olympic Committee -IOC- has spent years pushing mixed events as a tool for gender equality, but also as a route towards competitive innovation and as a format with a stronger fit for television.

Tennis turns mixed doubles into an opening-week product

The US Open has been the clearest example of that transformation. In its latest major push for mixed doubles, it multiplied the prize for the winning pair by five, from $200,000 to $1 million, and distributed a total of $4.5 million among all participants. That increase was decisive in attracting stars from the singles circuit and turning the draw into a recognisable product for the wider public. The result was immediate off the court as well: the event drew 78,000 spectators on site over the two days of competition, was broadcast by 17 networks across 170 countries, and generated 13 hours of coverage on ESPN.

The impact was also visible in digital consumption and in the format’s commercial appeal. The US Open app and website recorded 2.2 million visits, more than double the previous edition, and generated more than 11.6 million views, a 94 per cent increase year on year. Digital coverage on YouTube reached 12.8 million views in a single day, while average time spent per user rose above seven minutes, 30 per cent higher than the industry average. In that context, brands found a much clearer platform for activation. Vital Proteins became the official sponsor of the tournament’s mixed doubles and used the exposure for on-court activations, live podcasts, tastings and VIP experiences, a sign that the new mixed format is no longer seen as a minor add-on, but as a space with value of its own.

Indian Wells and the United Cup extend the format’s reach

The US Open model has already found an echo in other tournaments. Indian Wells used the same logic by turning the Eisenhower Cup, previously a pre-tournament exhibition, into a higher-profile mixed event for spectators and brands. The competition was played in a single night and offered $200,000 to the winning pair, with a field that included teams such as Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud, while Elena Rybakina and Taylor Fritz ended up taking the title. The official mixed doubles draw at the BNP Paribas Open also increased its economic scale: the purse tripled to $1 million, with $468,000 going to the winners, Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli.

The United Cup went a step further by making male and female participation a central part of the tournament’s competitive identity. Its national-team format places it on a different ground from that of a simple pre-event exhibition. In its latest edition, it offered a minimum prize money pool of $11.8 million, up from $11.1 million in 2025, although still well short of the $15 million offered in the inaugural 2023 edition, a drop of 21.3 per cent from that starting point.

The IOC strengthens mixed events as a tool for equality, innovation and television

That movement in tennis fits into a line of work the IOC has been developing for years within the Olympic programme. The organisation has promoted mixed events above all for gender equality, but not only for that reason. It also presents them as a sign of format innovation, as competitions that are more unpredictable and exciting through to the end, and as a way to make the sporting product more understandable and attractive for fans, broadcasters and younger audiences. Kit McConnell, the IOC’s Sports Director, summed that up with a very clear idea when he argued that these events “truly embody the equality of male and female athletes on the field of play”. Andy Murray, during the Tokyo competition, went as far as calling them “a huge asset”.

The numerical evolution of the Olympic programme supports that push. The London 2012 Games featured eight mixed events; Tokyo 2020 raised that figure to 18; and Paris 2024 took it to 22 within the first Summer Olympic programme with exact 50 per cent participation between men and women and a total athlete quota of 10,500. That growth includes disciplines such as mixed doubles in tennis, mixed doubles in badminton, the mixed 4×400 relay in athletics, the mixed relay in triathlon, the mixed team event in judo, the mixed 4×100 medley relay in swimming, mixed doubles in table tennis, the mixed team event in archery, several mixed shooting events and the mixed 470 event in sailing. The expansion also extends to the Winter Games, with cases such as the mixed relay in biathlon, mixed doubles in curling, the mixed team event in ski jumping, the mixed relay in short track and mixed team snowboard cross.

The IOC’s push has not been limited to adding new events; it has also affected the television architecture of the Games. At Tokyo 2020, the organisation redesigned the schedule to balance the visibility of women and men across the most important slots in the programme. The contrast with Rio 2016 was clear: on the final Sunday of competition, Rio had concentrated 27 hours of men’s competition and just two hours of women’s competition, while Tokyo shifted that balance to 13 hours for men and 17 for women. In the medal distribution on the final day, Rio offered 10 men’s medal events and two women’s, while Tokyo moved to five and eight respectively. The balance also improved on both the middle and final weekends. That reorganisation helps explain why the mixed format is attracting increasingly varied sports properties: in tennis, it helps ignite the tournament early with stars, brands and media noise; in the Olympic ecosystem, it helps rebalance the programme and build a competition that is more visible, more modern and better suited to television.