Case Study
Lexington Open
Two weeks of pro tennis, covered in real time.
- Live Event Coverage
- Content Creation
- Influencer Activation
- Social Media Management
The need
The Lexington Open is the longest continuously running ATP Challenger tournament in the United States. Thirty-one years at the Hilary J. Boone Tennis Center, run by a 501(c)(3) built by a group of friends who wanted to give back to their city.
The alumni list reads like a who's who of modern tennis. Jannik Sinner won here in 2019. Tommy Paul, Frances Tiafoe, Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula, and João Fonseca all came through Lexington on the way up.
Most of Lexington had no idea.
2026 raised the stakes. The tournament expanded to two full weeks, a WTT W75 draw followed by an ATP M75 draw, which meant twice the matches, twice the players, and twice the story to tell. A volunteer-powered charity tournament doesn't have a social team standing by to cover fourteen days of live sport.
They needed someone courtside who could shoot it, cut it, and publish it while the matches were still being played.
What we did
We built the coverage plan before anyone picked up a camera: a shared content calendar, a shot list tied to the daily order of play, a photography setup that could move between courts, and a Drive structure that let us find a specific player's photos in seconds instead of minutes.
Then we covered it like a broadcast. Match highlights and results in near-real time. Player arrivals and personalities. The details that make a local tournament feel like a local tournament: the food, the sponsor activations, the volunteers, the crowd on a hot August afternoon.
We also went outward. Rather than talking only to Lexington, we connected with the accounts that follow this level of the sport closely: ATP Challenger, USTA Kentucky, World Tennis Tour, Indian Tennis Daily, and Not Your Country Club. That's how a $100,000 Challenger event in Kentucky ends up in front of audiences in Brazil, India, France, and Denmark.
And we ran an influencer activation, inviting local creators to experience the tournament and post from it in their own voice.
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Deliverables
Live event coverage, photography, short-form video, social media management, content calendar and shot list, influencer activation, tennis media partnerships, reporting.
Client
Lexington Tennis Charity, Inc. — a 501(c)(3) supporting Golisano Children's at UK.
Tournament
Founded 1995. Thirty-one years running, and the longest active ATP Challenger event in the country.
lexingtonopen.org
Fourteen days, covered live
We published 63 posts and collaborations across the tournament run, filing from the grounds while matches were still in progress.
Across all accounts. July 27 – August 14, 2026.
Creators who showed up
We invited eight local creators to experience the tournament. All eight came. Then four more turned up on their own and posted anyway, because the event had become something worth being at.
Four of the twelve came from creators who attended without an invitation.
A local tournament with a passport
The core audience is exactly who you'd want: the ticket-buying radius around Lexington. But the coverage travelled, and on TikTok it reached a generation younger than the tournament's traditional crowd.
Where they are
- Lexington, KY
- Nicholasville, KY
- Louisville, KY
- Georgetown, KY
And where else
- United States
- Brazil
- India
- France & Denmark
The younger end
47.5%- of the TikTok audience is 25–34, against an Instagram and Facebook audience that skews 35–64.
"Just wanna say you all killed it with the social media posts. Whatever they paid you all — worth every penny."
Mark Plymale
Peter at Block and Lot called it the best coverage he's seen of the event.
Have an event worth covering live?
We'll be there before the first match and still posting after the last one.
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