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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
US Open asks broadcasters to avoid crowd reactions to Trump during
men’s finals match
By Brian Stelter, CNN
Updated:
10:08 PM EDT, Sat September 6, 2025
Source: CNN
The last time President Trump attended a US Open match, as a
presidential candidate in 2015, the booing was so loud that multiple
news outlets wrote about the critical crowd reaction. ESPN’s live
broadcast lingered on shots of Trump during a quarterfinal match.
Trump will be back on Sunday afternoon, attending the men’s final,
prompting a question: What will ABC show and how?
The tennis championship, a beloved event in Trump’s hometown borough
of Queens in deep-blue New York City, attracts a different crowd than,
say, the UFC fighting matches that Trump has attended in recent months.
Whether Trump is met by jeers or cheers at Arthur Ashe Stadium on
Sunday, the US Tennis Association says it wants the focus to be on the
court.
Disney’s ESPN is the US rights-holder for the tennis tournament, and
Disney’s ABC is airing the men’s final on Sunday. The ESPN
production plans to show Trump and note that he is in attendance, much
the same way Fox showed Trump at the Super Bowl earlier this year.
Curiosity about the network’s coverage plan was piqued on Saturday
after a prominent tennis writer, Ben Rothenberg, published a titled,
“U.S. Open Orders Broadcasters to Censor Reactions to Trump.”
He cited a tennis association memo to broadcasters, including ESPN,
that asked them to “refrain from showcasing any disruptions or
reactions in response to the president’s attendance.”
The memo seemed like a request rather than an order. In a statement to
CNN, the association said, “We regularly ask our broadcasters to
refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions.”
Broadcasters tend to have the same instincts. Sports networks avoid
showing streakers and other attention-seeking, game-interrupting
stunts.
Political protests are inherently more newsworthy, however. When
environmental activists disrupted a US Open semifinal match in 2023,
forcing a long delay in play, ESPN some live pictures of the
protesters. The live coverage, however, mostly emphasized the impact on
the players, in keeping with the network’s focus on sports.
Some Trump antagonists have been publicly hoping for a political
protest at the Open final. With tongue firmly in cheek, conservative
lawyer George Conway on X, “It would be terrible if he became upset
over some chant like ‘WE. WANT. THE EPSTEIN. FILES.’ I earnestly
hope and pray this does not happen.”
Trump will arrive in New York in time for the match’s expected start
at 2 p.m. ET, according to a White House schedule.
Trump has attended half a dozen major sporting events since the start
of his second term in January. He attended the first half of the Super
Bowl in February, though he was only seen on camera briefly. Inside the
Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, there were more cheers than boos
when he was shown on the stadium’s video screens.
More recently, when final in July, he was cheered upon arrival at
MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, but received some boos when shown on the
video screens during the national anthem. There were boos again later
when Trump helped carry the competition trophy to the stage, prompting
some viral videos of the hostile reception.
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