These days it seems everyone has a podcast. But not everyone has a sterling silver Grand Slam trophy.
Whenever Andy Roddick returns to the grounds of the U.S. Open — as he did this year to record his show, “Served,” before a live audience — he no longer knows whether fans know him more for his game or his podcast.
“I have people that come up and talk to me about the show that never saw me play,” said Mr. Roddick, who is 43 but somewhat frozen in the public imagination around 21: a winsome Texas jock with spiked hair sprouting from his visor, and the last American man to reach No. 1 in tennis.
“It used to be if I walked into Starbucks and I saw a 50-year-old in tennis shoes, I knew that they would be saying something,” Mr. Roddick said in an interview. “Now it could be a 20-year-old.”
To younger people, like those elbowing him for a selfie or signature after the “Served” taping, “I’m the YouTube guy,” he said.
“Served” is now the most popular tennis podcast in the United States. It has tripled its YouTube audience in the last year to 156,000 subscribers — small by Joe Rogan standards, but significant for a niche media channel.
Mr. Roddick has the benefit of good timing. Tennis is surging in popularity among Americans, with the 2025 U.S. Open a hotbed for gouging tickets and guzzling Honey Deuces. Video podcasts about sports are also booming, offering athletes new career opportunities after retirement. Who needs an ESPN commentator contract and a closet full of television-ready suits when you can run a show from your gym in a T-shirt and baseball cap?
Mr. Roddick, known for his breakneck serve, won 32 titles beginning at age 18. But he also founded a real estate company while still an active player. After his agent died, he said, he began negotiating his own endorsement deals. He remains an active and eclectic investor.
“I didn’t play much tennis for 10 years after I retired,” said Mr. Roddick, who left the sport in 2012 and eventually settled in Charlotte, N.C., with his wife, the actress Brooklyn Decker, and their two children. “I think I needed space to fully love it again.”
Mr. Roddick still watched tennis every day, and itched to talk about the sport. He was active then on social media, analyzing matches and occasionally antagonizing those in the MAGA movement. But he had no interest in dropping back into tennis’s demanding schedule by becoming a traveling TV commentator.
In the 2000s, during Mr. Roddick’s rise, traditional media — from local newspapers to ESPN — still held power in sports. It was where athletes spoke to fans, reporters broke news and pundits dropped hot takes. Today, all three groups are increasingly likely to be hosting podcasts or publishing newsletters. Millions of fans gravitate toward more frenetic platforms, like TikTok or Barstool Sports.
He joined the fray in 2024, starting the company Served Media with Michael Hayden, a sports television producer whom he met at their children’s school drop-off. In December, they signed over their advertising sales, marketing and distribution rights to the Vox Media Podcast Network, which already had deals in place with several other athlete-hosts. So far in 2025, “Served” has surpassed $2 million in revenue, doubling its previous year.
That ride hasn’t been entirely smooth, though — for Mr. Roddick or other new tennis podcasters. Caitlin Thompson of Racquet magazine rated this moment in tennis media as “awkward,” with tournament organizers and governing bodies unprepared “to deal with the changing landscape of who matters and why.”
For the first time this year, the U.S. Open offered what it called a “Content Creator Media Credential,” allowing various nontraditional media figures (influencers, bloggers, podcasters) in tennis and beyond (food, fashion, wellness) access to the grounds. A spokeswoman for the United States Tennis Association said 48 creators received the credential, calling it a “big step forward.”
Yet in total, only about eight podcasters were granted credentials throughout the tournament, according to the U.S.T.A., including those affiliated with corporate sponsors and player teams.
“Served” was not one of them, despite being invited to record an episode on-site, Mr. Roddick and Mr. Hayden said.
Negotiations over advertising on the episode — like making sure “Served” ads didn’t compete with U.S. Open’s small army of corporate sponsors — also somehow devolved into a debate on the difference between podcasters and vloggers. “They were so confused,” Mr. Roddick said. “They didn’t know how to handle it.”
In a statement, the U.S.T.A. acknowledged it was trying to streamline its processes, “adjusting sometimes in real-time” to independent media’s evolution.
“It’s not like this is a new thing,” said Anastasia Folorunso, another podcast host who was denied credentials, despite recent approvals at other American tournaments — and a heartfelt note to the U.S.T.A. about the value of diverse perspectives in tennis. (She described herself as “a local New Yorker and a woman if color.”) “Other sports recognize the importance of new media.”
Ms. Folorunso bought her own tickets instead, spending more than $2,100 to conduct interviews with doubles players and coaches in quiet spots around the grounds. She edited episodes on her iPad at picnic tables, eating food brought from home to save money. “Ground Pass” is not yet profitable. (The U.S.T.A. said it makes credential decisions based on “audience, reach, category focus and topical interest area.”)
“There’s just this huge saturation of tennis podcasts right now,” said Ben Rothenberg, who writes the best-selling Substack newsletter “Bounces” — and who did receive credentials, having long contributed articles to mainstream outlets, including The New York Times. “I think eventually the cream will rise to the top.”
Even more podcasts have been announced since the U.S. Open began two weeks ago: from Maria Sharapova, Billie Jean King, and “The Player’s Box,” a group of four current women’s players.
“A lot of the podcasts that are out there are more geared toward men’s tennis and toward male fans, and we wanted it to be more for the girls,” said Madison Keys, this year’s Australian Open champion, who co-hosts the show alongside Jessica Pegula, Jennifer Brady, and Desirae Krawczyk. “We all think that we are very funny.”
Prominent figures are warming to the idea of podcasts as safe spaces for candid conversation, free from the unpredictable or tough questions of news conferences.
Being candid is much easier in retirement, as Mr. Roddick pointed out: The most-watched “Served” videos, so far, are interviews with former players such as Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi. And to current players, Mr. Roddick shows fierce empathy.
“I know the pressures,” he said. “Let’s show people why it’s hard. Let’s show people why you’re human.”
Yet he’s also been bluntly critical of a sport still defined by the elite theater of etiquette and traditions.
Mr. Roddick does not pull punches when he finds something silly or stupid. When the 59-year-old billionaire Bill Ackman decided to fulfill a personal dream, entering a tournament with doubles partner Jack Sock (incidentally a co-host of a tennis podcast, “Nothing Major”), Mr. Roddick called it the “biggest joke I’ve ever watched in professional tennis.”
Ms. Thompson of Racquet praised Mr. Roddick’s “fearlessness and moral clarity.” He is the sport’s sardonic big brother, taunting but protective.
He worries sometimes about losing that edge.
“We kind of existed in our own little tunnel for a while,” Mr. Roddick said. “Now we’re getting calls from general directors that are mad because we said something about scheduling.”
He was sitting in a box suite at Arthur Ashe Stadium, nearly empty except for the American hopeful Coco Gauff, practicing on-court with her new biomechanics expert. Mr. Roddick snapped to attention when it looked like she was about to serve.
He had slipped into the stadium after recording “Served,” navigating the stairways and corridors with a deft nonchalance. It was muscle memory — as if the stadium was an office building where he once worked 9-to-5. He greeted janitorial workers. He strolled past a supersize photo of his younger self without a glance.
The next few days would be frenzied. After playing in a starry exhibition match that night, Mr. Roddick and his “Served” team boarded a private plane (a detail he seemed to find embarrassing) to Rhode Island for another live-audience recording and exhibition match. Then he returned to New York for “Good Morning America.”
It was a taste of the pace he’d hoped to avoid as a network commentator. He’d uncharacteristically slept through his morning alarm and missed a scheduled recording. By the time he returned home to North Carolina, his voice sounded tired, but he seemed relieved.
“I never want to lose the feeling that we’re in a garage and I’m talking as if no one’s listening,” Mr. Roddick had said back in Ashe. “That’s kind of a superpower.”
Jessica Testa covers nontraditional and emerging media for The Times.
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