The Miami Open quietly dropped its LGBTQ Pride event. Why?
The Miami Open reportedly canceled its LGBTQ inclusion event 'Out At The Open' this year will still hosting other themed events. The post The Miami Open quietly dropped its LGBTQ Pride event. Why? appeared first on Outsports.
Mark
The Miami Open just concluded, and some LGBTQ fans are wondering what gives.
The Miami New Times has a report that the long-running top-tier tennis tournament in South Florida this year quietly removed its long-running LGBTQ-inclusion event during the tournament.
In 2019, moving into Hard Rock Stadium, the event worked with the Miami Dolphins to create “Out At The Open,” an effort to welcome gay, lesbian, bi and trans fans to the Miami Open.
The initiative was received very well by the community.
”It’s so fantastic to see a tournament like the Miami Open put on an event like this, in particular with James Blake, a former top 5 player in the world and a leading name in the sport, being a part of it himself,” out tennis commentator Nick McCarvel told Outsports at the time
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Now that event has been removed from the Miami Open schedule. As the Miami New Times noted, many other themed nights have been kept on the schedule — Women’s Empowerment Day, Brazilian Heritage Day, Kid’s Day, College Night — but not the event meant to welcome the gays.
As Brittany Shammas wrote for the New Times: “Matt Feinberg, President & CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Tennis Association, says his organization received several emails asking what happened to the Miami Open’s Pride event. He was disappointed to find out it was off for this year, and although he acknowledges not knowing the reasoning, says he doesn’t find it surprising.”
Raising some eyebrows on the move is certainly the location of the Miami Open in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it a priority of his tenure to go after LGBTQ inclusion.
Other sporting events and teams have also walked away from LGBTQ-inclusion and Pride events over the last year, though the vast majority of professional sports teams across North America continue to host Pride events.
Few NFL teams do that, but mostly because they have a tiny fraction of home games and tickets to sell. An MLB team has 81 home games, while an NFL team has either eight or nine, depending on the season.
On the court at the 2026 Miami Open, fans were treated to some great tennis as World No. 2 Jannik Sinner won the men’s singles title, while on the women’s singles side No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka bested America Coco Gauff in the final to win that title.
Will the Miami Open bring back “Out At The Open” in 2027, after the upcoming midterm elections are expected to send a very different cultural message than the last major election? We’ll see.
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The post The Miami Open quietly dropped its LGBTQ Pride event. Why? appeared first on Outsports.
