Latest in Serena Williams

Nike's controversial “Dream Crazy” commercial, an extension of the brand's “Just Do It” campaign, took the win for outstanding commercial at Sunday’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards. "Dream Crazy" was created out of Wieden & Kennedy Portland and produced out of Park Pictures and Joint Portland. Narrated by former NFL player…

The upset by Canadian teenager Bianca Andreescu over superstar Serena Williams at the US Open Women’s tennis tournament propelled the network to a 2.7 overnight rating for its three-hour telecast. That’s ESPN's best for the event and up 13% from a 2.4 year ago, the previous high. The two-hour match portion, which saw…

Last night’s women’s semifinals at the U.S. Open, which saw Serena Williams defeat Ukrainian fifth seed Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-1, earned a 1.6 rating for ESPN. That’s up 14% from a year ago and equals the sports network’s best for that round since 2017 when all four players were Americans. The telecast’s rating peaked…

Snapchat is adding more shows and contributors to its creator community, a list headlined by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Serena Williams. The first of the newly conceived Creator Shows premieres Wednesday, with debuts scheduled through the rest of the summer and into the fall. Also on the Creator Shows roster is…

Warner Bros is looking like the favorite to capture King Richard, a spec script by Zach Baylin that has Will Smith poised to play Richard Williams,  the father of Venus and Serena Williams. This deal will fall in the $60 million budget range, making it as big an auction as we’ve heard of this year, this side of the…

EXCLUSIVE: Even though there were no major tennis tournaments last weekend, the minds of industry leaders were courtside anyway. They were reading King Richard, a spec script by Zach Baylin that has Will Smith poised to play Richard Williams. He is the father of Venus and Serena Williams. Despite having no tennis…

Steve McQueen's female-centric heist movie Widows might be packed with familiar and accomplished women like Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez, but magnetic breakout Cynthia Erivo still jumped off the screen in her first ever feature. Erivo is a storied stage actress, and has already won an Emmy, a…

Naomi Osaka, the young tennis star whose mortification across the net from her idol, Serena Williams, added to a memorable TV spectacle at the U.S. Open Saturday night, has rebounded to score a major endorsement deal. Nissan held a news conference to announce it had signed the 20-year-old Japanese player as a brand…

US Open Women's Championship already had been drawing a lot of attention as tennis great Serena Williams was going for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam title and looking to become only the fourth mom to win a Grand Slam. While the big anticipation and the intriguing matchup of Williams and hot upstart Naomi Osaka were…

Serena Williams had an epic meltdown live on ESPN at the US Open final, shouting at the chair umpire over a penalty and eventually spiraling into a rage that led to a larger game penalty, which resulted in a massive upset loss. It marked the third time in Williams’s US Open career that her anger led to an eventual…

Hours after President Donald Trump played into Nike’s hands this morning when he trashed the company for featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in its latest "Just Do It" campaign, Nike delivered its nuts-to-you response. It unveiled a two-minute video ad featuring the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback…

The last day of August and the start of the Labor Day weekend produced the kind of calm in the ratings wars that you might expect. Friday night’s primetime ratings saw  a five-way tie for the no. 1 spot in ratings/share on the night for adults 18-49. The big five included NBC's American Ninja Warrior rerun and Dateline…