The United States Tennis Association has spent the last two years trying to solve a problem that has vexed country clubs and public courts alike since the sport's invention: how to make tennis seem less like something that requires a sweater draped over one's shoulders.

Its solution, a credentialed creator program that nearly doubled in size this year to around 100 participants, ran into a difficulty during Naomi Osaka's opening match on August 31, when play was halted after spectators in a hospitality suite deployed flash photography. A video of a woman using a ring light to photograph herself mid-point circulated widely, and the backlash was immediate, if somewhat misdirected. (ESPN reported the offending parties were not among the USTA's credentialed creators, but such distinctions rarely survive contact with a viral post.)

Ms. Osaka, asked about the matter afterward, suggested that attendees might consider reading up on the etiquette, which has remained largely unchanged since before the invention of the ring light.

The controversy has produced what marketing executives describe as "key learnings," a phrase that tends to appear after events that might more plainly be called embarrassments. Six executives and creator agents who spoke with Digiday agreed the backlash was overblown but acknowledged that briefing creators on when silence is required — a category that includes, as it happens, the entirety of each point — might be worth the effort.

"It should include the rules of the sport, etiquette, when and where they should be capturing content," said Cayley Stonehouse, senior social media strategist at Gupta Media, with the patience of someone who has evidently had this conversation before.

The larger question, as one strategist put it, is how to expand a sport's audience without alienating the people who were already watching. It is a tension familiar to anyone who has observed what happened to Formula 1 after Netflix arrived, or to Coachella after everyone else did.

The creators, naturally, are not going anywhere.

Original story published in Digiday: "What we've learned from the creator snafus at this year's US Open"