The worrying downward trend for PGA Tour TV viewership is continuing, despite no shortage of late drama at the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind, as US viewing figures for Sunday’s final round were down 30% on last year according to Josh Carpenter of the Sports Business Journal.
Just 2.2 million viewers tuned in to NBC to watch Hideki Matsuyama overcome mid-round troubles to take the first of the three season-ending Playoff Series events, down a full million on the figures who watched Lucas Glover win last year’s event on the rival CBS channel.
After the recent announcement that the Open Championship received its worst viewing figures in a decade and the Masters final round was down 20 percent on 2023, it puts the PGA Tour on the backfoot as they continually seek to bring in sponsorship revenue and each year has seen additional – and often longtime – tournament sponsors opt not to renew their deals.
Whilst part of the 30 percent decrease may be down to a clash with an NFL pre-season game on the Fox network, a LIV event in opposition and having two big-names in Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka going head-to-head down the stretch will have done additional damage.
Despite the increased prize funds on offer for the FedEx Cup Playoff Series, it’s evident that spectators don’t share the players’ enthusiasm and without the likes of Rory McIlroy contending at the top of the leaderboard, the public just aren’t that interested.
The BMW Championship which takes place this week is the penultimate event of the PGA Tour season, before the climax at the Tour Championship the following week,.
And while the season-ending event at East Lake will have the golf audience all to itself, this week’s event will also have LIV for competition as the final individual event – the Individual Championship – on the LIV calendar takes place in Chicago.
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