Ratings: Bay Hill, Yankees, NHL, EPL

Thursday’s opening round of the PGA Arnold Palmer Invitational earned 593,000 viewers on Golf Channel, up 56% from last year (381K) and up 72% from 2016 (345K). It was the tournament’s largest opening round audience since at least 2012. Tiger Woods is playing the event this year for the first time since 2013. Compared to the 2013 first round, viewership increased 47% from 404,000.

Through Tuesday, Yankees spring training games have averaged a 1.53 rating on YES Network in New York — up 89% from last year. Last Saturday’s Mets-Yankees game pulled a 2.57, the second-highest spring training rating ever on YES. From March 4-13, the five Yankee games on YES were the highest rated sporting events of their respective days.

Bruins-Blackhawks scored a 0.7 rating and 1.08 million viewers on last Sunday’s NHL Game of the Week on NBC, flat in ratings and down 4% in viewership from last year (Wild-Blackhawks: 0.7, 1.13M) and down a tick and 1% respectively from 3016 (Penguins-Rangers: 0.8, 1.10M).

Later in the night, Stars-Penguins had a 0.25 (-7%) and 427,000 (-4%) on NBCSN. Shifting to the workweek, Penguins-Rangers had 408,000 viewers on NBCSN’s Wednesday Night Rivalry (-35%) and Avalanche-Wild scored 296,000 on Tuesday night (+12%).

Last Saturday’s Manchester United-Liverpool English Premier League match scored a 0.33 rating and 511,000 viewers on NBCSN, the most-watched early morning match of the season (start time before 9 AM ET). Viewership increased 78% from Liverpool-Everton in the same week of last season (287K).

In other action, last Sunday’s Bournemouth-Tottenham match had a 0.29 (-28%) and 436,000 (-31%). Arsenal-Watford had a 0.27 and 381,000 (+49%) earlier in the morning.

Rounding out the weekend, Chelsea-Crystal Palace had a 0.23 (-52%) and 361,000 (-44%) and Newcastle-Southampton a 0.21 (-28%) and 338,000 (-25%) on Saturday. Stoke-Manchester City brought up the rear with 210,000 on Monday.