Tiger Woods‘ best round in five years boosted the BMW Championship to its best start in at least six. Also: figures for the WNBA Playoffs, Premier League and motorsports.
PGA Tour Ratings: Tiger’s Big Start Boosts BMW
Thursday’s first round of the PGA Tour BMW Championship earned 843,000 viewers on Golf Channel, up 73% from last year (488K) and the tournament’s largest opening round audience since at least 2012. Regardless of round, it was the tournament’s largest cable audience since third round coverage in 2015 (845K).
Tiger Woods shot a 62 in the opening round, his best score at any tournament in five years. He finished the round in a tie for first with Rory McIlroy. Woods is playing the event for the first time since 2013.
WNBA Playoffs Up Despite Low Exposure
The WNBA Playoffs has averaged 305,000 viewers across ESPN2, ESPNEWS and NBA TV, up 36% from last year (224K). On the ESPN networks alone, the games have averaged 293,000 (+31%).
On Tuesday night, the deciding Game 5 of the Washington-Atlanta semifinal had 430,000 viewers on ESPN2. Game 5 of Phoenix-Seattle later in the night had 296,000 on ESPNEWS and NBA TV, topping the competing United States-Chile women’s soccer friendly on ESPN2 by 14% (259K).
The largest audience of the postseason thus far was 460,000 for Seattle-Phoenix Game 4 on Sunday.
Man City Down, Man U Up Big, Last Weekend
NBC scored a 0.6 rating and 870,000 viewers for last Saturday’s Newcastle-Manchester City English Premier League match, flat in ratings but down 1% in viewership from last year (Man U-Stoke: 0.6, 876K).
On NBCSN, Manchester United-Burnley was last weekend’s top draw with a 0.30 and 495,000 (+68%).
Channel Switch Boosts Xfinity at Darlington
The NASCAR Xfinity Series from Darlington (S.C.) earned a 0.9 rating and 1.38 million viewers on the NBC broadcast network last Sunday, up 28% in ratings and 24% in viewership from last year on NBCSN (0.7, 1.11M) but down 12% and 11% respectively from 2016 on NBC (1.0, 1.54M).
In other action, Sunday’s F1 Italian Grand Prix drew a 0.39 (+22%) and 601,000 (+18%) on ESPN2. IndyCar’s debut at Portland had a 0.35 and 529,000 on NBCSN. Figures for last Monday’s NHRA US Nationals from Indianapolis were not immediately available.
