As it probably would have in ordinary times, The Players Championship topped the weekend sports ratings charts.
Encore final round coverage of last year’s Players Championship averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.16 million viewers on NBC Sunday afternoon, marking the highest rated and most-watched sports telecast of a weekend that included only a handful of live events.
It was the most-watched sportscast of the entire week, which included three days of normalcy in which NBA, college basketball and NHL games were played as scheduled.
Ranking second for the weekend was Sunday’s live Club America-Cruz Azul Liga MX match on UniMas and TUDN, which averaged 1.08 million viewers. It ranks fourth among soccer matches this year. Liga MX also took third place with 1.05 million for Leon-UNAM on Univision/TUDN on Saturday night.
Rounding out the top five, an encore of the ESPN 30 For 30 “Phi Slama Jama” on ABC averaged a 0.6 and 845,000, and an encore of last year’s third round of the Players Championship ranked fifth (0.6, 838K).
Outside of Liga MX, the weekend’s other live sporting events were as follows: ESPN averaged a 0.45 and 672,000 for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night. Despite being the only game in town, it was the least-watched UFC main event on ESPN thus far, falling below the previous daytime Fight Night last August (680K).
FS1 averaged a 0.25 and 397,000 for Sunday’s PBA World Challenge bowling.
On what was to be NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday, the top college basketball telecast was a CBS re-air of the 2015 Atlantic 10 Tournament final, which averaged a 0.5 and 706,000.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 3.17]
