Rain and a playoff pushed the PGA Tour into primetime Sunday night and into pole position on the weekly ratings charts.
Final round coverage of the PGA Tour St. Jude Championship averaged a 1.9 rating and 3.21 million viewers on CBS, marking the largest sports audience of the week and the top PGA Tour audience (excluding majors) since the final round of the Canadian Open in June (3.3M). Due to a rain delay and a playoff, coverage lasted until after 8 PM ET.
Placing second for the week was the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Brickyard in Indianapolis, which averaged a 1.7 and 2.84 million on NBC — the smallest audience ever for the race (excluding makeup races). Ratings fell 19% and viewership 16% from last year (2.1, 3.37M).
MLB on FOX ranked third with a 1.3 and 2.31 million for primetime regional action on Saturday, up a tick in ratings and 12% in viewership from last year (1.2, 2.07M). NFL preseason games rounded out the top five as NFL Network averaged a 1.2 and 2.23 million for 49ers-Raiders and a 1.2 and 2.12 million for Chiefs-Saints on Sunday afternoon.
Excluding shoulder programming, NFL preseason games accounted for 10 of the 16 largest sports audiences last week.
In other action, Braves-Mets drew a combined 1.0 rating and 1.69 million viewers on Sunday Night Baseball across ESPN 0.9, 1.54M), ESPN2 (0.1, 112K) and ESPN Deportes (0.0, 39K), down from Yankees-Red Sox on ESPN alone last year (1.0, 1.83M).
In its ABC debut, the championship game of the Little League Softball World Series averaged a 0.52 and 861,000 on Sunday afternoon — several times higher than last year’s title game, which due to rain aired in a Noon ET weekday timeslot on ESPN2 (280K).
The opening weekend of the English Premier League topped out at a 0.42 and 748,000 on NBC Saturday afternoon. NBC did not air any matches on the opening weekend last year.
A United States basketball exhibition against Spain averaged a 0.38 and 657,000 on FOX Sunday, with the previous day’s matchup against Slovenia at a 0.12 and 203,000 on FS1. The team’s primetime exhibition opener against Puerto Rico drew a 0.10 and 175,000 on FS1 on Monday of last week.
On the “netlets,” LIV Golf on The CW drew a 0.13 and 187,000 Sunday afternoon and a 0.12 and 181,000 on Saturday. The WNBA on ION had a 0.20 and 271,000 (Sky-Liberty) and a 0.16 and 212,000 (Mystics-Aces) on Friday.
Finally, as previously noted on this site, the Spain-Netherlands FIFA Women’s World Cup quarterfinal neared a viewership milestone for FOX and set a new mark on Telemundo.
Weekly sports ratings, August 7-13
For sports ratings from the comparable week last year, see the following page on ShowBuzz Daily.
