Faced with tough competition from the FIFA World Cup, golf’s US Open eked out an uptick in viewership over last year.
Sunday’s final round of the U.S. Open from Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York averaged 5.5 million viewers on NBC, combining a linear audience measured by Nielsen and streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics — trailing only Bryson DeChambeau’s narrow win over Rory McIlroy two years ago as the most-watched final round of an East Coast U.S. Open since 2013. (The U.S. Open typically fares between when held on the West Coast, allowing for primetime windows.)
Wyndham Clark’s win, which peaked with 9.3 million in the 6:30 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 2% from last year’s rain-affected final round (5.4M). That increase is well within the margin that would be fully explained by Nielsen’s methodological changes of the past year, specifically its shift to a new methodology that integrates “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes with its traditional panel.
In a rarity, the U.S. Open had a smaller final round audience than the PGA Championship, which averaged a Nielsen-only audience of 5.76 million on CBS in May. The last time the PGA came out ahead was five years ago when Phil Mickelson won. (Note that the PGA also came out ahead on a Nielsen-only basis in 2022. NBC’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)
Keep in mind that the PGA sustained its audience over a slightly shorter time period (six hours, rather than seven) and had a lower peak audience of 8.0 million. The PGA also did not face any meaningful competition — the NBA playoff game scheduled for that day aired in primetime — while the U.S. Open aired opposite the FIFA World Cup.
Third round action on Saturday averaged 3.7 million, up 3% from last year, and second round action on Friday averaged 2.5 million — the highest for the second round of the event since 2012.
NBC averaged 3.9 million for its three days of Nielsen-rated coverage, up 2% from last year and the second-largest audience for an East Coast U.S. Open since 2013. Note that NBC in past years carried four days of coverage.
