Sports Ratings Tracker

Final round coverage of The PLAYERS Championship averaged 4.4 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, marking the highest average for the event since 2021. Third round coverage averaged 3.1 million, also the highest since 2021.

Compared to last year, viewership increased 13% on Saturday and 15% on Sunday, outside the range that would be explained by Nielsen’s shift last fall to “Big Data + Panel” methodology.

Final round coverage of the PGA Tour Arnold Palmer Invitational averaged 3.3 million viewers on NBC across Nielsen (1.8 rating, 3.18M) and Adobe Analytics, marking the largest audience for the event since 2021.

(Note that changes in Nielsen methodology — specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to a new methodology that adds “Big Data” to its traditional panel — will generally skew comparisons to past years.)

Final round coverage of the Cognizant (formerly Honda) Classic averaged a Nielsen-only 1.4 rating and 2.51 million viewers on NBC last weekend, with that figure rising to 2.6 million including streaming data tracked by Adobe Analytics — the highest for the tournament since 2022.

Keep in mind that changes in Nielsen methodology (specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology) generally skew comparisons to past years.

NBC averaged 2.38 million viewers for coverage of the PGA TOUR this season, up 18% from last year. That is in line with the 17% increase CBS posted for its coverage, which averaged 2.97 million viewers.

The main portion of last weekend’s final round of the TOUR Championship, the final event of the PGA Tour FedEx Cup, averaged 4.5 million viewers on NBC (not including streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics) — the second-largest audience for the tournament since 2018.

Only the main final round window two years ago averaged a larger audience (4.6M), and that was primarily because it aired in a later and shorter window due to inclement weather.

The full TOUR Championship averaged 2.0 million viewers, up 59% from last year and the highest since — of all years — 2020.

The prior week’s final round of the BMW Championship averaged 3.5 million viewers, up 43% from last year, with the full four-round average of 1.6 million up 30%.

NBC coverage of the PGA Tour St. Jude Championship from Memphis, the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, averaged 3.8 million viewers last Sunday and 2.3 million last Saturday (Nielsen + Adobe Analytics) — the highest for the tournament, which traces back to old Westchester Classic rather than the Memphis-based St. Jude Classic, since 2013 and 2018 respectively.

Viewership increased 66 and 53 percent respectively from last year on CBS.

Lead-in coverage on Golf Channel averaged 843,000 on Sunday and 901,000 on Saturday, also marking multi-year highs.

The full tournament averaged 1.9 million viewers across NBC platforms, making it the most-watched since 2018. The weekend rounds on NBC and Golf Channel averaged 3.2 million, the highest since 2011. (In addition to the usual out-of-home viewing caveats, keep in mind that most of the prior year comparisons are Nielsen-only.)

Last Sunday’s final round of the British Open averaged a combined 4.1 million viewers on NBC across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, marking the highest average since 2022 (4.73M). Scottie Scheffler’s win, which peaked with 6.1 million in the 1:30 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 21% over last year (3.39M).

The full weekend averaged 3.6 million, up 22% from last year — and the full four-day average increased 16% to what NBC said was “more than two million.”

The complete U.S. Open averaged 2.9 million viewers across NBC and USA Network (Nielsen + Adobe Analytics), trailing only last year (3.1M) as the most-watched East Coast-based edition of the tournament since 2013.

Sunday’s final round averaged 5.4 million, down from last year’s 5.9 million. Viewership had been trending up 4% from last year prior to a weather delay.

Last weekend’s final round of the PGA Tour Houston Open averaged 2.8 million viewers on NBC (Nielsen + Adobe Analytics), up 41% from last year, when the event returned to the spring after several years in the fall. Third round action averaged 2.3 million, up 31%.

NBC said this week that its PGA Tour viewership has increased for six-straight weekends.

Sunday’s final round of the PGA Tour event in Tampa Bay averaged 2.3 million viewers on NBC (Nielsen + Adobe Analytics), up 16% from last year, while third round action on Saturday averaged 1.4 million (+3%).