With Tiger Woods’ strong showing at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the tournament earned its best ratings since 2012, a report says.
Woods seems to be making a welcome resurgence earning his second top-10 PGA finish since 2013. The famed golfer was in contention all the way until the 16th hole, and his run was quite the boon for NBC, Awful Announcing reported.
“Despite going up against March Madness, Sunday’s final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational averaged a 3.6 overnight rating — a 136% jump over the Tiger-less 2017 tournament,” USA Today said.
NBC Sports also said that adding that previous week’s final round of the Valspar Championship to this week’s Palmer tournament, NBC earned the highest ratings of any tournament since 2015.
Golf Channel also saw an amazing bump, the paper noted. Over 12 million viewers tuned in to see 12 minutes of Tiger’s play earning the channel a whopping 683 percent increase over 2017.
Indeed, Sports Media Watch told its readers that ratings tend to jump whenever Woods’ is in the hunt:
One would have to go back to the 2015 Players Championship (3.9) to find a higher PGA overnight when Woods was not in contention (again excluding majors).
Outside of the NCAA Tournament, Sunday’s final round was easily the highest rated sporting event of the weekend in the metered markets. It comfortably topped the NASCAR Auto Club 500 on FOX, which had a 2.4.
With Woods starting to get back into his stride on the links, golf and golf broadcasting is growing right along with him.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.