No one should be surprised that Tiger Woods’ impressive 2nd-place finish at the PGA Championship resulted in a ratings surge for CBS. However, you might be surprised to find out just how impressive the ratings surge actually was.
The most impressive performance in years, from the world’s former #1 golfer netted a 69 percent ratings surge, for CBS’ final round coverage.
As Awful Announcing reports:
CBS reports that their final round PGA Championship coverage was 69 percent higher than in 2017, going from a 3.6/8 to a 6.1/14 in market rating and share, peaking with an 8.3/17 in the 7:00-7:15 timeslot. No doubt this was a result of Woods remaining solid all weekend, keeping himself in the hunt for the Wanamaker Trophy. In the end, Brooks Koepka held off strong challenges from Woods and Adam Scott but Tiger’s chase to the end held a big audience.
Woods was a factor in last month’s Open Championship and that benefitted NBC, who reported a 38 percent rise in viewership over the year before and the highest viewership for the Open since 2000.
After years of being a relative non-factor, Woods has seen a resurgence of late that has brought forth the roars from the gallery which used to be so commonplace during his more dominant years.
At 42, Tiger is certainly not in the same physical shape he was when he was seemingly winning majors at will. However, golf is a sport where players can be dominant well into their forties. Network executives across the country will certainly hope that is the case for Tiger Woods.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn