There were over 2 million people watching LSU take on Auburn on Saturday night.
LSU hosted Auburn on Saturday night in prime time on national television on ESPN, but the Tigers were competing with several other high profile matchups, namely Miami-North Carolina and USC–Notre Dame, in the night block.
In spite of that, the SEC West matchup was ultimately one of the 10 most-viewed games over the weekend, coming in at No. 10 with 2.16 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch.
The Tigers have had a lot of eyes on them this season with several prime-time games including the season-opener against Florida State, which aired on ABC.
LSU’s Week 8 matchup isn’t likely to draw quite as much attention as the team hosts Army in a non-conference game that will air at 6:30 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.
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The Week 6 matchup between the #Eagles and Jets averaged 26.09 million viewers on Fox, marking the largest NFL television audience of the year
The Eagles are big business, with fans loving to see them play live, as well as on TV and streaming devices across the globe.
Philadelphia may have lost the Sunday battle to the Jets, but they continue to win the war of relevancy in a league full of star power and popular teams.
According to Fox Sports PR, the Week 6 matchup between the Eagles and Jets averaged 26.09 million viewers on Fox, marking the largest NFL television audience of the year so far.
LSU hit the road last weekend for a matchup with the 5-0 Missouri Tigers at 11 a.m., and the game was a barnburner.
LSU hit the road last weekend for a matchup with the 5-0 Missouri Tigers at 11 a.m. CT, and the game was a barnburner.
The LSU defense struggled in the first half of the game stopping Brady Cook and Missouri’s offense until [autotag]Harold Perkins[/autotag] made a huge interception with five minutes left in the second quarter.
In the second half, [autotag]Jayden Daniels[/autotag] and the LSU offense made an incredible comeback as the Tigers wound up winning the game 49-39. When LSU needed a big play the most at the end of the game, Major Burns got a pick-six to seal the win.
Sports Media Watch released the ratings for the top 10 games in Week 6 and the LSU vs. Missouri game finished as the No. 9 game of the week. The matchup had 2.34 million viewers on ESPN. That is huge, especially for an 11 a.m. game that was competing with Texas vs. Oklahoma and Maryland vs. Ohio State.
LSU will probably get some more great ratings this week as they take on the Auburn Tigers.
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More than 270,000 people from 100 different countries attended the 2023 Ryder Cup to watch the Europeans defeat the Americans, 16½-11½, and reclaim the cup at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club near Rome, Italy.
Even more watched from home.
On Tuesday, Ryder Cup Europe shared early numbers that showed a rise in average viewership on Sky Sports, particularly in the United Kingdom, which saw a 38 percent increase compared to the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits and a 25 percent increase from the last European-hosted Cup in 2018 at Le Golf National near Paris.
“The 2023 Ryder Cup in Italy once again underlined the global appeal and continued growth of one of the world’s leading sporting events,” said Guy Kinnings, Executive Director of the Ryder Cup. “This year’s contest, played against the backdrop of the historic city of Rome, truly connected with fans around the world, and our early figures show significant increases in engagement even from the recent record-breaking editions.”
While the 2023 edition was the most watched Ryder Cup ever on Sky Sports, the NBC Sports coverage in the United States left fans wanting more.
Not even two hours into the coverage of the Friday foursomes matches and television viewers who were awake at 1 a.m. ET for the start were already fed up with the coverage (or lack thereof).
Airing on USA Network, the broadcast missed the introductions and tee shots from the third match of Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka vs. Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa and showed more commercials than golf shots. This year’s broadcast featured a score bug in the bottom right of the screen that showed the matches and live results, which was a nice innovation, except when the coverage didn’t provide context for how those scores came to be.
The 2025 Ryder Cup, the 45th playing of the biennial bash between the U.S. and Europe, will be held at Bethpage Black in New York.
The Tigers’ loss to Ole Miss was the fifth most-watched game this week.
LSU had a major opportunity on Saturday night to make a statement in the SEC West, but that chance went south as the Tigers were torched defensively in a 55-49 shootout loss to Ole Miss.
Perhaps unfortunately for coach Brian Kelly’s team, there were quite a bit of eyes on that game. The contest, which aired in prime time on ESPN at 5 p.m. CT, received 3.72 million visitors. That ranked fifth among college football games in Week 5, according to Sports Media Watch.
LSU will look to put the frustrating (and well-seen) loss to the Rebels behind as they draw another tough opponent on the road in Missouri this coming weekend.
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NBC Sports PR released a statement on the viewership of the highly contested game from Saturday night and the numbers were big. They said that the “thriller averaged 10.5 million viewers – NBC’s most watch regular-seasons college football game since 1993 ‘Game of the Century.”
As the most competitive game in prime time, it wasn’t surprising to hear that plenty of eyes were focused on the matchup.
NBC Sports Registers its Largest Audience for Regular-Season College Football in 30 YEARS with Saturday’s @OhioStateFB vs. @NDFootball
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Wyndham Clark outlasted a star-powered leaderboard Sunday to claim his first major championship at Los Angeles Country Club.
The 2023 U.S. Open received a lot of criticism on social media for the commercial load, substandard announcing and lack of atmosphere due to general admission policy.
However, the TV ratings were extremely good.
NBC Sports reports that its 2023 Open was up 27 percent compared to the championship at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, averaging 6.2 million viewers across NBC and Peacock. That’s the highest since 2019 when the event was held at Pebble Beach.
The numbers were also up nine percent compared to 2021, the last time the U.S. Open was held on the West Coast (Torrey Pines, won by Jon Rahm).
NBC says across its platforms, the final round averaged 8.8 million viewers during prime time and peaked at 10.2 million from 9:30-9:45 p.m. ET.
For comparison, the PGA Championship received 4.5 million viewers last month at Oak Hill.
The Masters is still the most-watched men’s major in 2023. In fact, it’s the most-watched golf broadcast in the past five years on any network, CBS reported in April after averaging 12.058 million viewers for the final round.
Viewership of the Women’s College World Series experienced another year of growth, reflecting how the sport’s grown in recent years.
The world of collegiate softball has experienced incredible growth over the last decade. Especially during Oklahoma’s national championship three-peat, the growth of the sport has exploded.
The energy, the fast paced nature, and the intriguing storylines of the game have turned it into must-see television in recent years. And it looks like the television numbers bear that out.
Even though the championship series wasn’t drawn out, the social media impressions and viewership numbers were quite impressive. Game 1 of the series boasted 1.3 million viewers with a peak at 1.5 million. While Game 2 had 1.9 million viewers with a peak of 2.3 million with an average viewership for the championship series at 1.6 million viewers. The viewership for the series was up seven percent year-over-year. – Alex Sinatra, College Sports Wire
The Women’s College World Series experienced a 7% increase from the 2022 viewership. Additionally, the Women’s College World Series generated an incredible buzz on social media.
The social media numbers were impressive as well with the series garnering almost one hundred million impressions in just two days, according to Zoomph. – Sinatra, College Sports Wire
NCAA softball, ESPN, and the team’s social media departments have done a great job marketing the sport over the last few years, highlighting the incredible athletes they have at the collegiate level.
Oklahoma Softball made quick work of the #WCWS Championship, but in just two days Twitter conversation around the series still generated 26K+ Tweets and almost 100M impressions. pic.twitter.com/aWs4h4SqgE
Women’s athletics has seen a landmark year with the impressive numbers created by women’s gymnastics, basketball, and now softball. It’s a credit to the sports and to the universities and networks for investing in and providing exposure to these incredible athletes.
In softball, the Oklahoma Sooners have created a number of storylines that will keep the sport buzzing heading into the 2024 season. How far can they take their record win streak? Can they be the first team to ever win four-straight national championships? What will they look like after losing Jordy Bahl? Can anyone in softball dethrone the Sooners?
2023 was an incredible season filled with incredible stories, but 2024 will be another thrilling installment in the story of college softball.
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The Sports Business Journal, citing a source with numbers from Nielsen, reported last week’s LIV Golf Tucson event had an average of 274,000 viewers on the CW for Sunday’s final round from Gallery Golf Club in Marana, Arizona, after an average of 284,000 viewers for Saturday’s second round. At LIV Golf Mayakoba, the season opener last month, the CW averaged 286,000 viewers for Saturday’s second round and 291,000 for Sunday’s final round. Friday’s opening rounds are only available via the CW app and other digital streams.
Outside of the viewership, the SBJ report also claimed that 24 percent of homes – or 29 million – in the United States were unable to watch LIV Golf Tucson on television because their local CW affiliate did not carry the coverage in the 1-6 p.m. ET window.
LIV Golf plans to release its own data on viewership later this week, which will predictably look different from the SBJ report citing just Nielsen numbers. The same thing happened with the Mayakoba viewership.
The league signed a multi-year revenue-sharing TV deal with the CW in January that will see its events be distributed across both not just CW affiliates, but also various Nexstar properties. It’s unclear how many watched on Nexstar stations or whether any Nexstar outlets carried LIV Golf Tucson in areas where CW affiliates elected not to. Competing with the opening weekend of the NCAA basketball tournaments surely doesn’t help the viewership numbers, either.
It’s also important to note which numbers are used in television reports. LIV reported 3.2 million total viewers across the three days in its season opener, while the Nielsen numbers cited above are average-minute audience, the industry standard. LIV is also using iSpot, a TV ad measurement and analytics company that offers a different way to measure viewership compared to Nielsen ratings.
LIV Golf will next head to Florida for its third event, March 31-April 2 at Orange County National in Orlando.
Homa has grown into his role as one of the leaders of the recent top-heavy PGA Tour movement.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Just two weeks after capturing top honors at the Farmers Insurance Open, his sixth victory on the PGA Tour, Max Homa had the ear of commissioner Jay Monahan.
Homa had heard that one of the Tour’s events suffered from low TV ratings and, with changes to the schedule coming yet again, he asked the commish if he was concerned about the numbers.
The response was enlightening.
“(Monahan) said, first and foremost, that just straight-up TV ratings isn’t the way the world works anymore,” Homa recalled on Tuesday during his news conference before the Players Championship. “If you think about the Waste Management, as he put it, there’s so much fanfare. … and this is corny, but all the celebrities and people who aren’t in the game of golf intimately that are out there and sharing it via social media or with their friends is boosting not only the PGA Tour but golf in general, which I think is great. So that was quite interesting.
“Then, of course, a day or two later he sent me the final ratings of it and it was I think the highest event. I can’t remember what day, Saturday or Sunday, but it was the highest-viewed event since the Players the year prior. So I thought that was a really good sign.”
Homa, who has grown into his role as one of the leaders of the recent top-heavy PGA Tour movement, missed the players meeting that took place early Tuesday but added that he’s been to more meetings in the last year than he had in any previous one. He also noted that he’s been picking the brain of Monahan, trying to better understand the Tour’s strategy.
“I think it’s easy for us to, as players, to look at these events and say, man, this is working great, like look at the last few designated events and the finishes and the players battling against each other and the leaderboards and just all of it, and it just seems so great,” Homa said. “I would assume that that would mean great ratings and great attention, but we don’t know that.
“So I kind of lean on, since I’ve had this conversation with Jay, where he can kind of continue to show me, not just explain, but show me that it is doing a great job, and again, I know I’m probably sounding like I just keep reiterating myself, but the reason I love this product model is because I’m a fan of golf. I love watching golf and I’ve loved watching golf since I was a little kid. That’s why I play it.”
Max Homa walks from the green of the 15th hole during the final round of the 2023 WM Phoenix Open. (Photo: Allan Henry/USA TODAY Sports)
Despite new parental responsibilities — he and his wife, Lacey, welcomed their first child, Cam, on Oct. 30, 2022 — and a never-ending golf news cycle, Homa has maintained his focus on the course, posting a pair of victories and five top-4 finishes in the young season.
But he’s still squarely invested in the Tour’s future, as is evidenced by his inquisitive time with Monahan.
“My attention is of course on my performances and being the best me I can be, but it’s also on making sure that golf is thriving, and as I’m on the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour’s thriving and that people are watching it, because I love this game and I want other people to get involved and love this game and watch it,” Homa said. “I don’t want to put up or be a part of a product that people find to be boring and stale.
“So I am very much about what we’re doing and these meetings and pushing the envelope and making changes that benefit the golf fan, because again, I am a golf fan.”
And after spending time with Monahan, Homa seems firmly convinced that the again-revamped schedule, this time with small-field, no-cut elevated events, will help players at the top, but also those looking up into the game’s upper echelon.
“I’ve really racked my brain on this quite a bit and I don’t see how this isn’t better for every member of this Tour,” Homa said. “I think it makes it more competitive at the top. It has a bigger pot of gold at the end of the competitive rainbow for the guys at the maybe just outside the designated event area going into next year.”
