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.
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions.You can also follow John on Twitter @john9williams.
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.”
More people watched LIV Golf’s opening event than previously thought, according to the circuit.
The Sports Business Journal shared the estimated LIV Golf Mayakoba and PGA Tour Honda Classic viewership from last weekend, and the early reports didn’t paint a pretty picture for the rival circuit.
On Friday morning, LIV Golf shared some new numbers that tell a different story.
Using iSpot, a TV ad measurement and analytics company, as well as CW and LIV Golf internal data, the upstart circuit financially supported by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund reported an audience of 3.2 million viewers across all linear and digital platforms for its season-opening event in Mexico. With its new TV deal, LIV airs in every U.S. market via CW affiliates and Nexstar stations and reported 1.6 million viewers on Saturday and 1.3 million viewers on Sunday.
LIV’s report also stated an average linear viewership domestically in the United States of more than 537,000, which it claims is more than the current season viewership average of the MLS (343,000), NHL (373,000) and the 2023 Australian Open men’s tennis final (439,000).
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It’s easy to make jokes about some of the programming on the CW, but LIV airing in every U.S. market was key for its development in 2023. If accurate, the reported numbers are another step forward, but let’s not forget this was LIV’s first event of the season, not to mention it compared its viewership to the season averages of three of the least-watched major sports in America.
That said, according to Nielsen, the CW’s weekend primetime national ratings were up 24 percent compared to the network’s weekend season-to-date average. With Friday’s opening round only available via live stream, LIV reported a 40 percent month-to-month increase in downloads of the CW app, as well as 350,000 views over its new app, LIV Golf Plus.
Long story short, more people reportedly watched the opening event than previously thought. Now LIV needs to keep them watching.
“World’s Funniest Animals” outperformed LIV Golf Mayakoba.
LIV Golf League’s decision to debut its second season last week was no mistake. The Honda Classic on the PGA Tour was sandwiched between four designated events (WM Phoenix Open, Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship) comprised of the best players in the world.
Wanting no part of competing with either of those, LIV decided to go against the Honda Classic, hoping to capitalize on owning the stronger field between the two events.
It did not work.
LIV’s first event on The CW Network received 291K viewers on Sunday, according to Josh Carpenter of the Sports Business Journal.
The Honda Classic, on the other hand, reeled in 2.38 million.
The league financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has a long way to go.
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Despite playing hours before Super Bowl LVII, the biggest women’s college basketball game of the 2022-23 season drew a massive audience.
With an average viewership of 1.5 million viewers (and a peak at 1.6 million), Sunday’s battle between undefeated LSU and South Carolina squads was the most-watched regular season women’s college basketball game since 2010. The game between South Carolina and UConn broke that record the previous week, but the Tigers’ contest against the Gamecocks surpassed that one.
This was in spite of the fact that the game wasn’t particularly close, especially down the stretch. South Carolina won comfortably 88-64, but LSU only dropped two spots from No. 3 to No. 5 after the road loss against the defending national champions.
Sunday's top-3 matchup between @LSUwbkb & @GamecockWBB averaged 1.5 million viewers
FOX Sports has released their initial TV ratings for the #Chiefs vs. #Eagles matchup in Super Bowl LVII.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles delivered on the football field with a thrilling game during Super Bowl LVII, one that drew a massive audience.
According to FOX Sports’ recent press release, the game drew an average audience of 113 million across all of FOX’s television and digital properties. It was the third-most-watched television show of all time and the best Super Bowl audience since 2017. In the new digital-dominant age, Super Bowl LVII also was the most-streamed Super Bowl and the most-stream event in FOX Sports history.
The average audience represents the second most-watched non-overtime Super Bowl in NFL history and the second most-watched program in FOX Sports history.
Rihanna’s halftime show even saw a viewership of 118.7 million. It was the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show since Katy Perry’s performance in 2015. It also was the second most-watched Super Bowl halftime performance on record.
In terms of metered markets, Kansas City led the way with 52 rating and an 87 share. That essentially means that 87% of households in K.C. were tuning into the Chiefs game.
All-in-all, it feels like this game will go down as one of the best-rated Super Bowls in NFL history.
NBC says the Jaguars’ playoff game against the Chiefs was a big ratings success.
The Jacksonville Jaguars’ 27-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs was a big hit among television audiences, according to NBC.
The network said Monday that an average of 34.1 million people tuned in for the game, more than any Saturday afternoon Divisional Game in eight years. It was just a hair behind the 34.1 million total that tuned in for a 2015 game between the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens.
“What an exciting way to cap our coverage of the 2022 NFL season, with star quarterbacks in a one-score game for a berth in the AFC Championship Game,” NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua said in a press release. “We thank our best-in-class team for their creative effort and tireless work throughout the season, and look forward to watching the culmination of an exciting postseason.”
The game was also the most streamed game on Peacock with the exception of Super Bowls.
The Jaguars haven’t played a primetime game on a Sunday or Monday night since the 2011 season. With Trevor Lawrence leading an ascending team, Jacksonville is evidently able to draw a large audience. It’d be a surprise if the team didn’t find itself in at least one primetime showcase in 2023.
There is clearly no such thing as “too many bowl games”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I feel sorry for those who would rather rain all over the parades than simply sit back and enjoy college bowl games. Sure, if they aren’t part of the College Football Playoff, they ultimately mean very little, but the past few weeks have served as a great reminder of just how awesome college football is and how flat-out crazy bowl season can be.
The stadiums appear to lose a few thousand fans each year but that doesn’t mean folks aren’t still tuning in. In fact, they’re watching in massive numbers nationally regardless of the “significance” of “all these bowl games”.
As we head into the national championship game, here is a look at the 12 most-watched bowl games of the 2022-23 postseason courtesy of Show Buzz Daily.
