Brian Harman stormed to his maiden Major title in the 151st Open at Royal Liverpool, but the feat appears to have failed to capture the imagination of TV viewers.
That’s because, per Twitter account @SportsTVRatings, the final round saw an eight-year low of 3.352 million viewers tuning in to the coverage on NBC.
That represents a 26% drop on the same stage in 2022, when Cameron Smith claimed his first Major title, holding off the challenge of Rory McIlroy in the historic 150th edition of the tournament at St Andrews. Indeed, the figure, which has also been relayed by Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal, is the lowest since 2015, when a Monday finish saw just 2.851 million viewers watch Zach Johnson beat Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen in a playoff.
NBC draws 3.352M viewers for Brian Harman's six-shot win at @TheOpen on Sunday, per @SportsTVRatings. That would be the lowest since 2015 (2.851M on ESPN, Monday finish).Five-year trend:- 2023: 3.352M- 2022: 4.725M- 2021: 4.169M- 2019: 3.784M- 2018: 6.475M pic.twitter.com/WgozPpwOFzJuly 25, 2023
A look at the figures over recent years also shows that 2023 saw the first drop since 2019. That year, 3.784 million watched as Shane Lowry romped to a six-shot win over Tommy Fleetwood. After a break because of Covid-19 in 2020, The Open returned in 2021, and there was an improvement as 4.169 million watched Collin Morikawa beat fellow American Jordan Spieth to the title by two shots. In 2022, 4.725 million saw Smith's victory before this year's reversal.
In the last five years, 2018 remains the strongest, as 6.475m witnessed Francesco Molinari becoming the first Italian to win a Major when he edged out four players by two shots at Carnoustie.
While the 2023 figure is the lowest for some time, there are some mitigating circumstances. While Harman’s win was seriously impressive, he isn’t the big name many hoped would claim the Claret Jug. Also, such was Harman’s dominance that there appeared little chance of a comeback by anyone in the chasing pack even before play began on Sunday.
The persistent rain during Sunday’s play also affected the action as a spectacle, while the continuing absence of 15-time Major winner Tiger Woods as he recovers from ankle surgery is likely to have led to some people choosing not to watch the final round. Combined, those factors arguably made The Open the least appealing of the four men's Majors of 2023.
The figure concludes a mixed bag of results for the 2023 men’s Majors. While things got off to an encouraging start in April’s Masters, which was the most watched golf telecast in five years, there was a slump for the following month’s PGA Championship, with the lowest viewing figures for the tournament in 15 years.
Wyndham Clark’s thrilling US Open victory over Rory McIlroy attracted its highest final-round viewing figures for five years, before the most recent downturn in last week’s tournament.
