2024 has been a tough one for the PGA Tour so far in terms of viewing figures in the USA, with the trend almost exclusively following a concerning spiral towards apathy.
Failing to follow on from what was deemed a strong 2023 with plenty of interest in its Elevated or Signature Events, nearly every tournament on the PGA Tour in the subsequent year has suffered from fewer and fewer fans tuning in. Often between 10-20%, but Peter Malnati's victory at the Valspar Championship saw a 27% dip on Sunday.
A week before, even Scottie Scheffler's narrow success at The Players Championship was victim to a 700,000 person falloff compared to the same man's stroll to the title 12 months earlier.
Speaking ahead of the Valero Texas Open, Rory McIlroy admitted he was concerned about the pattern.
He said: “I know this isn’t a be-all, end-all, but if you look at the TV ratings of the PGA Tour this year, they’re down 20 percent across the board. That’s a fifth. That’s big.
“That’s where I said like things need a correction and things are unsustainable because I’m close with NBC and the people that really care about these things and the people that tune in to watch golf. You know, 20% is a pretty jarring number this year.
"I would say the numbers on LIV aren’t great either in terms of the people tuning in. I just think with the fighting and everything that’s went on over the past couple years, people are just getting really fatigued of it and it’s turning people off men’s professional golf, and that’s not a good thing for anyone.”
Yet, with Major season tantalisingly close - a period which should give a more accurate insight into how TV audiences really feel about the game - there was a glimmer of hope presented to PGA Tour and NBC Sports bosses at last week's TPC San Antonio event.
According to Sports Business Journal's Josh Carpenter, "Sunday's final round of the Valero Texas Open drew 1.953M viewers on NBC, up 21% from last year."
With streaming included, NBC's number for Sunday was at 2.3M. Coverage peaked at 4.4M between 615-630.April 9, 2024
Carpenter also said: "With streaming included, NBC's number for Sunday was at 2.3M. Coverage peaked at 4.4M between 615-630."
Those numbers still paled in comparison to both the same event two years earlier and the NCAA women's basketball that featured Caitlin Clark and her Iowa Hawkeyes, however.
The Texas Open enjoyed an average of 2.324M viewers in 2022 when J. J. Spaun triumphed, while 18.7M tuned in to watch South Carolina win 87-75 in the national championship game on Sunday night.
While the PGA Tour has struggled to garner the same level of interest as in previous years through the first quarter of the year, McIlroy believes the summer will provide clarity for golf on what it needs to do in order to save itself.
The Northern Irishman said: “It’s going to be really interesting to see how the four major championships do, or even the three because put Augusta aside, I think that sort of lives in its own world.
“It will be really interesting to see how the major championship numbers fare compared to the other bigger events because there’s an argument to be made if the numbers are better and you’ve got all the best players in the world playing, then there’s an argument to say ‘OK, we need to get this thing back together.’
“But on the flip side, if the numbers aren’t as good, it’s an argument to still say we need to put everyone back together because people are losing interest in the game even if they don’t want to tune in to the four major championships.”
