No Tiger, no problem.
Even without the biggest draw in the sport, golf's 'fifth major' finished with ratings virtually unchanged from last year.
The final round of The Players Championship drew a 3.4 overnight rating on NBC Sunday afternoon, down only 8% from last year. The 3.4 is the highest overnight for a non-major tournament in which Tiger Woods did not participate since last year's Nissan Open.
After ratings for the final round of the Wachovia Championship fell 53% from last year, presumably thanks to Woods' lack of involvement, it seemed likely that ratings for the TPC would fall considerably.
The mere 8% drop may be an indication that golf can survive without Woods -- at least for the biggest events.
2 comments:
The PGA Tour has to be entirely thrilled with this news. It proves that The Players has become enough of a brand on it's own that it doesn't need to have Tiger in order to bring in a steady audience.
Of course, even though Tiger was in the tournament last year, he wasn't in contention on the weekend so his presence wasn't quite as noticeable in the ratings.
NBC benefitted from the journeyman story of Paul Goydos because that's all anyone was talking about today. Not the tournament, or Sergio, but Goydos. They lucked out, i think, with a great storyline.
The ratings probably got help from no NASCAR race and that the last four holes or so happened right after the Lakers game ended. I know I was switching back and forth and stopped once Utah won. It was all golf at the end.
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