{"id":15803,"date":"2025-07-23T11:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T11:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/15803\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T11:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T11:09:09","slug":"the-open-tv-ratings-broadcaster-delivers-most-watched-coverage-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/15803\/","title":{"rendered":"The Open TV Ratings: Broadcaster Delivers Most-Watched Coverage Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

The debate over whether Scottie Scheffler’s dominance is good for engagement<\/a> has received a compelling argument from the pro camp this week after it was reported that both US and UK broadcasters saw significant upturns in TV ratings at the 153rd Open Championship.<\/p>\n

Scheffler swept all aside at Royal Portrush to claim his first Claret Jug<\/a> and fourth Major of his career by four strokes – at one point building up a seven-shot lead during Sunday’s final round.<\/p>\n

And while the jeopardy of the championship’s fate effectively disappeared into the Northern Irish sky once Scheffler birdied his 55th hole, host broadcaster, Sky Sports<\/a> reported its most-watched coverage ever throughout the four days.<\/p>\n

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The UK broadcaster generated 21.2 million viewer hours across the championship, which averaged out at a 36% increase from 2024. Each individual round of The Open achieved a record average audience on Sky Sports, with a reported year-on-year growth in terms of both average and peak viewership.<\/p>\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly, TV audiences grew steadily throughout the week, with an average of 338,000 tuning in on Thursday and peaking at 572,000 for round one – the latter figure was up 49% YoY while the former grew by 39%.<\/p>\n

\"Scottie<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

An average of 378,000 (peak 622,000) was recorded during the second round before a significant jump as the action headed into the weekend.<\/p>\n

The TV audience averaged almost 600,000 on Saturday, peaking at 851,000, before the final round welcomed an average of 681,000 which was up 41% from 2024.<\/p>\n

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Sky Sports said its audience peaked at 1.14 million, which was 19% higher than Xander Schauffele<\/a>‘s victory march 12 months prior.<\/p>\n

A Sky Sports spokesperson said: “These record-breaking figures highlight Sky\u2019s continued investment in delivering world-class golf coverage, combining cutting-edge innovation, expert analysis, and compelling storytelling to bring fans closer to the action than ever before.”<\/p>\n

The Open TV Ratings: Sky SportsSwipe to scroll horizontally<\/p>\n

Round<\/p>\n

Average Audience (YoY Increase)<\/p>\n

Peak Audience (YoY Increase)<\/p>\n

Round 1<\/p>\n

338,000 (39%)<\/p>\n

572,000 (49%)<\/p>\n

Round 2<\/p>\n

378,000 (38%)<\/p>\n

622,000 (26%)<\/p>\n

Round 3<\/p>\n

590,000 (32%)<\/p>\n

851,000 (16%)<\/p>\n

Round 4<\/p>\n

681,000 (41%)<\/p>\n

1.14m (19%)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the uptick in TV viewership was not only felt in the British Isles, but also in the United States as NBC Sports<\/a> recorded its biggest audience since the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews in Scotland.<\/p>\n

NBC stated Sunday’s final round attracted 4.1 million viewers – which included streaming and was 21% up from last year’s final men’s Major (3.39m). The ratings peaked at just over 6.1 million during the 1:30pm – 1:45pm ET window.<\/p>\n

In collaboration with Peacock, NBC’s viewership averaged 3.6 million with Saturday’s third round included, with that figure up 24% from 2024.<\/p>\n

\"Scottie<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

While a marked improvement on recent history in relation to The Open Championship, NBC’s TV ratings were around a third lower than the broadcaster recorded at the US Open in June.<\/p>\n

Largely down to the earlier window and a lengthy weather delay which interrupted the final round, JJ Spaun’s victory attracted a peak audience of 9.1m<\/a> and an average viewership of 5.4m, which was the least-watched final day since Bryson DeChambeau’s success in 2020.<\/p>\n

On the whole, the PGA Tour has reported a gradual upturn in TV ratings this season – highlighted by its Signature Events finishing the term up from last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Final-round coverage for the eight big-money tournaments increased just over 10% from the most recent comparable version and saw significant jumps at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (47% from 2023 as 2024 final round was cancelled) as well as the Travelers Championship (35%) and Arnold Palmer Invitational (22%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The debate over whether Scottie Scheffler’s dominance is good for engagement has received a compelling argument from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-15803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}