{"id":819739,"date":"2026-07-23T00:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/819739\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:37:10","slug":"golf-majors-get-big-tv-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/819739\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf Majors Get Big TV Boost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ryan Fox\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/ryan-fox-200-1-underdog-wins-open-championship-for-first-major\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unlikely Open Championship victory<\/a> at the last men\u2019s golf major of the year averaged 4.3 million viewers on NBC on Sunday, up 6% from last year and the tournament\u2019s most-watched final round since 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The final-round audience Sunday peaked at 6.1 million viewers on NBC and Peacock from 1:15 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET as Fox rallied late, including a birdie on the 18th hole, to win the Claret Jug by one shot over Cameron Young at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in England. Due to the time difference, The Open\u2019s final round typically starts mid-morning on the East Coast of the U.S., finishing in the early afternoon, compared to later afternoon or evening finishes for the other three majors played Stateside.<\/p>\n<p>It marks a small boost from the 4.1 million viewers who watched <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/scheffler-pushes-the-open-to-largest-audience-since-2022-at-st-andrews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scottie Scheffler\u2019s commanding four-shot victory<\/a> over Harris English on NBC at the 2025 Open at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland. Last year\u2019s final-round audience was a 21% increase over 2023, when Xander Schauffele won at Royal Troon in Scotland.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Major Ratings<\/p>\n<p>All four majors saw final-round viewership increases this season. It should be noted ratings this year were collected using <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/nielsens-new-ratings-formula-could-boost-viewership-numbers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nielsen\u2019s Big Data + Panel methodology<\/a>, while last year\u2019s audience included panel-only figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Masters: <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/rory-mcilroy-wins-cbs-masters-tiger-woods\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">13.99 million<\/a> on CBS (+8%)<\/p>\n<p>PGA Championship: 5.76 million on CBS (+21%)<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Open: <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/u-s-open-draws-5-5m-viewers-still-trails-pga-championship\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">5.5 million<\/a> on NBC (+2%)<\/p>\n<p>Open Championship: 4.3 million on NBC (+6%)<\/p>\n<p>The final round of the Players Championship, the PGA Tour\u2019s flagship event with a $25 million purse, <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/nbc-draws-best-players-championship-viewership-in-five-years\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">averaged 4.4 million viewers<\/a> on NBC, up 15% from last year.<\/p>\n<p>More Open Numbers\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NBC\u2019s Saturday coverage of the Open Championship averaged 3.7 million viewers, marking the tournament\u2019s most-watched third round since 2018 and up 16% from last year.<\/p>\n<p>USA Network\u2019s Open broadcast\u2014which included the majority of first- and second-round coverage on Thursday and Friday and some early-round coverage on the weekend\u2014averaged 873,000 viewers spanning more than 25 hours, up 17% when compared to panel-only data last year and up 2% compared to Big Data + Panel figures in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Golf Channel\u2019s Live From The Open post-round show Friday averaged 354,000 viewers\u2014the most-watched edition since the Masters\u2014as the fallout from Bryson DeChambeau\u2019s two-stroke penalty issued after the second round <a href=\"https:\/\/frontofficesports.com\/bryson-dechambeau-2-stroke-penalty-the-open\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">played out in real time<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Fox\u2019s unlikely Open Championship victory at the last men\u2019s golf major of the year averaged 4.3 million&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-819739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}