Xander Schauffele may have served up a brilliant final round of 65 at the fourth Major of the year, The Open at Royal Troon, but it failed to capture the imagination of the TV-watching public in the US.
Per Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal, coverage on NBC and Peacock on Sunday, where Schauffele emerged from the chasing pack to beat overnight leader Billy Horschel and 2013 US Open champion Justin Rose by two shots, saw a 4% drop on the previous year with just 3.39 million viewers tuning in.
NBC and Peacock drew 3.39M viewers on Sunday for Xander Schauffele’s two-shot win in @TheOpen, down 4% from last year and Brian Harman.That’s the lowest number for the final round since Zach Johnson’s win in 2015, which finished on a Monday on ESPN (cable) pic.twitter.com/9r7guxnfx1July 23, 2024
Perhaps even more worrying is the figure is the lowest number for the final round of Major since 2015, when Zach Johnson beat Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman in a playoff in a Monday finish at St Andrews.
The news completes a mixed bag for the year’s four Majors. The first of the year, April’s Masters at Augusta National, saw a 20% drop on the previous year on CBS Sports during the final round, with 9.589m viewers tuning in as Scottie Scheffler claimed the Green Jacket for the second time.
Billy Horschel had to settle for T2 at The Open
(Image credit: Getty Images)
There was encouragement with the PGA Championship in May, though, with CBS Sports recording a 10% increase in viewership for the final round, where Schauffele claimed his maiden Major title.
It got even better with June’s US Open at Pinehurst No.2, which enjoyed an 11-year NBC record as Bryson DeChambeau emerged the winner of an epic battle against Rory McIlroy.
Away from the Majors, it has been an equally confusing picture throughout the PGA Tour season, with even its flagship event, The Players Championship, seeing a drop on the previous year in the final round despite a grandstand finish as Scheffler held off the challenge of Schauffele, Harman and Wyndham Clark to win.
Elsewhere there’s been better news, including at the Valero Texas Open, where an epic finish won by Akshay Bhatia saw a 21% increase on the previous year on NBC, while the Zurich Classic of New Orleans had its highest final-round figures in…
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