With CBS finished with golf until 2016, let’s take a look how the network did in the ratings. As the network aired 21 events this year, CBS saw its best ratings in six years. Including 19 PGA Tour events as well as The Masters and the PGA Championship, CBS averaged a 2.3 rating with a 6 share. That’s up 21% from last year when it averaged a 1.9/5 for 22 events.
And those are the best numbers for CBS for golf dating back to 2009 when it garnered a 2.5/6 for 21 events.
As for the viewership, CBS averaged an audience of 3.5 million per event. That’s a 25% increase from last year when the Tiffany Network averaged 2.8 million viewers. That’s the highest average audience for golf on CBS since 2009 which saw 3.7 million viewers.
Golf had been transitioning after some lean years following Tiger Woods’ fall from grace. Now with some young marketable stars like Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy taking over the game, it appears that viewers are back. Woods had a minor comeback at the Wyndham Championship last month which also helped CBS’ ratings, but with Spieth carrying the load for most of the schedule, the network can credit the Texan with raising the numbers.
And as fans get more familiar with Spieth in 2016, he will become more of a draw to viewers and perhaps help golf get to the levels it enjoyed when the sport was the beneficiary of the Tiger Effect from the 1990’s into the 21st Century.
