Tiger Woods brought more fans into the game of golf than any other player in the sport’s history, and the 14-time major champion finally ended a long drought by winning a PGA Tour event on Sunday for the first time since 2013. Did people tune in even though Tiger won the Tour Championship right in the middle of Week 3 NFL action?
Yes, yes they did.
On Monday, NBC revealed that their ratings for the final round of the Tour Championship were up more than 200 percent from a year ago. The telecast from the final round was the highest-rated one of any PGA Tour event in 2018.
Whoah. NBC says overnight TV rating for Tiger Woods' first PGA Tour win in five years WAS UP 206% FROM LAST YEAR'S FINAL ROUND. HIGHEST-RATED PGA TOUR TELECAST OF 2018. TV Column coming.
— Michael McCarthy (@MMcCarthyREV) September 24, 2018
ESPN’s Darren Rovell gave the numbers a bit more context:
More people were watching when Tiger won yesterday than any amount of people watching at a given time for the British Open or US Open this year. pic.twitter.com/SmK7OVRV1w
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 24, 2018
We hear about “The Tiger Effect” with golf all the time, and this is further proof that it is very real. If the shots of the absurd swarm of people following Woods at East Lake weren’t evidence enough, NBC would be glad to tell you how important Tiger still is to the game.
