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Scottie Scheffler’s dominant victory at the PGA Championship was great for his bank account—but not TV ratings.
CBS drew an average of 4.76 million viewers for Sunday’s final round, which was down 4% from the 4.96 million people who watched the PGA Tour’s Xander Schauffele sink a birdie putt on the 72nd hole of the 2024 PGA Championship to defeat LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau by one stroke to win his first major.
Sunday’s audience was up 5% from the 4.52 million viewers for 2023’s final round, though, when Brooks Koepka won his fifth major.
CBS had been on a hot streak with golf TV ratings this season, led by a 33% year-over-year boost at The Masters, when 12.71 million viewers tuned in to the final round to see Rory McIlroy complete the career Grand Slam. The 2024 Masters—the most recent major Scheffler had won—was down 20% in TV ratings compared to the previous year.
NBC will broadcast the final two majors of the year: the U.S. Open and the Open Championship (also known as the British Open).
In the Rough
PGA Championship TV ratings were down across the board.
The third round on Saturday averaged 3.11 million viewers on CBS, which was down 12% from 2024.
ESPN was down for its early-round coverage on Thursday and Friday afternoons, too.
The first round averaged 955,000 viewers, down 13% from 1.1 million in 2024. The second round averaged 1.3 million viewers—with the power threesome of Scheffler, McIlroy, and Schauffele completing their day—down nearly 19% from 2024, when coverage included Tiger Woods playing most of his round that day.
ESPN+ had exclusive PGA Championship coverage on Thursday and Friday mornings, but those viewership numbers are not made public.
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