‘The Match’ Recorded Its Lowest Viewership but Scored Well With Female Fans

TNT Sports’ “The Match” got its worst viewership ever (again), but also did well with female viewers and on social media.

Monday night’s competition among Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Lexi Thompson, and Rose Zhang averaged 511,000 viewers across TNT, HLN, and TruTV, TNT Sports confirmed to Front Office Sports.

The series could’ve used a boost after drawing record-low viewership in June despite employing the star power of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Stephen Curry, and Klay Thompson. That competition garnered 782,000 viewers across platforms, according to Sports Business Journal.

However, the event at The Park in West Palm Beach, Fla., was the first time the event included female participants, and the LPGA stars did deliver the desired results for TNT Sports. An average of 160,000 female viewers tuned into the event, 350% higher than female viewership for the LPGA Tour on the Golf Channel this year, per TNT Sports. The company could not provide female viewership numbers for previous editions of “The Match.”

Social media offered another promising stat: TNT Sports–owned Golf Digest setting a new record for Instagram engagement, up 150% from the record set by the competition’s last iteration in June 2023, the broadcaster says. According to TNT Sports, the competition also outperformed the Golf Channel’s PGA Tour coverage this year, with viewership up 23%. The broadcaster says the viewership grew 18% in the final 15 minutes, during which McIlroy won in a sudden-death playoff.

Throughout all editions of “The Match,” the philanthropic competitions have donated around $41 million to charity, according to TNT Sports. The number was about $3 million lower before Monday’s competition, the ninth in the series.

The second version of “The Match” was the series’ most-viewed, peaking at 6.3 million viewers and holding an average of 5.8 million. The star power of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning, as well as the deep craving for live sports amid the COVID-19 pandemic, propelled that success, which the network said was golf’s most-watched telecast on cable TV.