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Last year, the PGA Tour’s $20 million signature events saw significant viewership gains over the 2024 season—they were up roughly 10%.
Halfway through this year’s eight-tournament slate, though, the story is trending in a different direction.
Only one of the four signature events played so far has seen a viewership uptick compared to the 2025 season.
But despite that downturn, final-round audiences for this season’s signature events have averaged 3.55 million viewers, which is slightly up—just over 2%—from what those same four tournaments averaged in 2025, 3.47 million viewers. That’s thanks largely to a significant increase at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
- AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: 3.3 million on CBS (-0.9%)
- Genesis Invitational: 3.27 million on CBS (-3.8%)
- Arnold Palmer Invitational: 3.3 million on NBC (+17.8%)
- RBC Heritage: 4.35 million on CBS (-0.2%)
Also of note: This year, TV ratings are being measured by Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel methodology, which, in general, captures more viewers than its previous panel-only method that was used prior to September 2025.
This year’s Genesis Invitational was played at its traditional home, Riviera Country Club, after moving to Torrey Pines last year due to the Los Angeles wildfires.
In 2025, The Sentry was also a signature event, but this year’s edition was cancelled due to water supply issues in Maui, and the PGA Tour has confirmed it will not return in 2027.
The PGA Tour has four more signature events on its 2026 schedule, with CBS broadcasting three of the four final rounds.
- Cadillac Championship: April 30–May 3 at Trump Doral (CBS)
- Truist Championship: May 7–10 in Charlotte (CBS)
- Memorial Tournament: June 4–7 in Ohio (CBS)
- Travelers Championship: June 25–28 (NBC)
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has said he would like to add to the number of signature events on the schedule in future years.
Overall, CBS is averaging 2.85 million viewers for its Saturday and Sunday PGA Tour broadcasts in 2026, which is up 15% over last year. The final round of the Masters averaged nearly 14 million viewers on CBS, which was the most since 2015.
The final round of the Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s flagship event, averaged 4.4 million viewers on NBC, which was a 15% increase compared to 2025.
LIV Up in Mexico City
Fox had its two most-watched LIV Golf broadcasts of the season on Friday and Saturday afternoon from Mexico City, which were up 18% and 11% over the comparable 2025 windows, respectively. Here is the full round-by-round recap:
- First round: 55,000 viewers (FS1)
- Second round: 396,000 viewers (Fox)
- Third round: 333,000 viewers (Fox); 54,000 viewers (FS1)
- Final round: 49,000 viewers (FS1)
Third round coverage was on Fox from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET and then switched to FS1. The first round broadcast feed was down for nearly three hours Thursday due to a local power outage, before returning to air just as FS1 picked up coverage at 6 p.m. ET.
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