Tiger Effect: Woods Return Poised To Boost ESPN+

ESPN+ is about to have its own Super Bowl courtesy of Tiger Woods.

ESPN’s streaming platform will offer subscribers two exclusive coverage windows of Woods at the Genesis Invitational over the next two days.

Excitement is building as the 15-time major winner embarks on yet another comeback — this time from the crippling leg injuries suffered in a car crash in February 2021.  

It will be Woods’ first official tournament since the Open Championship last July. 

Details on ESPN+ streaming coverage of Woods:

• ESPN+ will offer exclusive coverage of Woods’ first-round play (3:04 p.m. ET), along with Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. The action moves to TV an hour later on Golf Channel, at which point ESPN will immediately devote its “marquee group” feed to Woods and co.
• Then ESPN+ will offer exclusive coverage of most or all of Woods’ round on Friday. The golf gods smiled on ESPN by scheduling Woods’ second-round start time 10:24 a.m. ET. So the streamer will get all the action until Golf Channel takes over from 4 p.m. to 8 pm ET.  
• ESPN competitors at CBS Sports and Golf Channel are praying Woods makes the cut. The two networks will divide up TV coverage this weekend, with Golf Channel televising the action from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and CBS from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

“Having Tiger back at a Tour event is obviously exciting because this is the first time he’ll be on ‘PGA Tour Live on ESPN+’ since we launched last year,” John Lasker, ESPN’s vice president of digital media programming, told Front Office Sports in a statement. 

“The Tour events continue to perform well on ESPN+, which build momentum leading into our coverage of The Masters and PGA Championship this spring on ESPN.”

Before Woods announced he was ready to play again, the PGA Tour was already driving subscribers to ESPN+.

From January through August 2022, more subscribers streamed “PGA Tour Live on ESPN+” than any other content on the platform.

The streaming platform now boasts 25 million subscribers and offers 27,000 live events per year.