Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy Fall Short in Boosting TGL Ratings

Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy were unable to significantly boost TV ratings for their new indoor team golf league in the first match the TGL cofounders’ clubs played against each other.

ESPN drew an average of 864,000 viewers for Jupiter Links Golf Club’s 4–3 overtime victory against Boston Common Golf. That’s up from last week’s audience of 682,000 viewers, but down from the league’s debut broadcast (919,000) and the first match Woods played in (1 million).

Monday night’s match started at 6:30 p.m. ET, while the previous three began at either 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. The TV audience did peak at 1.1 million during overtime, mirroring the peak figure of the Jan. 14 match involving Woods, whose Jupiter Links lost 12–1 to Los Angeles Golf Club. 

TGL is now averaging 874,000 viewers through four matches on ESPN. 

The Tiger effect that has impacted golf TV ratings for the past 25 years is perhaps not as large as one might expect, so far at least. The two matches involving Woods averaged 932,000 viewers, while the two without him drew an average of 800,500.

Monday night’s match was the closest competition TGL has seen so far, as Jupiter Links and Boston Common ended regulation tied at 3. (Each hole of the 15-hole match is typically worth one point, with no points awarded for a tie.) In overtime, Jupiter prevailed in a best-of-three closest-to-the-pin chipping contest.

Once again, TGL ran over its allotted two-hour time slot on ESPN, which was 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. ET this week. The NC State–Duke broadcast began on ESPNU, with ESPN picking the game up at about 8:49 p.m. ET, with 16 minutes remaining in the first half.

Woods’s Jupiter Links will be back in action Feb. 18, but he won’t play McIlroy’s Boston Common again in the regular season. Four of the league’s six teams will make the playoffs, which will take place in March.