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Olympic golf viewership numbers are in (and they are impressive)

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The thrilling final-round showdown between Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson for the gold medal was a heckuva watch from a golf fan’s perspective. And it seems Olympic viewers thought so, too.

As gold-medal winner Rose said after his victory: “That felt better than anything I’ve ever won. It was the best tournament I’ve ever done. Hopefully we’ve shown Brazil what golf is about. I’m glad it was close. Not for my nerves, for golf.”

Indeed, “for golf” the neck-and-neck battle returned strong early ratings.

According to Sports Media Watch and Sports Business Daily, final-round coverage from Rio garnered a 6.3 overnight rating during a 90-minute window of simulcast NBC/Golf Channel coverage.

Photo from Twitter (@JustinRose99)

Photo from Twitter (@JustinRose99)

The figure represents the second-highest number for any 90-minute segment of a golf telecast this year with only a segment of the Masters (8.5) topping it. Also notable: NBC aired the telecast on a three-hour delay in Mountain and Pacific time zones, doubtless putting downward pressure on viewership figures.

More from a Golf Channel press release

NBC and Golf Channel both provided coverage of the dramatic closing holes of the men’s Olympic golf tournament (1:12-2:49 p.m.). Aside from the final round of the Masters, this ranks as the highest-rated 90-minute window of final round golf coverage in 2016 with a combined 5.6 household rating and 8.8 million average viewers. Additionally, streaming of the men’s competition ranks second to The Open in every metric for NBC Sports’ golf events on record, including Live starts: 873,025, Live minutes: 27,463,315, Uniques: 483,616 and Visits: 692,472.

Afternoon coverage on Golf Channel (Noon-3:12 p.m. ET) earned a 1.02 household rating with 1.6 million viewers, marking the best performance in the time period for total viewers and Adults 25-54 (495,000) since the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am featuring Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in February of 2012. Golf Channel coverage peaked at a 1.22 household rating and 1.845 million viewers (2:30-2:45 p.m.). Early coverage (6 a.m.-Noon) is Golf Channel’s best performance in the time period in more than eight years since the Dubai Desert Classic won by Woods in February 2008 for both total viewers (556,000) and Adults 25-54 (174,000).

It’s too early to speculate about ripple effects, and certainly cynics won’t be swayed by the numbers. But Olympic golf needed a compelling tournament with voluminous viewership.

It got both.

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22 Comments

22 Comments

  1. Mat

    Aug 19, 2016 at 5:43 pm

    It’s clear they went for safety the first time. In 2020, they must have a format change. I’m sure there’s plenty of time to figure it out, but whether it’s match, ryder, team, or hell even Stableford… give me something that’s not “just another week”.

  2. talljohn777

    Aug 17, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    Sorry, but the format needs to change. It should have more of a team, Ryder Cup feel not the feel of just another PGA golf tournament.

  3. Ezra

    Aug 17, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    So much for the golfwrx snobby readers on “golf should not be on the Olympics” blablabla. Golf is not a dying sport. Commentators on this website are. Cheers suckers!

  4. Blake

    Aug 17, 2016 at 10:22 am

    Meh. Course was boring. I more watched it to see how the uneducated golf fans would react to the ball flying around.

  5. Bert

    Aug 17, 2016 at 9:49 am

    So thankful for the Fast Forward function on my DVR

  6. osssssama flys planes

    Aug 17, 2016 at 6:45 am

    who cares about amateur golf… most are at best useless even most of the top guys don’t end up holding a candle to the top pros. Who has any real interest in watching people who may make it when we can watch guys who have made it.

  7. Pub

    Aug 17, 2016 at 3:23 am

    That’s a good start! Now the format needs revising, and IGF should borrow the US collegiate format and bring that Team aspect into it for Tokyo to make it really exciting.

  8. RedX

    Aug 16, 2016 at 7:29 pm

    and that was just the US ratings folks….I’m sure the dial moved elsewhere on the planet as well. Given the disappointment re prominent players withdrawing it still looks a success. Looking forward to the Women’s event as well. It looks promising also.

  9. John

    Aug 16, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    still not a fan that golf is in the olympics. there’s a golf tournament almost every weekend on the TV. and i really think that a normal strokeplay format is just wrong. i would rather watch something like a team matchplay event

  10. golfraven

    Aug 16, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    Those numbers may be right for Americas but the coverage was non existent in Europe – I could not watch one minute of live golf and I have seatched my ass iut on the internet too. Please tell me the channels where I could watch the summary or interviews of players during the games? Also I could not download the official app onto my iphone and the olympics website is so poor it is a bad joke. Hope the Japanies will do a better job in 4 years. For me this was a big letdown and disappointment.

    • doesnotno

      Aug 17, 2016 at 8:54 am

      Coverage was total in the UK, BBC had an HD channel purely for the golf on all 4 days.

    • Ezra

      Aug 17, 2016 at 1:02 pm

      Wrong again. Belgium public tv broadcasts the whole event (first time in its history). Google ” Auvio ” to watch the ladies.

  11. ooffa

    Aug 16, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    That was Olympic golf? I thought we were supposed to have our best players representing us. They were great players but certainly not the best. What are we thinking here in the U S of A. It looked more like the Web.com Olympics.

    • Tom

      Aug 17, 2016 at 10:32 am

      which Olympics were you watching?

    • Ezra

      Aug 17, 2016 at 1:05 pm

      Yeah I guess Americans were too snobby to care. Spoiled children…

  12. Justin

    Aug 16, 2016 at 11:28 am

    I think you are going to see more top players compete in Japan in 2020. For the next 4 years Justin Rose gets to say he’s the gold medal winner. Imagine even how much more the Masters would mean if it was only played every 4 years. What I think they need to change is the reward for the winner, which is currently an exemption into all 4 major championships. The medal winners’ world ranks were 9th, 4th, and 15th respectively, so they all will be playing in all of the majors next year anyway. I think they need to award exempt status on the PGA Tour for 2 years to the winner. While playing in the majors would be great, as an up and coming player I think status would be more important to me. If you know your card is secure, you can focus on your game. Again, this year it would not have mattered, but in years to come it may be a motivational factor. Heck, maybe even extend that out to all 3 medal winners just so they MIGHT have a chance to award something.

    • Messico Smizzle

      Aug 16, 2016 at 6:46 pm

      good ideas.

    • Jim

      Aug 16, 2016 at 11:32 pm

      How ’bout actually fielding amateurs – with lengthy national ‘open’ * qualifying held that year – or starting year before? A national ‘build up’ of interest with good coverage would psych the golf community up more than anything they’ve done for this olympic debut in the last 4 years!

      *Hcps would have to be STRICTLY enforced & varified to keep the bozo’s out.

      Grant THOSE who make the team exemptions to stuff – Nationwide or some Tour events – whatever…Win a medal? All four majors!

      that’d be pretty cool

  13. Fredo

    Aug 16, 2016 at 11:10 am

    Before the Olympics started I was not interested in watching golf, but when the weekend hit I got sucked in and watched a fantastic battle between Stenson and Rose ????

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