Attendance Up, Ratings Down For Third Season of AST Dew Tour

With AST Dew Tour moving three event locations this year, attendance is up 13.6% from last year for the five events, and up 21.8% from its debut season in '05. The Tour's final stop in Orlando for the PlayStation Pro drew the largest crowd with 62,277 patrons for the four-day event. The Panasonic Open, with the move this year to Baltimore from Louisville, saw a 33.2% jump in attendance from last year's event. The chart below shows a three year attendance trend for each AST Dew Tour event, with a similar trend for the Tour as a whole (THE DAILY).

NOTES: ^ = Event was previously held in Louisville. ^^ = Event was previously held in Denver. ^^^ = Event was previously held in San Jose.

While attendance for the AST Dew Tour has been up, ratings on NBC have not seen a similar increase. Both ratings and total viewership were down again this season, off 15.2% and 16.2%, respectively, from a year ago. The charts below present average ratings and viewers for the combined Saturday and Sunday telecasts on NBC, with comparisons to previous years, as well as an event-by-event viewership breakdown for both Saturday and Sunday coverage.