ESPN averaged 1.94 million viewers for four-round coverage of the British Open this year, and despite a Monday finish, that figure is up 29% from 1.5 million viewers last year. This year’s audience is still below ESPN’s best figure in ’12 (2.15 million viewers), when Ernie Els won and Tiger Woods finished third. This year also is below ’13 (2.09 million viewers), when Phil Mickelson won the event and Woods finished tied for sixth. West Palm Beach led all markets during the tourney with a 2.9 local rating, followed by Louisville (2.7) and Oklahoma City (2.6). Meanwhile, ESPN on Monday finished with 2.851 million viewers for the final round of the event, which saw Zach Johnson capture his second major after a four-hole playoff against Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman. That is up 5% from the Sunday finish last year, when Rory McIlroy held off Sergio Garcia and Rickie Fowler by two strokes. The Monday finish also led to record numbers for the WatchESPN platform. The final round generated 1.1 million unique visitors for WatchESPN, marking its most-viewed golf event on record and one of the platform’s top 10 events yet, behind only a handful of games from the ’14 FIFA World Cup and the ’15 Ohio State-Oregon CFP National Championship. For the entire tourney, WatchESPN averaged 599,000 uniques per day, up 60% from last year’s event (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
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FOUR-ROUND VIEWERSHIP FOR THE BRITISH OPEN ON ESPN
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YEAR
|
AVG.
VIEWERS (000)
|
WINNER |
NOTES |
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'15
|
1,940
|
Zach Johnson |
Monday finish due to rain;
3-man playoff
with Marc Leishman, Louis Oosthuizen |
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'14
|
1,500
|
Rory McIlroy |
Rickie Fowler, Sergio Garcia in second
by two strokes |
|
'13
|
2,089
|
Phil Mickelson |
Tiger Woods tied for sixth |
|
'12
|
2,147
|
Ernie Els |
Tiger Woods in third |
|
'11
|
1,429
|
Darren Clarke |
Tiger did not play; Phil Mickelson finished second |
|
'10
|
1,825
|
Louis Oosthuizen |
|
| |
|
|
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TALK ABOUT A LIP OUT: The London TELEGRAPH reported the BBC has apologized for comments analyst Peter Alliss made during the final round that "provoked another sexism storm with his second on-air gaffe within 24 hours." As Zach Johnson's wife, Kim, was shown moments before he won, Alliss "mused about how the couple would spend the prize money." He said, "She is probably thinking -- 'if this goes in I get a new kitchen.'" That came a day after he talked about amateur Paul Dunne "being hugged by his mother as he came off the course with a share of the third-round lead." He said, "Ah, that must be mum. Perhaps he likes older women. I don't know but I hope I got the right one" (TELEGRAPH.co.uk, 7/21).
NO IMPACT ON PARTICIPATION: Outgoing R&A CEO Peter Dawson, in response to a question about the British Open moving from the BBC to Sky in the U.K. beginning in '17, said that he does not think the move will "hurt golf's appeal." Dawson: "It's borderline absurd actually to think that an event in just four days of the year is going to make a massive difference to participation, which sort of channel it's on" (GOLF DIGEST STIX, 7/22 issue).
