Fox averaged 5.08 million viewers for U.S. Open coverage on Sunday from Erin Hills, its lowest audience for the final round since it began airing the tournament two years ago and second-lowest viewership on record for the event. Brooks Koepka won his first major at this year's Open, taking the title by four strokes over a leaderboard lacking big names. The 5.08 million viewers is 10% higher than the previous low in '14, when NBC in a lame-duck year with the event drew 4.6 million viewers for Martin Kaymer's eight-stroke win at Pinehurst. This year also is down from 5.39 million viewers for Dustin Johnson's three-stroke win last year at Oakmont, and down from 6.7 million viewers in '15, when Jordan Spieth won the event by one stroke in a telecast that aired well into primetime on the East Coast. Milwaukee was Sunday's top market with a 10.3 local rating, followed by West Palm Beach (5.7) and Dayton (5.5). Meanwhile, Saturday's third-round coverage averaged 3.32 million viewers, down slightly from 3.33 million viewers last year, but low enough for the least-viewed third round on record. The weekend telecasts on Fox from Erin Hills were the most-viewed sports telecasts of the weekend, with FS1's Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race from Michigan Int'l Speedway ranking third at 3.14 million viewers on Sunday afternoon. For streaming, Fox Sports Go had its most-watched golf event on record on Sunday, drawing an average minute audience of 30,321 viewers, up 135% from last year (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
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U.S. OPEN FINAL ROUND AUDIENCE TREND
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YEAR
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COURSE
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NET
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VIEWERS (000)
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WINNER
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'17
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Erin Hills
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Fox
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5,075
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Brooks Koepka
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'16
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Oakmont
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Fox
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5,393
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Dustin Johnson
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'15
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Chambers Bay
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Fox
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6,700
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Jordan Spieth
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'14
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Pinehurst
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NBC
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4,600
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Martin Kaymer
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'13
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Merion
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NBC
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8,400
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Justin Rose
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THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE: Fox' Joe Buck yesterday explained how he mixed up the name of Koepka's girlfriend after Koepka won the U.S. Open, saying he "wasn't up on that information" and was given a card by a spotter that "had old info on it." Appearing on "The Dan Patrick Show," Buck noted Fox "got it right before we got off the air," but admitted, "That's not the world we live in these days." Buck: "You have to do the apology tour for getting the week-old girlfriend wrong." He noted he has done "way worse than this ... before the age of Twitter." Buck: "I’m personally doing seven-and-a-half hours of live TV a day and there are going to be mistakes all over the place. If you’re not making mistakes then you’re boring, you’re not trying things, you’re not trying to do stuff. It’s not a huge deal.” He added, "I thought for us at Fox, we had a really fun, good event. We’re showing we can do golf and do it well despite the whole WAGS segment." This is the third year of Fox' 12-year deal with the USGA, and Buck said broadcasting golf is "finally fun for us, and for me personally, at Fox." Buck: "It wasn't the first ... year-plus because it was hard work and it's hard to figure out how to do it. But now, it's fun, and that's a good feeling" (
"The Dan Patrick Show," 6/19).
THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER: In Boston, Keith Pearson notes Fox' Brad Faxon "believes each year gets better" for the broadcast team. He said, "It's not like NBC was great their first year or CBS was great. You look at those teams and how much they worked together." He said the most "challenging" thing for the Fox crew is that they "have a better team now than we've ever had and we sounded better, but we only work five (or) seven weeks together." Pearson notes Faxon was "high on Fox' graphic technology, including the shot tracer and the overhead image of the ball's flight." Faxon: "All the comments we get, people love seeing the graphics and wish they could see more of it, the flight tracker, the Trackman. Nobody ever says to me we're seeing too much of that. I haven't heard that yet, and if (Fox) heard that, I'm sure they'd adjust" (BOSTON HERALD, 6/20).
