The Sunday woes for the PGA Tour continued at The Players Championship last weekend, as NBC saw another audience decline for a final round telecast. The Tour’s signature event, which saw Si Woo Kim win by three strokes over a leaderboard lacking big names, drew 3.69 million viewers on Sunday, down from 5.23 million viewers last year, when Jason Day took the wire-to-wire win by four strokes. Sunday was the event’s lowest final round since ’14, when Martin Kaymer beat Jim Furyk by one stroke during a telecast that featured a 90-minute rain delay. That telecast drew around 3 million viewers.
WE HAVE LIFT OFF: The Rockets have been without Yao Ming since the end of the '10-11 season, but their games are still a draw in China. Streaming platform Tencent last week drew 6.7 million video viewers and 18.9 million views for Game 5 of the Spurs-Rockets Western Conference semifinals, marking the NBA’s best audience on the platform this season to date. That contest on May 9 easily outdrew Game 6 last Thursday, which saw the Rockets blown out by the Spurs, drawing 5.5 million video viewers and 13.8 million video views. Linear TV viewership also was successful for Rockets games this postseason. Chinese outlet CCTV averaged 5.53 million viewers for all 10 Rockets games during the postseason, up 8% compared to 5.14 million viewers for the NBA Playoffs overall to date. The Spurs-Rockets series on CCTV averaged 5.78 million viewers for six telecasts.
NOTES: FS1 drew 2.62 million viewers for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race from Kansas on Saturday night, down from 3.14 million viewers last year, but up from 2.48 million viewers in ’15.
The chart below lists final audience figures from select recent sports telecasts.
Untitled Document
| TELECAST |
DATE |
NET |
TIME (ET) |
RAT. |
VIEWERS (000) |
| NBA Western Conference Finals: Spurs-Warriors: Game 1 |
5/14 |
ABC |
3:28-6:00pm |
4.6 |
8,129 |
| NBA Western Conference Semifinals: Spurs-Rockets: Game 5 |
5/9 |
TNT |
8:00-10:53pm |
2.9 |
4,730 |
| NBA Western Conference Semifinals: Warriors-Jazz: Game 4 |
5/8 |
TNT |
9:00-11:38pm |
2.8 |
4,526 |
| NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals: Celtics-Wizards: Game 6 |
5/12 |
ESPN |
7:59-10:47pm |
2.7 |
4,262 |
| NBA Western Conference Semifinals: Spurs-Rockets: Game 6 |
5/11 |
ESPN |
7:59-10:25pm |
2.6 |
4,190 |
| NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals: Celtics-Wizards: Game 5 |
5/10 |
TNT |
8:00-10:34pm |
2.3 |
3,765 |
| PGA Tour: Players Championship: Final Round |
5/14 |
NBC |
2:00-7:15pm |
2.3 |
3,686 |
| "Inside the NBA" |
5/9 |
TNT |
10:53-11:42pm |
1.9 |
3,070 |
| NHL Eastern Conference Finals: Senators-Penguins: Game 1 |
5/13 |
NBC |
7:24-10:34pm |
1.6 |
2,892 |
| PGA Tour: Players Championship: Third Round |
5/13 |
NBC |
2:00-7:30pm |
1.9 |
2,815 |
| Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series: Go Bowling 400 (Kansas) |
5/13 |
FS1 |
7:32-11:52pm |
1.6 |
2,620 |
| NHL Eastern Conference Semifinals: Penguins-Capitals: Game 7 |
5/10 |
NBCSN |
7:29-10:10pm |
n/a |
2,485 |
| "Inside the NBA" |
5/10 |
TNT |
10:34-11:13pm |
n/a |
2,207 |
| "Inside the NBA" |
5/8 |
TNT |
11:38pm-12:21am |
n/a |
2,064 |
| Liga MX: Clausura quarterfinals: Tigres UANL-Monterrey: Leg 2 |
5/13 |
Univision |
7:55-10:00pm |
0.7 |
1,311 |
| Liga MX: Clausura quarterfinals: Chivas-Atlas: Leg 2 |
5/14 |
UniMas |
6:30-9:05pm |
0.6 |
1,184 |
| Verizon IndyCar Series: Grand Prix of Indianapolis |
5/13 |
ABC |
3:30-6:00pm |
0.7 |
969 |
| Liga MX: Clausura quarterfinals: Chivas-Atlas: Leg 1 |
5/11 |
Azteca |
10:29pm-12:42am |
0.5 |
926 |
| PBR: Last Cowboy Standing |
5/14 |
CBS |
4:00-6:00pm |
0.6 |
852 |
| Liga MX: Clausura quarterfinals: Tijuana-Monarcas: Leg 2 |
5/14 |
Azteca |
8:50-11:05pm |
0.3 |
637 |
| Liga MX: Clausura quarterfinals: Tijuana-Monarcas: Leg 1 |
5/11 |
Azteca |
8:20-10:29pm |
0.3 |
530 |
| Bundesliga: Leipzig-Bayern Munich |
5/13 |
Fox |
9:30-11:30am |
0.2 |
339 |
