Tiger Woods celebrates making par on the 18th green to win the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club on Sept. 23, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Tim Bradbury/Getty Images)
NBC Sports set a streaming record on Sunday as Tiger Woods won his first golf tournament in five years. Fans watched 18.4 million minutes on digital platforms during the final round, a 561-percent increase over last year’s Tour Championship and the most-streamed Sunday in golf history for a non-major tournament.
The linear NBC broadcast also smashed records with 7.18 million average viewers making it the most-watched telecast in the history of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the most-watched non-major tournament of 2018. This comes almost eight months after NBC also set a streaming record for Super Bowl LII in February.
SportTechie Takeaway
Woods is a one-man attraction for golf that far exceeds the drawing power of anyone else on tour. That NBC had these huge ratings and streaming numbers on a Sunday when many American sports fans were watching the NFL, as opposed to a random summer Sunday with only MLB as competition, makes this doubly impressive. A healthy and competitive Woods is clearly good for golf and for NBC and may boost the networks subscription service. The PGA Tour Live package of early-round Thursday and Friday morning coverage is moving to NBC Sports Gold next year.
