Golf Delivered On Thursday Even If Tiger Didn't
Coverage Of Woods's Loss Helps Network Hole Second Most-Watched Telecast Ever
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/27/2009 6:25:41 PM
Golf Channel's coverage of Tiger Woods's second-round loss to Tim Clark at the Accenture Match Play Championship Thursday helped the network score its second largest audience ever.
The network's Feb. 26 afternoon presentation averaged a 1.8 rating and 1.82 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
That performance trailed only Golf's coverage of the same event last year, when it scored 1.87 million viewers for its third-round presentation on Friday Feb. 22, 2008. It also improved upon Wednesday's outing in which Woods returned to competitive golf for the first time since winning the U.S. Open last June and then having surgery and rehabbing his left knee.
The Comcast-owned network's Feb. 25 coverage also earned a 1.8 average, while registering 1.69 million viewers, a 50% improvement from the corresponding round in 2008. The opening round of the event delivered big time for Golf with its demos, averaging 638,000 adults 25 to 54, including 516,00 men of that age. Those results were the best ever with those demos, according to Golf officials.
All told, the Feb. 25 telecast was the most-watched first round ever on Golf Channel and the Accenture tourney's best ever Wednesday from a Nielsen perspective.
Online, the interest was also keen for the Accenture Match Play Championship. GolfChannel.com set records on Wednesday with 3.3 million page views and 468,000 visitors. Measurement results were not available for Thursday at press time.
PGATour.com, the online home of the PGA Tour, streamed 2.48 million videos Thursday, just short of the 2.5 million on the first day of the event. The nearly 5 million video streams marked a two-day high for PGATour.com, according to officials at Turner Sports, which administers the site.
The site also experienced a traffic surge with nearly 1.1 million unique users on Feb. 26, a 72% jump over the corresponding tournament day in 2008. Thursday also marked the biggest traffic day ever for a non-major event, finishing second only to the U.S. Open playoff between Woods and Rocco Mediate (1.5 million) on Monday, June 16, 2008.
In addition, PGATour.com recorded 19 million page views, up 28% from the second round of the 2008 Accenture Match Play (15 million) in which Woods ultimately was crowned champion.
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