4 theories behind the PGA Tour’s TV ratings rebound

Rory McIlroy’s 2025 resurgence has been a sight for sore eyes in the golf world.

And in the case of golf’s turbulent TV ratings, you can apply “sore eyes” quite literally.

As golf enters its high season, the PGA Tour broadcasts have enjoyed a healthy ratings rebound after a truly dreadful 2024 season. As we’ve written exhaustively about here at the Hot Mic, it’s best to view most TV audience data with a boulder-sized grain of salt, but the 2025 numbers have been good enough for long enough to warrant further investigation. So, let’s talk about what we’re seeing, and why.

WHAT WE’RE SEEING

The PGA Tour is doing well on TV in ’25, reporting 15 percent YoY jumps in Nielsen’s “Big Data” panel and more modest, high-single-digit boosts in Nielsen’s traditional ratings (which we will lean upon here until we have more information about the Big Data panel). These numbers help to offset some of the 15 percent YoY drops that the PGA Tour’s TV partners, NBC and CBS, suffered in ’24, bringing golf’s week-to-week TV product more in line with audience trends across all cable television, and (for now) providing executives with cause for optimism heading into the major season.

LIV is still struggling to attract eyeballs. The league’s broadcasts are routinely failing to reach (or even approach) more than 50,000 average viewers in the first year of LIV’s agreement with Fox Sports. Recently, Awful Announcing noted that the PGA Tour drew an audience 100 times larger than LIV’s broadcast from Singapore. Considering the outsize impact the rival league has on golf’s news cycle, its tournaments still have not cracked the consciousness of most golf fans.

Less data is available for the LPGA, but there is optimism here heading into major season. The Tour has undergone a massive pace of play overhaul in ’25, and the league’s broadcast partners at Golf Channel should benefit from the quickened pace.

WHY PGA TOUR RATINGS ARE UP

THEORY #1: GOLF ON TV HAS BEEN BETTER IN ’25

Otherwise known as the Occam’s Razor argument. Golf on TV is performing better in 2025 because it has been a better product in 2025. There are a few reasons for this (and we’ll discuss them), but the main ones are pretty simple: Rory McIlroy already has won twice in 2025; the best tournaments on the PGA Tour calendar have gone off with good weather, compelling final-round stories and have had exciting finishes; and the Tour has done a decent job of filling the talent void left behind by LIV’s first wave of high-priced departures.

I’ll admit I’m not quite at the point of crediting the Signature Events with fixing golf on TV, but I do think the Siggie product has been much easier to understand and significantly better in ’25. Those weeks are beginning to feel more like must-watch TV, and that’s what the Tour wants.

THEORY #2: WHAT THE PGA TOUR WANTS YOU TO THINK

Golf’s ratings are back in line because the PGA Tour is back, baby. After big changes to the Tour’s format, scheduling and telecasts in ’23, ’24 and the first part of ’25, golf’s biggest pro tour is better aligned with its fanbase than ever before, and its fans are flocking back in kind. The Fan Forward program, which solicited more than 50,000 survey responses from fans, has allowed the Tour to better serve its “core audience,” and the changes outlined by that survey have already paid dividends to audiences.

Okay, that’s probably a bit too rosy for how things are going at the Tour right now. It’s much too early to speak to the success of programs like Fan Forward, and it is probably a little too early to say if Tour ratings are bouncing back because competitive format changes have been well-received, if there are other factors at play (noted above), or a little bit of both. (I think probably a little bit of both.)

Still, I don’t fault the Tour for pushing this line of thinking right now. If you have a good story to tell…tell it!

THEORY #3: WHAT THE BROADCASTERS WANT YOU TO THINK

Golf’s ratings are back because golf’s TV broadcasts are better than ever. The improvements keep coming from CBS, and NBC has emerged from the talent wilderness with a group of individuals whose jobs remain (mostly) unchanged each week. (NBC’s lead analyst, Kevin Kisner, is still playing competitively.) Continuity is good. Innovation is good. Big events with lots of stars are good. Fan Forward’s suggested changes around the cutline and broadcast sequencing are good. The result is a better product that more fans want to watch.

Yeah, not fully buying this one, if only because we spent a full day just three weeks relitigating NBC’s missing the defining moment of Russell Henley’s win. I think things are getting better, but we’re not fully there. Maybe one day.

THEORY #4: GOLF’S TOUR WARS ARE OVER (AND NIELSEN KNOWS IT)

The hopeless optimist argument. The PGA Tour’s ratings are back — and LIV’s are weak — because the Tour accidentally won the tour war. Under this thinking, the Tour is only really missing, like, two guys from LIV, anyway, and the influx of young talent has helped to close the (at times gaping) stardom divide of the last several years, balancing out leaderboards and leading to a more consistent TV product. The bigger problems facing golf on TV still exist (like replacing Tiger Woods), but the benefit from a “unified tour” is mostly a bunch of hogwash. A Tour-PIF agreement would help, sure, but only to bring back Bryson, Rahm and Brooks.

If you’re sensing a theme here, it’s that I think a lot of these arguments are half-true. Maybe, just maybe, the ratings boost for the Tour is the return of a generation of fans who were feeling disaffected or disinterested after the shocking framework-agreement announcment of June ’23, but have taken the last two years to realize they loved golf all along. Maybe Nielsen’s periodic methodological changes have helped to produce better-than-expected numbers to boost this era of good tidings, and those good vibes are being amplified by all the other factors mentioned above. Maybe the Tour’s stronger-than-expected hand against LIV is real, and the gap is growing.

Or maybe LIV has had a few really tough weeks in a bunch of hard timeslots, and the Tour has benefited from an unsustainable run of great tournaments and good winners. Maybe some mean regression is in store for both sides of golf’s tour TV rating ledger, and we’ll be talking in a few months about the Tour’s losses and LIV’s gains. That could be true, too. But for now it seems clear to me that some pieces of all of the above are contributing to the golf-on-TV environment in 2025. The good news, if you care about the game, is that there is good news.

Take it when you can get it.