2016 Olympic Golf Ratings Exceed All But The Masters

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The U.S. numbers are in and they are staggering given the apathy expected for men's Olympic golf.

Just after NBC PR's Usain Bolt numbers from Sunday night, NBC's press release goes with simulcast with Golf Channel, which delivered the second largest golf audience of the year.

NBC and Golf Channel both provided coverage of the dramatic closing holes of the men’s Olympic golf tournament (1:12-2:49 p.m.). Aside from the final round of the Masters, this ranks as the highest-rated 90-minute window of final round golf coverage in 2016 with a combined 5.6 household rating and 8.8 million average viewers. Additionally, streaming of the men’s competition ranks second to The Open in every metric for NBC Sports’ golf events on record, including Live starts: 873,025, Live minutes: 27,463,315, Uniques: 483,616 and Visits: 692,472.

Afternoon coverage on Golf Channel (Noon-3:12 p.m. ET) earned a 1.02 household rating with 1.6 million viewers, marking the best performance in the time period for total viewers and Adults 25-54 (495,000) since the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am featuring Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in February of 2012. Golf Channel coverage peaked at a 1.22 household rating and 1.845 million viewers (2:30-2:45 p.m.). Early coverage (6 a.m.-Noon) is Golf Channel’s best performance in the time period in more than eight years since the Dubai Desert Classic won by Woods in February 2008 for both total viewers (556,000) and Adults 25-54 (174,000).

Just astounding numbers given the competition, time of year and window the golf aired.

But for golf in the Olympics, I'd contend these numbers from Sweden are even more incredible: