Rory's CJ Cup Win Draws A Small And Annoyed Audience

The fall wraparound schedule’s dismal ratings were predicted from the outset and remain awful even after the addition of FedExCup points. As if anyone besides family and friends care. Even that is debatable.

The tiny audiences are even manageable if sponsors are willing to pay millions for the privilege of a pro-am round or in the case of the CJ Cup in normal times, bringing the PGA Tour to Korea. But with all sports returning to normal and golf having given viewers more than enough “product” over the last 18 months, something extraordinary must happen to draw a decent audience when going against college football, the NFL, MLB playoffs, WNBA playoffs, NHL and Premier League soccer.

Theoretically, such a rare event occurred at the CJ Cup, where Rickie Fowler led through 54-holes in his quest to win again after a quiet two years. Add Rory McIlroy and reigning Open Champion Collin Morikawa into the mix of pursuers, and this one had something.

But as we now know, the Champions Tour ran 39 minutes late and without a reliable online feed or PGA Tour Live Featured Group coverage, momentum stalled and the day will remembered more for the struggle to actually see any of these young stars play golf.

As Showbuzzdaily.com notes, golf was again at the bottom of the weekend sports ratings by a lot, with the Champions not making the list of discernable audiences. The CJ Cup, with its 5 pm ET scheduled start, at least drew an average audience of 648,000, with just 92,000 of those in the coveted demo.

That was good enough, however, to beat out the 9:05 ET Air Force-Boise State game for non-cataracts-dotted eyeballs.

The 2020 CJ Cup was also played in Las Vegas and drew a 589,000/105,000 for a .36). The Champions also drew ratings last year, unlike 2021.

There is happy ending: executives at the PGA Tour and Golf Channel have reached out to fans, media and sponsors to ensure this scheduling fiasco does not happen again. After all, mistakes do happen who knew the Champions would take that long and…wait, wrong people. My bad. They haven’t said a peep.

Wouldn’t you love to make six or seven figures and not give a hoot about the product you sell or the customers you want to reach?