Same Old Story: Pretty Much No One Watches AmEx Final Round

The former PGA Tour Commissioner once predicted golf would compete with the NFL in the popularity department. Maybe he meant NFL Network Gameday Final? Eh, the PGA Tour was thumped by that cable post game show, too. And by Sunday’s LPGA coverage on both NBC and Golf Channel.

But as long as AmEx is willing to sponsor, more power to them through 2028.

For reasons we’ll never fully understand, the PGA Tour tries to go up against NFL action in the early season non-network weeks and in markets where they probably might draw just as many spectators on weekdays as weekends. (This coming Sunday the first notable exception when CBS and Farmers wisely move the final round to Saturday).

For those wondering what might happen if these early events moved to a Tuesday-Friday schedule, note that the Friday broadcast out-rated Sunday’s AmEx final round, won by Hudson Swafford. But even that rating was beaten by all sorts of random stuff like X-Games Aspen and late Friday Big Ten basketball games.

Last year’s AmEx and LPGA TOC ratings for reference, all courtesy of ShowBuzzDaily.com.

There was some good ratings news for the Tour: the Sony Open final round featuring Hideki Matsuyama and Russell Henley’s compelling duel was up slightly after 2021 ratings (.24/408k vs. .19/305k).