TV viewing figures for the final round of the 2025 American Express were almost 60% down on Nick Dunlap's victory in 2024 and close to 40% behind Jon Rahm's win in 2023, according to Sports Business Journal's Josh Carpenter.
Sepp Straka faced a largely unchallenged march towards his third PGA Tour success at the Pete Dye Stadium Course, ultimately triumphing by two on 25-under ahead of Justin Thomas.
However, a relatively small number of people witnessed the Austrian's achievement on TV, with just 232,000 people tuning in.
In 2024, when an amateur Dunlap did an extraordinarily good job of holding off Xander Schauffele and Thomas, 534,000 people watched on Golf Channel. The year before, 391,000 switched over to see Rahm beat Davis Thompson by a stroke.
While the lack of a genuine threat from other players to Straka's title charge was almost certainly one determining factor behind the low numbers, the American Express also faced the unenviable task of going up against one of the NFL's divisional play-off games last Sunday.
Sepp Straka’s win at the AmEx on Sunday drew 232,000 viewers on Golf Channel. Last year: 534k for Nick Dunlap, the first amateur winner on tour in 30+ years. Two years ago: 391k for Jon Rahm. pic.twitter.com/1T5JbfI1xUJanuary 23, 2025
Not long after Straka had teed off in California (10:50am PT), the Philadelphia Eagles kicked off against the Los Angeles Rams at Lincoln Financial Field (8pm ET). Much of the US is likely to have turned their attention to the Eagles' snow-game success, drastically reducing the chances of golf being on TVs across the country.
In 2024, over 90% of the top-200 most-watched telecasts in the USA belonged to sport while in excess of 125 of those programs were NFL-related. Golf, whose most popular event is always the final round of The Masters, didn't even find its way into the top-200.
That fact is almost exclusively the reason for this week's Farmers Insurance Open being the only PGA Tour event to take place Wednesday through Saturday.
Other unhelpful issues the American Express was forced to deal with included Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele's respective withdrawals - Scheffler was recovering from hand surgery while Schauffele was reportedly dealing with a right rib issue - and a frustratingly slow pace of play, with the leaders taking almost six hours to complete.
Sliding TV ratings on the PGA Tour is far from a new event, with the trend continuing from prior to 2024. And despite a promising start to the tech-infused league, TGL's week three match-up between New York and Atlanta Drive suffered a similar downturn in fortunes.
The first two weeks had averaged around a million viewers per contest, but Atlanta Drive's 4-0 sweep of New York brought in only 682,000 - roughly a 30% hit. Week four's clash between Rory McIlroy's Boston Common GC and Tiger Woods' Jupiter Links GC is expected to arrest that slide and then some, however, as the most-anticipated contest of the season takes place at SoFi Center.
