ESPN's Second Round PGA Broadcast Up In Multiple Ways

With prime time and the Woods-McIlroy-Thomas grouping in the main ESPN window, the worldwide leader had a strong Friday from Harding Park.

For Immediate Release:

The live telecast of the second round of the PGA Championship on ESPN on Friday, Aug. 7, from TPC Harding Park in San Francisco attracted an average audience of 1,763,000 viewers, the event’s largest second round viewership since 2015 and an increase of 20 percent over TNT’s telecast of the second round last year.

The numbers continued the momentum ESPN established with its live coverage of the first round on Thursday, which averaged 1,246,000 viewers, making it the event’s most-viewed first round telecast since 2015 and the second-best opening round in the last 10 years. Friday’s telecast was up 42 percent in viewership from Thursday’s first round.

With golf superstars including Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy in competition during East Coast prime time, ESPN’s audience built early in their rounds and peaked with 2,260,000 viewers from 7-7:15 p.m. ET. The telecast, which ran from 4-10:45 p.m., averaged more than 2 million viewers from 6-10 p.m.

Through two rounds, ESPN is averaging 1,507,000 viewers, including 349,000 viewers in the 18-49 age group. The numbers are up 21 percent and 37 percent, respectively, from TNT’s telecasts of the first two rounds in 2019 and represent the most-viewed first two rounds since 2015.