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📉🚨 Golf ratings were down (but not really, here's why) 📉🚨

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Easy P. Gator
April 19, 2024

GM. This is Easy Pars. The golf newsletter that sometimes delivers on Friday!

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

  • Three reasons Masters ratings were “down”

  • Women’s golf is surging while men’s is full of drama

  • Best golf content from around the web

On ratings. Is televised golf in trouble?

News just broke about the poor ratings for the 2024 Masters…on CBS.

There are, in our opinion, three primary reasons men’s pro golf ratings are down.

First, Drama.

You know what we’re talking about and we don’t need to belabor it. We want to see the best battle, not wonder who’s switching to what team for how much $.

Take the recent rumors of Rory and Hovland heading to LIV.

Side note: It was refreshing to hear McIlroy say “no” in such clear terms. He said he would play the rest of his career on the PGA.

Plus, drama makes people take extreme up-and-down opinions. Couldn’t say it any better than this X user:

Second, Digital.

The Masters. That’s the big story, after all. Ratings for the 2024 Masters were down — keep in mind that’s traditional network television, particularly CBS.

Here at Easy Pars HQ, we watched in three ways:

  1. Paramount+ via Amazon (hard to track that!)

  2. The Masters app (which was phenomenal, once it was working properly)

  3. YouTube (usually after the fact, like rewatching clips and such)

None of those are tracked in the traditional ratings. Zilch.

While we believe viewership is down, the lion’s share of the missing viewers are likely still watching — just incognito.

Third, Dated.

That’s right, we’re fans of alliteration: drama, digital, dated.

Look, the commentators are boring, there we said it (opinion, obviously). A few months back, Capital One’s “The Match” featured none other than Charles Barkley commentating.

It was the best part about the event. He roasted Max Homa’s bad shots. Made fun of Shaq.

In other words, he doubled the entertainment: Golf + Lively commentary.

No offense to Big Golf. But the fact that one commentator is named “Smylie” happens to be the only interesting thing we remember about the commentary.

That says something about the coverage.

RBC Heritage The Chevron Championship

Remember back in the golden days?

Tiger was a force (still is, in different ways). His talent was, at best, once in a generation. Many believe it was a talent only seen once in the history of our favorite sport (aka, he’s the 🐐).

If you think back, you’ll also remember another 🐐 — on the LPGA.

You’re already thinking it, Annika Charlotta Sörenstam. (Btw, it took us a couple of minutes to figure out how to add the ¨ to the ö. Well worth the trouble.)

Hot take: The current LPGA is more popular than when Annika was centerstage (although, a big part of this is built on her shoulders).

Nelly Korda is currently 2nd at The Chevron Champions and poised to make that Wendy’s menu (5 for 5 wins).

It’s not just our opinion. Here’s a recent article on surging ratings/interest in the LPGA:

LPGA TV ratings keep climbing with July most-watched month ever, per report

Historic Pebble Beach, host of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open, certainly helped attract eyeballs.

golfweek.usatoday.com/2023/08/09/lpga-tv-ratings-keep-climbing-2023-season-nbc-cbs

And here is a quote from the LPGA 🐐 herself:

It’s not just golf.

Who hasn’t at least seen clips of Caitlin Clark? The sport of golf is hoping that talented ladies, like Korda, can do the same thing for the LPGA.

In fact, some say that the Ladies’ Tour deserves it’s own Masters.

Why There Might Never Be A Women's Masters

There have been calls for a women’s equivalent of the Masters. But how likely is that to happen and what are the practical obstacles to overcome?

www.golfmonthly.com/tour/the-masters/how-likely-is-a-womens-masters

Tbh, they’ve been talking about this since 2012 when Augusta welcomed its first women members. But we’ll ask you.

Should the LPGA have a tournament at Augusta?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

As we often say, we’ll see.

Meme of the Day

😂😂

What do you think about a Friday issue? We’ll likely keep it Thursdays but we like to test new things, here and there.

🚨 Shout out to reader, Reye for emailing us asking to change the color of the links and highlighted text. Great idea, and we’ve done it!

Have any suggestions of your own? Hit reply and we’ll read them all!

Later gator,

E.