The primary TGL broadcast pulled in 919,000 common viewers on ESPN.
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The TGL is formally off the bottom, and the identical may be mentioned for its TV scores.
Golf’s brand-new simulator league aired to 919,000 common viewers on ESPN on Tuesday evening, a strong however not earth-shattering complete for its first-ever telecast, in line with SBJ’s Austin Karp and first reported by the X (previously Twitter) deal with @YeahClickClack. Notably, the TGL telecast was up by 200,000 common viewers over the identical time slot a 12 months in the past and attracted a bigger viewers than its lead-in, the Pitt-Duke basketball recreation, indicating golf followers tuned to ESPN particularly to look at the brand new league.
When you’re a TV-savvy golf fan feeling considerably shocked by these numbers — in both route — we don’t blame you. The TGL’s numbers positioned them nearly completely between the tough averages for LIV telecasts on the CW and PGA Tour telecasts on CBS and NBC. Does that inform us one thing concrete in regards to the new league relative to its tour counterparts?
The reply is not any. TV scores are inherently subjective, and it’s a lot too early to check the TGL to its tour counterparts. One of the simplest ways to know a league’s success is to check it in opposition to itself, and to regulate for as many variables as potential. Is the viewers rising or shrinking over time? And in that case, by how a lot? Can the viewers change be attributed to airing on cable vs. streaming vs. broadcast TV? In fact, change over time is the one knowledge level we don’t have for the TGL, which is a component of what’s going to make the subsequent a number of weeks of scores experiences so crucial to its sustained success.
Nonetheless, there are issues to study from week 1’s scores, and I’ll try to distill just a few of the important thing takeaways under.
First off, I’d say these scores qualify as barely higher than anticipated. On a scale from “smash-hit” to “utter failure,” I’d put the TGL week 1 viewers nearly squarely within the center, maybe trending just a few ticks within the constructive route. A couple of days in the past, I predicted within the neighborhood of 700,000 common viewers for the TGL as a strong baseline for week 1, basing that prediction off ESPN’s month-to-month averages, which hover round 800,000 right now of 12 months. The TGL advantages from airing in primetime, when the viewers measurement needs to be a lot bigger. I figured the helpful timeslot can be canceled out by the league’s novelty and the absence of the league’s most crucial stars from week 1, and I felt bearish in regards to the general quantity after the primary match resulted in a blowout. (Rankings are the common variety of viewers watching in anybody minute of a telecast, and people numbers may be harmed when viewers tune out en masse early due to a blowout, or when viewers lose consideration due to a heavy sequence of commercials — two issues may have occurred within the last hour on Tuesday.)
When you’re a TGL optimist, you’re probably pointing to the dearth of week 1 star energy and the blowout as the reason why we are able to anticipate the numbers to leap from right here, significantly with Tiger Woods competing in week 2 on the day after ESPN hosts its largest telecast of the 12 months, the NFL Wild Card recreation. To that I’d agree. We are more likely to get a bigger week 2 viewers, and within the greater image, there are causes to be excited: the telecast moved rapidly, the gamers contributed gamely, and the final suggestions for the league was supportive. It’s additionally spectacular that the league managed to wrangle these week 1 numbers with out a sturdy lead-in from the basketball recreation.
However it’s necessary to make clear that optimism isn’t the identical factor as certainty — and we’re nonetheless many scores experiences away from certifying the TGL’s success. The league nonetheless has to show that it may well generate TV audiences when its novelty has worn off, and it wants to indicate that it may well flip the Tiger/Wild Card tailwinds into viewership for, say, the Atlanta Drive vs. The Bay on Feb 17. That’s an enormous ask, and the jury will stay out till the scores have confirmed us in any other case.
For now, the information is sweet. We are able to say confidently after week 1 that the TGL isn’t a direct flop. We are able to agree that the primary batch of numbers is sweet, they usually may get higher nonetheless. However we must always mood that optimism with a dose of actuality: long-term TV scores progress continues to be the single-largest problem for the league, and we all know nothing about how these numbers will look in just a few weeks.
In different phrases, maintain your eyes peeled. The solutions are coming quickly. Simply not right now.
