Early TGL Ratings Show Alarming Drop-Off From Last Year

The viewing figures for the opening two nights of the 2026 TGL season do not make for great reading with a big drop from the 2025 numbers.

Season 2 of TGL started on Sunday December 28 and averaged 646K viewers on ABC, compared with 919K watching the inaugural season debut on ESPN.

Week two saw the first Friday night match on TGL with Rory McIlroy's Boston Common GC winning in front of an average of 354K viewers on ESPN2.

The 2025 season saw 1.05m viewers tune in for week two when Tiger Woods played his first TGL match with his Jupiter Links team.

Both sets of figures for this season are via Nielsen Big Data + Panel research as well, while last year's came from just the Panel so were likely slightly higher.

The early results will no doubt be a concern for TGL, who having just announced a women's version of the event will have hoped to build on last season's figures.

It may just be down to scheduling issues - most notably with the season debut, as organisers decided to kick-off the season on a Sunday when the NFL was still very much in action.

New PGA Tour boss Brian Rolapp is looking to move the entire season schedule away from clashing with the NFL - saying it's an impossible task to rival America's most popular sport.

Seeing the TGL figures for the opening night will only serve to reinforce those views - and we'll likely not see any golf clashing with NFL in the future.

Sunday's season-opener did peak at 735K and the 646K average was well above last season's overall match average on cable of 498K - it was also more viewers than switched on for recent Sunday golf broadcasts of the PNC Championship and Grant Thornton Invitational.

Having Tiger Woods playing in week two last year obviously gave the ratings a huge bump to eclipse the million mark, but Rory McIlroy will have hoped to have attracted more than he managed.

The Grand Slam champion is the biggest draw in golf but TGL may re-think playing on Friday nights too often given the 354K viewership for his first match of the season.

It was still just above the average for the seven ESPN2 matches of last season, and peaked at 471K, but a drop of over 60% from last season's week two numbers with Tiger won't sit well at TGL headquarters.

Woods' Jupiter Links enter the fray on Tuesday January 12 and the 15-time Major champion has vowed to be at every match - although he's unlikely to be playing.

Akshay Bhatia might make his TGL debut though after he signed up to Woods' team just after reports of him turning down an offer to join LIV Golf.

Everyone connected with TGL will be keeping a close eye on the viewing figures as they come in over the season to see if this is just a bad start to the schedule or a worrying trend.