Tiger Woods' TGL debut tops NBA ratings despite rout
TGL features six teams of four players competing against each other in a tech-infused arena the size of a football field.
Tiger Woods was routed at his own game on Tuesday night, but his defeat was still more appealing to sports fans than the NBA.
Woods' TGL debut was watched by more than 1 million viewers, up 9 percent from the league's first match last week and more head-to-head than the NBA drew on TNT.
For the second consecutive week, the TGL produced a one-sided match with Woods' Jupiter Links Golf Club falling 12-1 to the Los Angeles Golf Club. Albeit in the new virtual golf league, it marked Woods' first competitive golf since missing the cut at the Open Championship last July.
Tuesday's match peaked at 1.13 million viewers from 8:30-8:45 p.m. ET, according to the Sports Business Journal. The match technically ended at 8:50 p.m. and the telecast ended at 9:18 p.m.
Head-to-head, the Cavaliers-Pacers game on TNT attracted 956,000 viewers, followed by 853,000 viewers for the Nuggets-Mavericks game that started at 9:35 p.m. The TGL match also nearly doubled the 587,000 viewers for Duke's blowout of Miami in a men's basketball game that followed on ESPN, according to the SBJ.
The TGL has provided an overall boost in the time slot for ESPN. A Syracuse-Pitt men's basketball game in the same window last year produced 566,000 viewers.
Woods' team absorbed the second consecutive rout to kick off TGL's inaugural season, following Bay Golf Club's 9-2 victory over New York Golf Club on Jan. 7. That match drew nearly a million viewers, and eclipsed the audience numbers for any LIV Golf broadcast on The CW over the past two years.
Woods' team will have a chance for quick redemption when it faces Boston Common Golf in the debut for Rory McIlroy's team on Jan. 27.
The 15-match regular season runs through March 4, followed by the playoffs later that month.
Meanwhile, Fox Sports has signed a multi-year media rights agreement with LIV Golf to broadcast its league competition in the U.S. starting next month, the network announced on Thursday.
Nearly all of the LIV Golf league season will be shown live across Fox Sports platforms, the network said in a statement.
"LIV Golf is getting bigger and bolder, and this relationship signals the next phase of growth," said Scott O'Neil, who replaced Greg Norman as LIV Golf CEO on Wednesday.
LIV Golf caused a major disruption in the golf world when it first launched, luring top players away from the PGA Tour with the promise of huge paydays and causing a bitter divide in the sport.
Ongoing negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf on a deal that would unify the professional game have yet to produce an agreement.
