Big drama equals historic ratings. 

Rory McIlroy’s white-knuckle triumph Sunday at The Masters, completing a career grand slam, averaged 12.71 million viewers for the final round, representing a 33% lift from last year’s concluding draw of 9.59 million, and is the most-watched golf telecast on any network in seven years. Coverage peaked at an average of 19.54 million, a figure higher than the National Football League’s regular-season average last year.

The final viewership also represented a significant turnaround after a more meager showing on ESPN to start the tournament, golf’s first major of the year. Thursday’s opening round dropped by 28% compared to last year to an average of 2.3 million viewers, showing the outsized impact of the absence of Tiger Woods from the field. Friday’s second round then largely continued the trend, falling by 14% from the same round last year to 3.1 million. 

Momentum then began to build on Saturday with a third-round audience that averaged 7.6 million, up 16% from a year ago, helping set the stage for a Sunday final pairing of McIlroy, a fierce PGA Tour loyalist, and LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau. 

McIlroy’s win in a sudden-death playoff over Justin Rose to claim his first Green Jacket also was a very different scenario from what was emerging just two hours before that. As McIlroy made the turn into the back nine Sunday, he opened up a four-shot lead, and the victory was poised to be a runaway. Instead, as the leaderboard quickly tightened, viewers were treated to some of the sport’s most dramatic competition in years. 

Golden State fell to No. 7 in the Western Conference following an overtime loss Sunday to the Clippers, denying the NBA of a first-round battle between the Warriors and Lakers that would have been a ratings goldmine.

The consolation prize for the league, however, is that Golden State will provide a boost to Year 6 of the Play-In Tournament—the last one that will air on cable before it moves to Amazon Prime Video next season when the league’s 11-year, $77 billion deal kicks in. 

The Warriors have competed in two of the first five years of the tournament, and while they have yet to win a game (0-3), they have always rated well. Golden State played in the two most-watched Play-In Tournament games: 2021 against the Lakers on ESPN, which drew 5.6 million viewers, and last year against the Kings, which averaged 4.1 million viewers on TNT.

This year is the second time that Golden State and Memphis will play each other in the tournament, and their 2021 face-off drew 3.7 million viewers on ESPN, the fourth-most-watched tournament game.

There’s no guarantee what the NBA’s viewership numbers will look like when games are moved exclusively to streaming, but it’s fair to expect a dip compared to cable based on the NFL’s Thursday Night Football ratings.

Play-In Purpose Fulfilled?

The Play-In Tournament was established to discourage teams from tanking, and while that has yet to stop many cellar dwellers from jockeying for the best draft lottery odds, it has at least created more late-season intrigue as teams battle for the playoffs. A top-six finish not only guarantees teams a playoff spot, but allows additional rest before the postseason.

The winners of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 play-in games on Tuesday will get four days of rest before playing on Sunday, while the final two tournament winners will get just one day off. Teams with outright playoff spots have at least five days of rest.

While most teams rested their stars during the NBA’s 15-game slate on Sunday, some games had postseason ramifications, particularly the Clippers-Warriors battle that aired on ESPN. 

Los Angeles secured the No. 5 seed with the win, and more importantly, a playoff spot. There’s no guarantee that either team would have trotted out their best players had the game only been for seeding, especially when the Nuggets game wrapped up and it was confirmed that, regardless of the result, neither team would receive home-court advantage in the first round.

There’s a new look to this year’s National Hockey League playoff field, leaving big implications for viewership over the next two months. 

As the NHL concludes its regular season this week, 13 of 16 available playoff slots have been clinched, and already, two major themes have emerged: the four U.S.-based Original Six teams have all failed to reach the postseason for the first time, and the Canadian presence will be at its highest level in years.

The collective absence of the Blackhawks, Bruins, Rangers, and Red Wings from the playoffs is notable on multiple fronts. Not only had it failed to happen since the league’s 1917 formation, but the Rangers were the Presidents’ Trophy winner last season, reached the conference finals, and had been expected to return as a serious title contender. Instead, New York is just the fourth Presidents’ Trophy winner to miss the playoffs the next season. The Bruins, meanwhile, missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

In Canada, the Jets, Maple Leafs, Oilers, and Senators have already secured playoff spots, while the Canadiens currently hold the last Eastern Conference wild card spot and are on the cusp of clinching. The Flames additionally remain just two standings points out of the final Western Conference playoff berth, with a game in hand against the Blues. 

A fifth Canadian team would represent the most teams from that country in the NHL playoffs since 2017. A sixth entrant from the Great White North would equal the count from 1993—the year the Canadiens claimed the Stanley Cup and remains the most recent Canadian title winner. 

The reshaped postseason field could create a rather different look for playoff viewership. Canadian markets are not measured in standard, U.S.-based Nielsen reports and have separate viewership tracking. Teams like the Jets and Senators, meanwhile, have operated further out of the limelight and don’t feature mainstream stars like other Canadian teams, such as the Oilers’ Connor McDavid. 

The NHL, however, has been building toward this situation. Last year’s Stanley Cup Final between the Oilers and Panthers featured just the second presence of a Canadian conference champion since 2011, and a historic draw of 7.7 million in the U.S. for the climactic Game 7 represented the most-watched NHL game in history without an Original Six franchise. 

This year’s Final is almost certain to show an audience decrease, with the event returning to cable on TNT Sports after last year’s broadcast aired on ABC.