CBS Sports garnered record ratings for the John Deere Classic, even though the Fourth of July holiday fell on a Thursday, giving millions of Americans days off over the weekend.
The final round on Sunday, when Davis Thompson won his first PGA Tour title, averaged 2.102 million viewers, a 32 percent increase from last year, when Sepp Straka came from behind to win by two strokes with a stunning 9-under 62.
Thompson won by four strokes and held a commanding lead for much of the final round. But despite the large margin, CBS Sports delivered its most-watched John Deere Classic since Jordan Spieth won the event for the second time in 2015, drawing 3.4 million viewers per match for the final round. Josh Carpenter of Sports Business JournalSpieth’s win that year came three weeks after his U.S. Open victory at Chambers Bay, and although he narrowly missed a playoff at St. Andrews the following week in the U.S. Open, it was arguably golf’s biggest story of the season.
This year, CBS reached 2.862 million viewers in the 5pm ET time slot, and CBS Sports’ streaming service, Paramount+, also saw its highest-ever streaming of the John Deere Classic — impressive statistics considering the tournament was already set.
But there were many more stories in the Quad Cities than Thompson’s dominating victory. Rising Florida amateurs Michael Thorbjornsen and Luke Clanton exceeded expectations by finishing tied for second after each shooting 8-under 63 on Sunday, while Eric Cole, a PGA Tour fan favorite known for his tenacity and easy-going nature, finished tied for seventh.
Still, last week’s John Deere Classic marked the network’s third consecutive tournament with a year-over-year increase in ratings, a stark difference from the start of the season when ratings didn’t see much growth starting in 2023. Still, the news is a positive development for professional golf, given that fans continue to tune in.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation Playing Through. Follow For more golf articles, follow us on Twitter Jack Mirko In the same way.
