There were certainly high expectations entering Sunday’s “The Match: Champions For Charity” golf event.
Well, it seems the program — which featured winners Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning going up against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady — delivered.
And not just because “The Match” was a trending topic on Twitter throughout the majority of the day. Or because of Brady’s highs (an incredible hole-out) or lows (the majority of his 18-hole round). Or even because of the hilarious jabs that were thrown between players before and during the contest. But because of what the numbers depicted when they were released Monday.
The event, according to multiple reports, garnered record-setting viewership.
“The Match II delivered an average of 5.8 million viewers, making it the most-watched golf match in cable TV history,” The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn tweeted Monday.
Finn compared Sunday’s event to another wildly successful sports program put on during the coronavirus pandemic — ESPN’s “The Last Dance.” That 10-part documentary, similarly, averaged 5.6 million viewers for each of its 10 episodes.
For sports-content-during-a-pandemic comparison, it averaged almost exactly what “The Last Dance” did on ESPN (5.6 million average across 10 episodes).
— Chad Finn (@GlobeChadFinn) May 25, 2020
While sports fans are clearly missing out on live sports, as are we, nobody will deny that it’s been good to have sports programs to look forward to throughout this unprecedented time.
