U-S Open ratings disappoint:
With Tiger Woods missing the cut, the U-S Open's T-V audience for the final round was down 30 per cent. Sunday's coverage on Fox averaged 6.7 million viewers. That was down from 9.6 million when the U-S Open was last played on the West Coast in 2012.
Well there it is, the final tally. Fans = ratings. Ratings = $$. And $$ is always the bottom line.
Thanks everyone for your input on a good discussion. Personally for myself, although I'm not all that much into golf, I do watch the highlights but that's usually about it, but I wouldn't really like to hear that Tiger is packing it in just yet. I think the reason that he still continues to draw so much interest is twofold; some watch just to see if he's going to crash and burn once again. But I think so many more continue to tune in when he's playing because no matter how bad he's been doing
there's always a chance he will return to some semblance of his old form and start kicking ass in a tournament again.
In other words he's always dangerous. It's just that as it happens he looked about as dangerous as a rank amateur in this last major, but it's also a fact that in every major people tune in to see how Tiger fucking Woods is doing, and then they look at how all the other guys are doing. Tournaments where Tiger is playing draw far larger audiences than those where he isn't there. And when he misses a major event that would normally have a huge audience that audience is smaller.
It's possible that those who say he should just pack it in already are correct, but personally I think that would be a shame. I'd like to see the guy make a comeback, and send his career out on a high. Plus it would be really really cool to have all his critics shut up for once. I won't hold my breath for it to happen but it'd be great if it did.