2023 Ryder Cup TV Ratings Took Significant Hit Compared To Last European Ryder Cup And The Broadcast Itself Has To Take Some Of The Blame

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The TV ratings for the 2023 Ryder Cup in the United States were never going to be great given the time difference with Italy. Asking State-side golf fans to wake up just past midnight to catch the morning action was a tall order, but when you compare this year's initial numbers to the ratings for the 2018 Ryder Cup hosted in Paris, they're significantly worse.

According to Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal, the 2018 Ryder Cup ratings dominated the 2023 edition each of the three days.

The 2018 broadcast drew 886,000 viewers on Friday, 2.116 million on Saturday, and 2.476 on Sunday.

Friday's telecast this time around garnered 516,000 viewers followed by 1.414 million on Saturday and just 1.315 million on Sunday.

READ: FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE RYDER CUP, HANDING OUT PLAYER GRADES FOR EACH AMERICAN AFTER EMBARRASSING EFFORT IN ROME

Paris and Rome, host-city for this year's Ryder Cup, share the same time zone six hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone in the United States, therefore the time difference can't explain the tremendous drop-off in numbers. Both events were held at the end of September as well, therefore both competed with college football and the NFL on the weekend.

Team Europe routed the U.S. in the 2023 Ryder Cup, 16.5-11.5. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

What Caused Bad TV Ratings For The 2023 Ryder Cup?

It's easy to point to two factors that had golf fans electing not to tune in to the 2023 Ryder Cup: the golf, and the actual broadcast presentation itself across USA Network and NBC.

American golf fans who woke up on Friday to check out the action were greeted with the U.S. trailing Team Europe 0-4 after being swept in the morning foursomes session. By lunch time on the East Coast, the U.S. was trailing 6.5-1.5 and had yet to win a single match in the competition.

The 2023 Ryder Cup was all but over before happy hour on Friday.

Those that did stay plugged into the action unfortunately had to deal with NBC's truly horrendous telecast. It was a marathon of commercials that mixed in a little bit of golf instead of the other way around.

Christopher Powers of Golf Digest was able to catch NBC slacking beyond belief and trying to sneak one past the viewers on Saturday in a moment that perfectly sums up how bad the telecast was.

No group of sports fans complain more about something than golf fans do about the broadcast, but this weekend's moaning was well warranted and it appears plenty of golf fans had enough of it and couldn't bear to get invested over the weekend.

The real icing on this very ugly cake that NBC baked is the fact that Sky Sports set a Ryder Cup viewership record with their broadcast of the biennial event.

Follow Mark Harris on X @ItIsMarkHarris

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.