TGL Draws More-Than-Respectable Ratings During Debut, Outperforms PGA Tour Weekend Broadcast

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The thoughts and reviews shared by golf fans and media alike across social media during Tuesday night's TGL debut were overwhelmingly positive, and the viewing numbers tell the same story.

According to Sports Media Watch, the debut of the simulator league on ESPN, which began at 8:00 PM ET, drew an average of 919,000 viewers. While average viewership didn't quite reach the 1 million mark, it was still a 22% uptick from the Pittsburgh - Duke men's college basketball game that preceded it on the network, which averaged 751,000 viewers. For comparison, TNT's Dallas Mavericks - Los Angeles Lakers game competing with TGL averaged 1.15 million viewers.

The TGL debut was the new bright and shiny object on sports television on Tuesday night, which accounts for plenty of eyeballs, but it's worth noting that the two teams competing did not feature Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy, the co-founders and biggest stars in the league.

The trio of Wyndham Clark, Shane Lowry, and Ludvig Aberg of The Bay Golf Club blew out New York's Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Rickie Fowler by a score of 9-2 in the match.

When looking at TGL's debut broadcast compared to real golf broadcasts, well, it did more than hold up.

LIV Golf has never drawn an average viewership of 919,000 in its two years of broadcasting on the CW. TGL's debut also doubled the viewership of Sunday's final-round coverage of The Sentry, the PGA Tour's season opener on Golf Channel won by Hideki Matsuyama.

A two-hour broadcast on a Tuesday night can't be compared apples-to-apples to Sunday golf broadcasts on cable, but that isn't to say TGL's numbers aren't impressive, because they were.

ESPN has to be thrilled with the feedback it has received and the viewership numbers from the debut, but now it's all about what happens in the weeks to come.

The league may feature some of the best players on the planet, but at the end of the day, it is still guys hitting balls into a giant screen. The tech, including the green that can move, is unbelievable and exceeded expectations, but that magic may fade away, or maybe not.

All in all, the debut checked every box imaginable, now we'll see if golf fans check them other Tuesdays moving forward.

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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.