{"id":1352,"date":"2026-05-24T19:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/1352\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T19:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:19:07","slug":"pga-championship-tv-ratings-soar-for-cbs-espn-from-aaron-rais-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/1352\/","title":{"rendered":"PGA Championship TV ratings soar for CBS, ESPN from Aaron Rai&#8217;s win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>May 20, 2026, 3:59 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\"><a href=\"http:\/\/golfweek.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/golf\/majors\/pga\/2026\/05\/18\/2026-pga-championship-aaron-rai-journey-to-pga-champion\/90141055007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Aaron Rai\u2019s victory<\/a> at the 108th\u00a0PGA Championship on Sunday was a big hit with TV viewers. Both CBS Sports and ESPN announced impressive ratings for the second men\u2019s major of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">CBS scored the highest-rated final round of the PGA in the last five years. It was watched by 5.764 million viewers, up 21 percent from last year, with a peak of more than 8 million viewers. During the final hour of coverage Sunday, the telecast averaged more than 7.8 million viewers as Rai grabbed the tournament by the throat with a 68-foot birdie putt at 17\u00a0at Aronimink Golf Club outside of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Paramount+ also delivered its most-watched final round of the PGA with 56-percent growth in average minute audience compared to last year. All told, Golf on CBS is averaging 4.15 million viewers, its highest total since 2015, and up 14 percent year-over-year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">ESPN\u2019s live coverage across all four days of the PGA Championship last week was the most-watched PGA Championship on the network since 2020, averaging 1.7 million total viewers, up 49 percent from 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Each round of the PGA Championship on ESPN saw significant, double-digit growth from last year\u2019s event, the network reported. The first round on Thursday averaged 1.5 million viewers, up 61 percent, while Friday\u2019s second round coverage was up 40 percent year-over-year, with an average of 1.8 million viewers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:6|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><img class=\"gnt_em_img_i\" style=\"height:440px\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/90182584007-getty-images-2276779175.jpg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Aaron Rai of England celebrates after a putt on the 17th green during the final round of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club on May 17, 2026.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Over the weekend, Saturday\u2019s coverage was up 52 percent and Sunday was up 48 percent, averaging 1.6 million and 1.7 million, respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">ESPN presented\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/espnpressroom.com\/us\/press-releases\/2026\/05\/pga-championship-on-espn-more-than-235-hours-of-live-coverage-across-platforms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">more than 235 hours<\/a> of live coverage throughout the PGA Championship, including live telecasts on ESPN and six live streams of Featured Groups and Featured Holes during the four days of competition, all available to ESPN subscribers on the ESPN App for mobile and connected TV devices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 20, 2026, 3:59 p.m. ET Aaron Rai\u2019s victory at the 108th\u00a0PGA Championship on Sunday was a big&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[58,531,59,1279,1280,1238,1321,1322,65,68,1258,69,299,193,67,1320,1319,62],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pga-championship","tag-accessfree","tag-pga-championship","tag-sourcegolfweek","tag-sstssportsgolfmajorspga","tag-sstsnthe-pga-championship","tag-tagaaron-rai","tag-tagcbs-corp","tag-tagespn-inc","tag-taggolf","tag-taginternational-sports-competitions","tag-taglocal-affiliate-arts-entertainment","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagpga-championship","tag-tagpga-tour","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtv-guides-reference","tag-tagtv-networks-stations","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}