Scottie Scheffler’s four-stroke victory at the 2025 The Open Championship at Royal Portrush last weekend was more of a coronation than a genuine contest, leading to fears that it could reduce final day interest on both sides of the Atlantic.
Not so. UK pay-TV broadcaster Sky Sports, which has held the exclusive rights to the tournament since 2016, posted record breaking figures for every single day of the championship. Round one averaged 338,000 viewers, up 39 per cent year-over-year (YoY), peaking at 572,000 – an astonishing 49 per cent increase from 2024.
Meanwhile, day two averaged 378,000 (up 38 per cent) and peaked at 622,000 (up 26 per cent), while day three averaged 590,000 (up 32 per cent) and peaked at 851,000 (up 16 per cent).
Although Rory McIlroy’s third round surge up the leaderboard had sparked dreams of a romantic triumph on home soil, Scheffler’s lead was unassailable. Nonetheless, Sky Sports averaged 681,000 viewers for day four, an increase of 41 per cent from 2024, and peaked at 1.14 million, a rise of 19 per cent.e
In the US, where NBC Sports holds the rights, the 153rd Open Championship was the most-watched edition since St Andrews in 2022, with double-digit increases across its flagship network, the USA Network cable channel and its Peacock streaming service.
Over the four days, NBC averaged two million viewers on its linear channels. NBC’s final round coverage reached 4.1 million viewers across linear and digital, an increase of 21 per cent on last year, peaking at 6.1 million when McIlroy and Scheffler were finishing their rounds.
Logic dictates that the ease of Scheffler’s victory and a relative lack of jeopardy should have negatively affected audiences. Yet, it appears to have had the opposite effect, although the Northern Irish setting and McIlroy’s involvement will also have contributed.
Many have questioned Scottie Scheffler’s appeal as a mainstream sporting star, despite being unquestionably the best player in the world right now. However, the evidence suggests that many fans are tuning in to see him dominate the field, just as they did for Tiger Woods in the 2000s.
WNBA continues to thrive with and without Caitlin Clark
An unquestionable breakout star is the Women’s National Basketball Association’s (WNBA) Caitlin Clark, whose arrival in the professional ranks sparked a massive surge in viewership and interest last year.
Figures released last week prove this was no flash in the pan. Ratings for the first half of the 2025 season are up 23 per cent YoY, proving that the league is more than just one player.
Yet the Clark effect is still noticeable. Her absence from the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game due to injury led to a 36 per cent decrease in average viewership from last year’s record audience of 3.4 million on ESPN. However, the game still averaged 2.2 million – 52 per cent more than the previous record and the second most-watched WNBA All-Star Game of all-time.
The league is set to increase media revenues by 250 per cent next season thanks to US$200 million-a-year deals with Amazon Prime, ESPN and NBC. It has also signed a deal with Ion Television that will push this figure even higher.
Clark remains capable of taking the WNBA to even greater heights. But the league is sowing the seeds for sustainable, long-term success.
Women’s Euros are a ratings winner for European broadcasters
The Uefa Women’s Euro 2025 is nearing its conclusion in Switzerland, providing yet more evidence that the commercial and broadcast value of women’s soccer remains on an upward trajectory.
There were some sluggish ratings in the early stages of the competition, partly due to competition from other events. Although Euro 2025 has been more popular than the Fifa Club World Cup in most territories, there is no doubt that the men’s competition cannibalised audiences to a degree.
In the UK, England’s opener against France was watched by 2.5 million viewers. However, 4.4 million tuned in for England versus Wales on ITV – a fixture which clashed with Channel 5’s coverage of the Club World Cup final between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain – and the BBC attracted 10.4 million on linear and digital for England’s dramatic penalty shootout victory in the quarter-finals over Sweden.
In Germany, the tournament has proved especially popular. Germany’s group stage defeat to Sweden was watched by 7.66 million and its victory over France in the quarter-finals attracted 10.7 million, both on ZDF. But matches not involving the national team have also performed strongly. Netherlands versus France and England versus Wales both attracted 3.5 million, giving them an audience share of 17 per cent.
In France, viewership as proved a bit more sluggish. France versus England was watched by 2.8 million, a share of 20.9 per cent, and Les Bleus’ 5-2 defeat of the Netherlands attracted 2.3 million, both on France 2. Notably, the latter was affected by the Club World Cup, which secured 4.8 million viewers on TF1. The knockout stages fared only slightly better, with more than five million tuning in for France’s defeat to Germany on TF1.
But perhaps the most astronomical demand has been in the host nation, which has set a series of records for women’s soccer throughout the tournament.
A peak of 956,000 households watched Swiss-German language coverage of Switzerland’s defeat against Spain in the quarter-finals on SRF’s linear channel – a market share of 76.5 per cent – with 335,000 streaming on the public service broadcaster’s digital platforms.
SRF’s French and Italian-speaking counterparts TSR and TSI have yet to release data, which would boost the overall figure. Nonetheless, a combined total of nearly 1.3 million viewers, a figure which doesn’t include public screenings, in a country that has five million Swiss-German speakers, and where there is strong competition from channels in neighbouring countries, is seriously impressive.
Fifa Club World Cup remains a mystery
DAZN is keeping its figures for the 2025 Fifa Club World Cup closely guarded for now, but some of its free-to-air (FTA) broadcast partners have disclosed their ratings for the final.
In addition to the 4.8 million who watched on TF1 in France, Channel 5’s coverage in the UK averaged 1.1 million and peaked at 2.3 million, while Sat.1’s broadcast in Germany attracted up to 1.72 million. In the US, TNT Sports averaged 1.3 million and peaked at 1.8 million, while Spanish-language coverage on Univision and TUDN averaged 1.4 million.
ESPN gets boost ahead of DTC launch
ESPN enjoyed its highest level of viewership for nearly a decade during the first half of 2025, with full-day audiences on its flagship network up four per cent YoY and primetime audiences up by nine per cent. Good news for the worldwide leader in sports as it prepares to launch its full direct-to-consumer (DTC) service later this year.
Credit: https://www.sportspro.com/news/the-open-euro-2025-wnba-all-star-fifa-club-world-cup-tv-ratings-viewership-july-2025/
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