SKEDBALL: Weekend Sports TV Ratings

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The ratings below are household ratings from the 56 television markets with local Nielsen meters for Saturday August 3 and Sunday August 4, 2013. (The 56 markets out of 210 total cover about 70% of the US television population.)

Golf was back in business this weekend with Tiger Woods running away with the WGC Bridgestone Invitational tournament, his 8th career victory at that event.  The 3.4 household rating for the weekend was depressed ever so slightly by the CBS blackouts on Time Warner Cable systems in NewYork, Los Angeles, Dallas and other markets.  Still, the tournament was up 142% from last year and up 39% from this event two years ago.  (Tiger Woods’ last Bridgestone victory was in 2009.)

Golf — WGC Bridgestone Invitational

CBS Sat 2:00-6:00 pm Third Round 3.0 rating (+173% from 1.1 rating last year and +50% from 2.0 in 2011)

CBS Sun 2:00-6:00 pm Final Round 3.8 rating (+124% from 1.7 rating last year and +31% from 2.9 rating in 2011)

COMBINED WEEKEND COVERAGE 3.4 rating (+142% from 1.4 last year and +39% from 2.45 in 2011)

NASCAR had another solid rating, up 12% from last year.

NASCAR — Pennsylvania 400

ESPN Sun 1:00-4:45 pm 2.9 rating (+12% from 2.6 rating last year)

MLB coverage Saturday on FOX hit a 2.0 rating, a fairly good number and up 11% from the same week last year.

MLB — Regular Season Week #18

FOX Sat 4:00 pm TEX-OAK (22 markets) ATL-PHI (19 markets) LAD-CHC (15 markets) 2.0 rating (+11% from 1.8 rating last year, a 3-game regional at 4:15 pm)

• In the top 10 markets, four markets had teams involved in FOX’s three selected games and delivered strong ratings: Dallas (6.6 rating), Atlanta (6.5), Philadelphia (5.0), Los Angeles (4.2)
• Two top 10 markets had a team involved but had mediocre ratings: Chicago (2.6) and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (1.7)
• The other four very large markets did not have teams involved and hovered around a 1 rating: Boston (1.2), Washington DC (0.9), New York (0.7) and Houston (0.6)

Also, NBC had world class swimming from Barcelona Sunday at 4:00 pm: a 0.76 rating, down 13% from a 0.87 rating in 2011 (the closest non-Olympic year).  On ABC, the X Games droned on with a 0.53 rating Sunday at 3:00 pm.  On ESPN2, the Women’s British Open logged a 0.37 rating Sunday at 10:00 an, up 106% from 0.18 rating last year but down 14% from 0.43 in 2011.  International soccer on FOX on Saturday at 8:00 pm barely registered with a 0.68 rating.

In prime time Sunday, NBC carried the NFL pre-season Hall of Fame Game (Dallas vs Miami) and scored a 6.7 household rating from 8:15-11:00 pm.  The game scored an impressive 17.0 rating Dallas and an 11.3 rating in Miami.  Amazing for a meaningless pre-season game with most star talent watching from the bench for most of the game.