All the basics on why golf's TV viewership is declining

	A record 20 million TV viewers watched Tiger run away with the '97 Masters. AP

The past few weeks have seen some interesting tournaments, but the most important events in golf since the Tour Championship have taken place indoors. PGA Tour officials have been meeting with network television executives. Those get-togethers will go a long way toward determining the Tour schedule -- not to mention purse sizes and Tiger Woods' fish-shooting plans -- for 2007 and beyond.

Predictably, neither the Tour nor the networks are saying much about their negotiations. But that doesn't mean we'll let it drift off the radar. To hold you over until news breaks, here are some of the basics of golf television. 

How many people watch golf?

According to the National Golf Foundation, approximately 27.5 million people in the U.S. (about 9 percent of the population) are golfers, playing at least one round per year. Yet very few of these souls seem to own television sets. Wait, check that. Turns out they all own TVs, but only turn them on during the Masters. 

In the past 6 years the Sunday telecast from Augusta has averaged 14 million viewers. Roughly 20 million, golf's all-time largest audience, tuned in to see Tiger win his first green jacket in 1997, and 19 million watched him complete the Tiger Slam in 2001. (Last year's Sunday audience was 14.6 million.)

Yet the average, over the same period, for all network (non-cable) Sunday PGA Tour broadcasts, including majors, is an unimpressive 4.55 million. Without the majors, it's 3.99 million.

How does golf's regular audience compare to those of other sports?

Not real well. Good NFL matchups, for instance, regularly produce Masters-sized audiences. In baseball, a New York Yankee playoff game will usually bring in more viewers (8-10 million) than the final round of any of the other three majors.

Then how does golf survive on TV?

They owe it all to you. To advertisers, golf's audience is solid gold. "They're well-educated and affluent, with lots of disposable income," says Neal Pilson, president of Pilson Communications, and a former president of CBS Sports. For advertisers, "the cost of buying golf is high, because of the value of the audience," Pilson says. Those advertiser dollars make golf highly profitable, despite the relative smallness of its viewership.

Is it true that golf viewership is trending downward?

Yes. Since 2001, its best-ever year, TV viewership has decreased each season.

Year Sunday network telecast average (including majors) Sunday average (PGA Tour events only) 2000 4.90 4.09 2001 5.36 4.50 2002 4.72 3.97 2003 4.16 3.76 2004 4.12 3.66 2005 4.11 3.53 All viewership figures are in millions. Information furnished by Nielsen Media Research.