The Tour Championship on Sunday drew its best final round since 2018, when Tiger Woods took home the PGA Tour finale. CBS averaged 5.7 million viewers for the round, which saw Scottie Scheffler secure his second FedExCup title. That figure in 2018 for Woods’ win was 5.89 million on NBC in late September up against NFL games. The final round was up 28% from last year. CBS finished the PGA Tour season with an average of 3.4 million viewers, which is its best season since 2009.
North Carolina-TCU on ESPN led all Week 0 college football games, but The CW set a new sports record for the network with New Mexico State-Florida State in prime time on Saturday. That game drew 1.96 million viewers.
ESPN had its best opening day yet for the U.S. Open, averaging 914,000 viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 on Sunday. That’s up 13% from last year, when coverage was just on ABC and ESPN2. ESPN’s Sunday prime-time coverage of Mariano Navone’s five-set upset of Novak Djokovic averaged 958,000 viewers. ESPN took over full rights to the U.S. Open in 2015, and its latest extension with the USTA takes those rights out to 2037.
The Little League Baseball World Series had its best audience since 2015, with ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 averaging 1.1 million viewers for the event. That’s up 7% from 2025. The championship game between Curaçao and Henderson, Nev., averaged 2.9 million on Sunday afternoon, up 21%. On Saturday, the U.S. championship got 2.5 million on ABC, down 11% from 2.8 million last year. The International Championship on ABC on Saturday drew 1.6 million, which is the game’s best figure since 2023.
Fox on Sunday drew 1.04 million viewers for Nebraska-Texas in the Players Era Volleyball Showcase, marking the second-best volleyball telecast ever on the network. On Saturday, FS1 drew 430,000 viewers for Nebraska-UNLV, which is the cable network’s best volleyball audience yet. Meanwhile, ESPN on Sunday drew 594,000 viewers for Wisconsin-Pitt, marking the network’s second-best regular-season college volleyball match ever.
Pro pickleball saw its second-best TV audience ever on Sunday, with CBS getting 773,000 viewers for the Major League Pickleball Finals in the noon ET window. That’s up 55% from last year’s finals. The pro pickleball TV record remains 791,000 viewers back on Jan. 18 for a Carvana PPA Tour telecast.
New York is easily the top U.S. media market for tennis fandom, and residents there are more than twice as likely to watch the U.S. Open compared to the national average, per data from the new Nielsen Local Tennis Fandom Index. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Springs rank No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, as both markets host big-time tournaments in the Miami Open and BNP Paribas Open every year. Rounding out the top five were West Palm Beach and Atlanta, which actually lost its pro tennis tournament two years ago.
The chart below lists viewership figures for select recent sports telecasts.