UK pay-TV heavyweight Sky Sports secured record viewership for its coverage of the 2025 edition of golf’s iconic The Open.
All four days of Sky Sports' coverage grew year-on-year (YoY) in terms of both average and peak viewership.
On the final day, viewership averaged 681,000, up 41% YoY, with a peak of 1.14 million (also up 19% YoY).
Viewership was up across all four days of the tournament, with percentage gains of average audiences between 32% and 39% across the first three days indicating a major growth in the interest of the competition, while peak audience numbers also grew substantially.
Overall, Sky customers logged 21.2 million viewing hours across the length of the tournament, up 36% YoY, making it the most-watched edition of the Open on Sky ever.
The tournament, which this year was held at the Royal Portrush course in Northern Ireland, was won by American Scottie Scheffler, the current world number one-ranked player.
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By GlobalDataAlthough Scheffler’s dominance of the tournament was never in doubt from the moment his second-round score of 64 took him to 10 under par, his consistency to extend that lead to 17 under par after the final round attracted fans nonetheless.
In 2024, Sky extended its coverage of the Open with the R&A organizing body through the 2028 edition.
Sky first broadcast the tournament in 2016, when it took over from public service broadcaster BBC, which recently renewed its radio coverage and TV highlights deal for the competition, one of golf’s four majors.
In 2026, the event will take place at Royal Birkdale, while the 2027 edition of the tournament may yet fare even better for Sky, with The Open set to return to the iconic Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland for the first time since 2022.
That 2022 event, the 150th anniversary of The Open, drew a record-breaking 290,000 attendees, and was reported to have generated over £300 million ($369.7 million) in economic benefits for Scotland and the Fife region.
In terms of international media rights to The Open, these are distributed by heavyweight sports marketing agency IMG, with that agreement running through 2032.
Prominent international broadcasters of this year's event include NBC in the US (with that network's overall deal reportedly bringing in $50 million annually for The R&A).
