It has been four-and-a-half years since Tiger Woods has won a major and a full three since he led one on a Sunday, yet we still see every shot of his on television.
Why do we still show such deference to Tiger and not to Phil Mickelson or Rory McIlroy?
The answer is a bit tricky, but the short answer is because all of you out there want to see it.
The question came to mind on a message board this week after Woods fell really out of contention this past weekend at The Barclays in Long Island. Woods played the back nine on Sunday in an incredibly bad five-over par total of 40. Yet, CBS continued to show every shot has he fell further and further behind as if he would pull his game back together and somehow catch up from his eight shot deficit. For those of us that cover Tiger, it was not going to happen.
(Full disclosure: I am part of the live blog team at Bleacher Report and was covering Tiger shot-by-shot for most of last weekend.)
As silly as it may seem to some of you that Woods would be given that kind of coverage while most of the golfers that tied for 38th last week were not, a quick look at the ratings CBS drew would tell you that you are the one being silly.
CBS drew a 2.7 rating for the final round of The Barclays, an improvement of eight percent from two years ago. Tiger’s final round live blogs beat the general live blog done for the PGA Championship last round at the Bleacher Report and Sunday’s live blog drew the highest readership of the week of the four days.
Casual fans want to see him. While you may be sick of seeing or hearing things all about Tiger, the ratings justify the attention just as the ratings ESPN and Fox get for covering the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox all the time.
This really is a chicken or egg question. Is there really that much interest or because it is shoved down our collective throats that there is such an interest?
The reality is somewhere in between. On the tail end of Jack Nicklaus’ competitive career, we saw lots of coverage of Jack regardless of where he was on the leaderboard. When Arnold Palmer played, and he was far less competitive in tournaments than Nicklaus was by the early 1980s, we saw Arnie play as well.
If Tiger is playing then people will watch. If they just happen to like what they saw out of Nick Watney, last week’s winner, then all the better. Chances are for those who only watch Tiger really still have no idea who Watney is.
With a mix of old and new media trying to fill airtime or cyberspace with something you will watch or read, the temptation is to over fill it with what you know whether you really want to know it or not.
Does it take away from the overall production of a tournament? It really did not seem to bother CBS that much. It really was only a two, maybe three, person contest between Watney and Sergio Garcia who were playing together and Brandt Snedeker playing in the group ahead. Tiger started an hour or so before the last group and was finished before the last few holes were played.
Maybe the bigger question for CBS or NBC—who televises the rest of the FedEx Cup and the Ryder Cup to finish the season—what kind of backlash do they get in social media if they do not show a struggling Tiger during coverage. Would viewers be less inclined to do business with their sponsors if they do not see Tiger looking ragged on a Sunday?