The Solheim Cup's bewildering TV ratings elude easy answers

The Solheim Cup has experienced a significant drop in US TV viewership. According to Yahoo Sports, the event drew 179,000 viewers on Golf Channel on Saturday and 170,000 on Sunday, when Europe won the competition. This represents a 39 percent decline in viewership compared to the 2022 event in Spain, which had 277,000 viewers on Sunday.

European vice captain Mel Reid expressed her disappointment with the ratings, stating that she doesn't know what is going wrong. She described the Solheim Cup as "one of the greatest sporting events" of the year, particularly for women's sports. Reid felt that the players were delivering entertaining performances, but something was missing.

Reid and NBC and Golf Channel reporter Kira Dixon discussed potential reasons for the low ratings on Reid's podcast, Quiet Please. They noted that Ryder Cup content teams start creating engaging content two years in advance, whereas Solheim Cup content doesn't ramp up until closer to the competition. The conversation also touched on the need for more suitable venues.

Brief written by urgent.news from Golf.com, Yahoo Sports — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.