The 153rd Open at Royal Portrush set a brand new benchmark for attendance, broadcast viewership and digital engagement because the return of golf’s unique championship to the long-lasting Antrim coast delivered an unforgettable spectacle and captivated followers worldwide.
A document 278,000 followers marked the best ever attendance for The Open held outdoors of St Andrews, underlining once more the immense ardour that exists for golf all through the island of Eire.
For the first-time ever, all Apply Days have been bought out with a document 90,000 followers attending whereas 19,000 youngsters have been in a position to get pleasure from The Open as a part of the long-running ‘Youngsters go Free’ initiative. Greater than 1.2 million purposes have been acquired for tickets within the ticket poll.
The Open’s attain prolonged far past Royal Portrush to thousands and thousands of TV viewers worldwide. Within the UK, Sky Sports activities recorded its most-watched Open ever with 21.2 million viewer hours, representing a big 36% year-on-year enhance.
The ultimate spherical marked Sky’s second-largest Sunday viewers since 2021. Within the USA, NBC/Peacock ultimate spherical protection averaged 4.1 million viewers, a 21% enhance from 2024, and Sunday viewers peaked at greater than 6.1 million viewers. General, NBC Sports activities’ protection was the most-watched since 2022.
“The 153rd Open at Royal Portrush has actually set a brand new normal in attendance, TV viewership and digital engagement,” mentioned Neil Armit, Chief Industrial Officer at The R&A. “The unimaginable help from the followers at The Open and people watching around the globe mixed with the excellent performances on the course to create an environment that might be remembered for years to return. These record-breaking figures are a testomony to the enduring enchantment of The Open and the fervour of the followers for hyperlinks golf at its best. We’re immensely happy with what we have now achieved along with our companions.”
Digital platforms performed an equally essential position within the Championship’s success by connecting with followers in modern and interactive methods. TheOpen.com skilled record-breaking visitors reaching its most each day customers and pageviews ever recorded with pageviews up 60% in comparison with 2024. The Featured Teams stream additionally hit all-time highs in watch time and weekend efficiency, contributing to the second-highest ever livestream views, up 15% from 2024.
The official Open App additionally noticed its highest each day customers ever, up 21%, with 4 days recording over 400,000 customers. New options such because the lockscreen leaderboard and improved reside stream entry contributed to a big 96% enhance in common session period.
Social media engagement soared, gaining almost 400,000 new followers, a 178% enhance from 2024, and producing over 436 million views throughout platforms. Key follower milestones have been reached throughout all main platforms, together with 795,000 on Instagram.
One Membership introduced by Mastercard, The R&A’s fan membership programme, now boasts simply over two million members throughout 184 completely different international locations with over 155,000 new members becoming a member of in the course of the week – one of the best progress since 2022.
The ticket poll for The 154th Open at Royal Birkdale has additionally seen the best variety of purposes since 2022 for the Championship held at St Andrews.
