NEW YORK (AP) -- The overhyped matchup between Tiger Woods and David Duval exceeded expectations with its television ratings. Still, don't expect other networks to follow ABC's lead.
While Woods' victory in the prime-time match-play exhibition, shown from 8-11 p.m. EDT, posted a 6.9 national rating and a 12 share, the PGA Tour won't be sanctioning too many made-for-TV events in the future."We thought it would be a good idea on a limited basis," said Ed Moorhouse, PGA Tour senior vice president. "But we wouldn't want to do it too frequently. It's takes some of the attention away from the official events."
Also, Woods would almost certainly have to be involved in order to captivate a national prime-time audience.
"We don't want to overdo it," said Barry Frank of IMG, which represents both players and organized the event. "But we have to see what the players want to do. The plan, if we do another, would be to do one next summer. It's a good event once a year, and let's just leave it at that. But we'd have to do it live during the summer on the West coast, or Hawaii, because of the time difference."
The Woods-Duval matchup's rating was higher than the final rounds of the British Open (4.8), PGA Championships (5.7) and the U.S. Open (6.8), but fell well short of the final round of the Masters (10.1).
However, all of the major golf tournaments are played during daytime, when it is more difficult to attract viewers.
Many industry experts, including the ABC brass, predicted a rating in the 5s for the Woods-Duval showcase. The show peaked from 10:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. with a 8.2 mark.
"You can't compare this to anything, since it hasn't been done before," said ABC spokesman Mark Mandel. "What it means for the future, we still don't know. We're very happy with our telecast."
The national rating for the event was comparable to NFL preseason games in prime time. For example, the Dallas-Jacksonville game on CBS in 1998 had a 6.5 rating while the Cowboys' matchup with New England earned a 7.9.
The rating is the percentage of TV households in the United States tuned to a program, and each point represents 994,000 homes. The share is the percentage tuned to a program among televisions in use at the time.
Woods earned $1.1 million for the victory in the match, which ended under temporary floodlights set up at Sherwood Country Club. Duval was guaranteed a $400,000 losers share. Each donated $200,000 to charity.
One of the most difficult challenges ABC faced with the match was to maintain viewer interest in between the golfers' shots. That meant filling a lot of air time with taped interviews and had co-host Al Michaels, making his network golf debut, going into great detail about things like the Met Life Snoopy II Blimp.
The casual viewer who knew little about Woods and Duval was able to get plenty of information from features and profiles between the shots and commercials. The avid golf fan, however, really didn't see or hear anything unique.
ABC had wanted to mike Woods and Duval to get viewers closer to the personalities of the world's top two players. The PGA Tour nixed the idea because it violated tour rules.
"We didn't think it would be a problem since players have been miked for 18 years in the Skins Game," Frank said. "Both players wanted to be miked. It was just an exhibition and wasn't for the championship of the world. It would have been more entertaining if they had been miked."
ABC did pick up some audio from the golfers, but neither player really seemed to do much talking.