CBS Sports navigated a crowded leaderboard on Sunday at the PGA Championship with 21 players within four shots of Alex Smalley’s 54-hole lead.
From 2pm ET on, CBS showed 482 shots from 24 different players as Aaron Rai eventually separated from the pack to win his first major championship. CBS came on the air at 1pm, but the final four groups didn’t tee off at Aronimink Golf Club until after 2pm. The 482 shots shown marked a sizeable increase from 2025, when CBS aired 412 shots from 21 players as Scottie Scheffler captured his first Wanamaker Trophy.
Rai, who was 6-under-par for his final 10 holes en route to a three-shot win, had the day’s third-most shots shown with 49. Matti Schmid, who was in Sunday’s final pairing alongside Smalley, had the most shown with 61. Rory McIlroy, who was trying to go two-for-two in majors this year, had the second most with 58. Jon Rahm, who was tied for second with Smalley at 6-under, had 49 shots broadcast.
===
More from Sports Business Journal
- NFL owners meet with major events on agenda
- Running an RSN can still be A good business: A look at best practices
- Greg Norman: When golf courses strip away trees, they strip away strategy
===
Meanwhile, commercial inventory is always a hot topic around golf’s majors, and CBS came in right around the same number on Sunday as last year’s final round. The network had 47 minutes of total commercials from 2pm-7pm, virtually the same as 46:55 for 2025’s final round.
Three types of sponsored segments fell under what SBJ was tracking while watching the tournament on Charlotte’s WBTV-CBS — full commercials that cut away entirely from live play; CBS’s “Eye on the Course” feature (which shows ads in a double-box with the competition); and “sponsored by” segments featuring quick voiceovers from play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz. All times tracked were approximated.
CBS was in full commercial for 32 minutes, 55 seconds, with the rest of the time spread out among “Eye on the Course” and “sponsored by” segments. It was only in a full commercial break for five minutes over the final hour of play, with 2:30 of that coming after Rai had holed out on 18 to secure his win.
***
Start your day with SBJ Morning Buzzcast, bringing you the hottest stories in sports business every morning in under 15 minutes. Sign up for SBJ’s free newsletters, and dive deeper inside the industry with all the latest sports business news here.
