The debut of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s indoor golf league this week drew nearly a million viewers on ESPN, according to Nielsen numbers reported by Front Office Sports on Thursday.

Even with the TGL co-founders away, the show drew an average of 919,000 viewers between 9 and 11 p.m. ET on Tuesday nights.

To put that in perspective, that’s a larger audience than any LIV Golf broadcast on The CW in 2023 and 2024 and, according to Sports Media Watch, also larger than last week’s PGA Tour season opener (The Sentry) on golf Channel and NBC.

During the same time slot last year, a Duke-Pittsburgh men’s college basketball game on ESPN drew 717,000 viewers.

In the first 15-hole TGL match on Tuesday night, Bay Golf Club defeated New York Golf Club 9-2 at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Woods and McIlroy were both present at the game and sat in the booth with ESPN play-by-play announcer Matt Barrie.

The first game in the six-team TGL with Woods will be when his Jupiter Links Golf Club takes on Los Angeles Golf Club on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN. McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf will face Woods’ team on January 27th.

The 15-game regular season runs through March 4, followed by the playoffs later this month.