LIV Golf

[cliffs]

LIV Golf’s debut on The CW drew terrible ratings, far worse than PGA Tour’s Honda Classic


It may finally have a television deal, but very few people actually tuned in to watch LIV Golf’s season opener last weekend.

LIV Golf’s tournament in Mexico last weekend drew an average of just 289,000 viewers and held a 0.18 household rating on The CW on Saturday and Sunday, according to ESPN’s Mark Schlabach.

That’s not great, and looks terrible compared to what the PGA Tour did.

The Tour’s Honda Classic crushed LIV Golf, too, despite having a rather weak field. The Honda Classic drew an average of 593,000 viewers on the Golf Channel and about 2 million viewers on NBC on Saturday and Sunday, per ESPN. Chris Kirk won the Honda Classic, though nobody ranked inside the top 17 in the Official World Golf Rankings were in the field.

The Genesis Invitational two weeks ago, which was a designated event and included Tiger Woods for the first time in seven months, averaged 3.12 million viewers on CBS, and final-round coverage drew a 2.1 household rating.




Give it time.

[parbuster1962]

Does it really matter?

I am an avid golfer for over 50 years and find TV golf akin to watching paint dry.

LIV does not need TV coverage nor do they need the sponsorships like the PGA, LPGA and Senior Tour (or whatever it's called) do.

LPGA draws flies on TV and in terms of fans on the course.

Fact of the matter is that the LIV Tour is great for golf and golfers. It's a wake up call for the PGA Tour to treat it's key asset (the players) better and reward them appropriately. When a monopoly suddenly has competition things change for the better. There is a reason the US government takes a hardline on monologies

[Brenelan]

This is a problem for both tours. The Honda Classic drew viewers mostly from a lack of competition among all weekend sports. I know I turned it on for a few minutes but it couldn't hold my attention- that leaderboard was simply awful.

The PGA Tour also had this problem late last season, the leaderboards were pretty meh for the most part.

It's why I believe (as long as LIV continues to exist), the majors will feign support for the PGA and DP tours, but happily accept the bigger name LIV participants. There will be four times per year you'll ostensibly see the best players competing.

[Brenelan]

Mar 2, 2023 9:45:06 GMT -5 parbuster1962 said:

Does it really matter?

I am an avid golfer for over 50 years and find TV golf akin to watching paint dry.

LIV does not need TV coverage nor do they need the sponsorships like the PGA, LPGA and Senior Tour (or whatever it's called) do.

LPGA draws flies on TV and in terms of fans on the course.

Fact of the matter is that the LIV Tour is great for golf and golfers. It's a wake up call for the PGA Tour to treat it's key asset (the players) better and reward them appropriately. When a monopoly suddenly has competition things change for the better. There is a reason the US government takes a hardline on monologies

I'm not a fan of how the LIV is funded, but I'm also not a fan of any corporate entity that tells independent contractors where they can and can't play.

Ultimately, the PGA has started to bend itself towards the LIV concept. Will the PGA Tour players thank the LIV guys who bailed?