Poll Finds That Majority Of LIV Golf Fans Are Liberals Despite Its Ties To Donald Trump And Saudi Funding
LIV Golf is solely funded by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund and has hosted multiple tournaments in its brief history at Donald Trump-owned properties. Based on those two facts alone one would imagine that liberals and left-leaning U.S. citizens wouldn't give LIV any attention whatsoever.
It turns out that isn't the case at all.
A new poll has found that the majority of LIV Golf fans (51 percent) in the United States identify as liberal. To compare that to the PGA Tour, the poll found that 56 percent of its fans identify as "more conservative."
Harris Poll, in coordination with Sportico, surveyed a nationally representative sample of 4,116 U.S. adults age 18 and over. Of those 4,116 participants the results found that 55 percent of the country identifies as conservative.
Given that 55 percent of those surveyed said they are conservative makes the fact that the majority of LIV Golf supporters identify as liberal is even that much more surprising. The only other major sport to have the majority of its fanbase identify as liberal is tennis, which earned 52 percent from left-leaning citizens.
Former President Donald Trump signing autographs for fans at a LIV Golf event. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
LIV Golf Fans Being More Liberal Shows Disconnect With Politicians And Public
A poll including just over 4,100 people represents an incredibly small number of sports fans around the country, but it's certainly not a small enough number you can ignore.
I, and I'm sure the vast majority of others who follow professional golf closely, would have predicted that maybe 25 percent of 4,116 sports fans in the U.S. who pay attention to LIV Golf would have left-leaning politics.
The fact that number is over 50 percent shows that politicians on Capitol Hill, both Republicans and especially Democrats, may be more disconnected from reality than we thought.
'Sports washing' was one of the most popular phrases of the year among politicians, mostly Democrats, who wanted to get involved in the war going on in professional golf. The Department of Justice did its own digging into the PGA Tour and when the framework agreement for a merger between the Tour and Saudi PIF was announced in June, 'anti-trust' became the new buzzword in D.C.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D- MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) almost instantly sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter calling on the AG’s office to scrutinize the Tour’s planned merger with the Saudi PIF. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D - CT) demanded communication records between the two sides be handed over for investigation.
Based on the new poll, it turns out that while the politicians - again, mostly liberals, were going back and forth about wrongdoings and Saudi 'blood money,' liberal Americans were actually the ones watching the golf tournaments being put on by the Saudis.
The irony here is truly next level.
The very basic yet very important takeaway here is that most sports fans don't care about politics. The majority of people who watch sports simply want to be entertained, they're not concerned about the politics behind a league, they just want a good product.
Follow Mark Harris on X @itismarkharris and email him at mark.harris@outkick.com