LIV Golf’s Television Value Was Effectively Zero Last Year
It's been a wild time in the battle between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league and the PGA Tour.
Just a few weeks ago, LIV shocked the golf world by pulling one of the PGA's (seemingly) most committed members, Jon Rahm. Taking one of the top players in the world from the PGA, weeks before the December 31st deadline (since extended) to come to an agreement was widely viewed as a statement of intent.
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LIV Golf doesn't intend to go away, and the organization has the financial might to go get whoever it wants.
But a new report from Dylan Dethier at Golf suggests that last-minute negotiations between the two parties raises some questions about just how sustainable the LIV model actually is. In a world where television rights reign supreme, generating substantial portions of sports leagues' revenue, the 2023 version of the competing tour was...not widely viewed.
Maybe Rahm can take more eyeballs away from the classic PGA Tour events, but if Dethier's numbers are to be believed, they have a lot of work to do to grab actual market share.
SUGAR GROVE, Ill. - Dusting Johnson examines the green with the LIV Golf logo in the background during the final round of the LIV Golf Invitational - Chicago at Rich Harvest Farms on September 24. (Photo by Ben Hsu/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
LIV Golf Viewership Was Virtually Nonexistent
Dethier reported that the viewership gap between the PGA and LIV was absolutely massive.
"In weeks that LIV events on the CW ran up against Tour events on CBS and NBC, the Tour averaged some 1.89 million viewers, roughly nine times the viewership of LIV, which averaged roughly 200,000 viewers," he wrote. "And reportedly dropped in viewership as the season went on. Even the Tour’s lead-in coverage on Golf Channel, which is available in less than half the households of the CW, averaged 575,000 viewers, roughly three times LIV’s viewership."
According to his sources, that means the total television revenue the new tour took in was anemic, to say the least. "...multiple TV experts estimated LIV’s 2023 TV revenue didn’t exceed $2 million to $3 million," he wrote.
Total revenue was also estimated under $100 million in 2023, a woeful number that's nowhere close to covering the contracts offered to Rahm and other stars. Partially, the lack of income is due to the CW and LIV sharing the money received from TV broadcasts, instead of the traditional structures more common to college football or the PGA, where channels pay for content.
It's a results-based deal, and the results haven't been good.
Where Do They Go From Here?
The PGA Tour and LIV now have a few more months to work out a deal, which has been complicated by another potential deal between the tour and a group headed by major sports team owners.
READ: MAJOR U.S. SPORTS TEAM OWNERS NEARING HUGE DEAL WITH PGA TOUR
LIV now has several of the world's most popular players, with Rahm perhaps its biggest get. But the lack of history, tradition and signature venues means that fan interest remains mostly limited. Maybe that'll change as the product matures and the format is refined.
But as of now, it's hard to see a surge of viewership heading into 2024. The PGA has the advantage of playing at Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines, TPC Sawgrass and other signature venues. And most golf fans tune in exclusively for the majors, which reunite both sets of players outside of the LIV structure anyway.
Maybe the Saudis have unlimited money to spend and don't care about floating huge losses for years on end. Or maybe the agreement between the two groups makes the disparity moot. It's just hard to see how LIV keeps the status quo with numbers this bad.