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LIV Golf’s Season Opener Ratings Tanked
LIV Golf’s Season Opener Ratings Tanked
LIV Golf premiered its first tournament of the 2023 season on The CW Network. This is their second season as a rival to the PGA, and it’s safe to say ratings tanked.
According to Josh Carpenter of the Sports Business Journal, LIV’s viewership on Sunday, the final day of their tournament at Mayakoba, was nothing less than atrocious.
The tournament only brought in 291k viewers for a 0.18 rating. Compare this to the PGA tournament’s Honda Classic, which also aired Sunday, and raked in 2.38M in viewers.
It’s obvious that LIV is not yet at the level of the PGA Tour, but I don’t think anyone thought it would be this bad. It’s not because of the quality of golf being played, but rather exposure.
LIV has done a terrible job at marketing itself. The only thing they seem to have done right so far is the golfers they have brought in.
LIV secured its first major deal with a TV network when it partnered with The CW Network in January 2023. Before their network broadcast debut, they only were available to stream, on their website, or on YouTubeTV.
Instead of typical sports TV deals where the league takes millions or billions for broadcasting rights, LIV and The CW instead agreed on splitting ad revenue, according to GolfDigest.
It may have been considered surprising that The CW even picked up LIV Golf in the first place. After all, The CW is not a sports channel, and it last aired a sports game in 2001: Vince McMahon’s XFL.
Apparently, the people at Nexstar, The CW’s parent company, didn’t seem to think LIV’s debut did all that bad.
“Those numbers exceeded our expectations and, most importantly, the affiliates, as well as our own stations, were thrilled,” Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said on a call with The Hollywood Reporter.
“I know that our affiliates and CW affiliates in the top 10 markets generated about three times the amount of money that the network generated for this first outing, and so it’s selling very well, and you know, and I think will continue to grow as we get more into the season and more involved.”
Okay, now I don’t understand. This has to be a bluff, right? No way they could have actually thought they exceeded expectations. If they did, the bar must have been set very, very low.
Or maybe they’re not bluffing. I don’t know, TV ratings are weird. What do you think of LIV’s first tournament ratings?
LIV Golf’s next tournament is March 14-17 in Tucson, Arizona. Hopefully, we’ll get more clarity next time. Probably not, though.
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