LIV Golf makes interesting moves year after year, hoping that they can take this project in the right direction. Although they have made some progress, it seems that they are still far from what they envisioned when they entered the golf scene.
One of the most important steps this season was the signing of the contract with Fox Sport in January of this year. However, it turned out that the move did not bring significant views and significant advantage to this story.
The FedEx playoff had more viewership than LIV as the final round of the FedEx St Jude Championship was watched by 10 times more people than LIV Golf Chicago.
David Rumsey, Front Office Sports reporter, shares his insight into LIV Golf. Namely, he points out that LIV Golf has not excelled when it comes to televised events, although he emphasizes that LIV executives expected such a scenario, aware of how difficult it is to dethrone the PGA.
“The TV ratings have not been anything to write huge press releases about or huge articles. They’re okay. When they’re on cable channels, like FS1 or FS2, they’re not great. They’re below 100,000. When they’re on big FOX, they get a couple hundred thousand, still vastly below what the PGA Tour gets. But, I think if you talk to people at LIV, they weren’t expecting to take down the PGA Tour when they go head to head or even when they’re on big FOX,” he said, as quoted by The Golfing Gazette.
“They created this deal just a few weeks before this LIV Golf season started, the 2025 season started. So they knew they weren’t getting a ton of premium spots on big FOX. There was even one round of a LIV tournament this year where they were on FOX Business Network. So they knew it was going to take some time. It’s just when you look at the ins and outs of TV programming, they’re planning stuff for spring, fall 2026 already.”
What will happen?
However, the leaders of the Saudi-backed project are calling for patience, aware that it will take a little longer to solidify their status in the world of golf.
When you have a tour that has been in the spotlight for years and where the best golfers in the world have played, it is difficult to expect that in a few years you can do great things and dethrone them. Although LIV has a great financial advantage, they will need not only finances but also a lot of things to jump one step higher.
