{"id":1206757,"date":"2023-03-22T13:10:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T17:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/liv-golf-struggles-with-ratings-as-business-model-changes\/1206757\/"},"modified":"2023-03-22T13:10:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T17:10:30","slug":"liv-golf-struggles-with-ratings-as-business-model-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/liv-golf-struggles-with-ratings-as-business-model-changes\/1206757\/","title":{"rendered":"LIV Golf struggles with ratings as business model changes"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
Danny Lee won the last LIV event. Do you remember him? (Zachary BonDurant-USA TODAY Sports)<\/figcaption>
USA TODAY USPW \/ reuters<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

It always seemed a bit too good to be true, didn\u2019t it? Get paid untold millions to play less golf! <\/em>But now, as LIV Golf enters its next phase, reality is apparently dawning on LIV\u2019s players and management, and reality is a whole lot colder and harsher than the dream. A damning report and low ratings from the league\u2019s second event of the season are showing the challenges LIV Golf faces as it seeks to go from disruptor to standalone, self-sustaining league.<\/p>\n

LIV Golf\u2019s first season comprised 10 no-cut, high-purse events. The result was so successful \u2014 from an attention-grabbing standpoint, at least \u2014 that LIV executed its 2024 plans in 2023, upping the schedule from 10 to 14 events. At the same time, LIV has been increasing the focus and emphasis on its four-man teams.<\/p>\n

Combined, those two forces have LIV\u2019s players a bit concerned, as the Fire Pit Collective reported<\/a> from the tour\u2019s second event in Tucson. Players have expressed some concern that their contracts were for 10 events and they\u2019re now expected to play 14, and that money won by the team goes back into the team, rather than directly to the players themselves.<\/p>\n

Although LIV is backed by the virtually limitless resources of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund, the stream of those resources to LIV apparently isn\u2019t limitless. The Fire Pit noted the newly cost-conscious approaches to daily tour life, from travel expense cutbacks to small amenities like snacks.<\/p>\n

None of this is a sign that LIV is anywhere close to failure; indeed, the team concept has real merit and could be \u2014 along with increased purses across the board \u2014 LIV\u2019s lasting contribution to the game of golf. But it\u2019s a sign that what got LIV to this point won\u2019t get them any farther.<\/p>\n

You can start a business based on disruption, but you can\u2019t build one on it. The sharp-elbowed \u201cGolf, But Louder\u201d ethos of LIV earned it plenty of headlines in 2022, and deservedly so \u2014 LIV brought much-needed change to the sport. But shock value only goes so far, and the dual shocks of \u201cwait, who signed with LIV?\u201d and \u201cGreg Norman said what?\u201d lost their effectiveness over time.<\/p>\n

LIV\u2019s primary problem now is that many of its biggest draws \u2014 Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Cam Smith, Patrick Reed \u2014 have struggled so far this season<\/a>. Johnson and Koepka won events last year, but are currently ranked 11th and 36th, respectively, on LIV\u2019s points list. DeChambeau is 18th, Mickelson 39th.<\/p>\n

With all due respect to the LIV season\u2019s two winners, Charles Howell III and Danny Lee, LIV is suffering from a severe lack of star power at the top of the leaderboard. Through the year\u2019s first two events, for instance, exactly one major winner ranks among LIV\u2019s top 10 \u2014 Sergio Garcia at 10th. That\u2019s good news for the Peter Uihleins and Carlos Ortizes of the tour, who are banking literal millions every week, but bad news for LIV\u2019s attempts to break through to a wider audience.<\/p>\n

LIV\u2019s television numbers bear that out. The league\u2019s tournaments are only shown on The CW through a revenue-sharing arrangement, and not even on certain major-market CW channels. As a result, according to Sports Business Journal, last week\u2019s Tucson event averaged 284,000 viewers for Saturday and 274,000 viewers for Sunday. (Friday events are streamed online.) That\u2019s down slightly from the first event at Mayakoba, which averaged 286,000 and 291,000 viewers respectively. Sports Business Journal also indicated that 24 percent of CW\u2019s homes \u2014 a total of 29 million potential viewers \u2014 don\u2019t even show the LIV broadcast during the 1-6 p.m. ET window.<\/p>\n

However, LIV takes a very different view of the ratings. While LIV has not yet released its assessment of the Tucson ratings, the league reported a total audience of 3.2 million<\/a> \u2014 1.6 million on Saturday and 1.3 million on Sunday \u2014 for the Mayakoba event. LIV indicated that it used a combination of iSpot analytics, CW data and internal metrics to arrive at those numbers, which included an average viewership of 537,000 per day. Those numbers would put it ahead of MLS and the NHL, among other events, for that weekend.<\/p>\n

LIV\u2019s next event tees off next weekend in Orlando. After that, 18 LIV players will head to Augusta for the Masters. What happens there \u2014 particularly at the Champions Dinner, where LIV and PGA Tour players will share a dining room \u2014 will be a fascinating new chapter in golf\u2019s ongoing civil war.<\/p>\n

From:AOL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Danny Lee won the last LIV event. Do you remember him? (Zachary BonDurant-USA TODAY Sports)USA TODAY USPW \/ reuters It always seemed a bit too…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1206757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}