Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images
It seemed like LIV Golf had taken a major step in the right direction after inking a television deal with Fox Sports prior to the start of its fourth season. However, it has not exactly generated a huge spike in interest based on the ratings the first event to air in the wake of that agreement was able to generate.
There are plenty of issues LIV Golf has faced in its quest to emerge as a legitimate competitor to the PGA Tour. Simply getting people to care about the tournaments that have had a negligible impact on the overall zeitgeist of the sport is one of the most glaring, and that issue has been inextricably tied to its inability to find a TV deal that rivals that of its primary rival.
When LIV Golf kicked off its first season in 2022, all of its events were exclusively streamed online. In 2023, it landed a partnership with The CW that lasted for two years and didn’t do much to move the needle based on the anemic ratings tournaments were routinely greeted with.
In January, the organization revealed it had landed a major upgrade by signing a multi-year contract with Fox Sports, which seemed pretty promising due to a clause that will result in at least half of all tournament coverage airing either on FS1 or the main Fox broadcast.
A new era officially began when LIV Golf headed to Riyadh Golf Club in Saudi Arabia to kick off the 2025 season the same week the PGA Tour descended upon Scottsdale for the massive party that is the WM Phoenix Open.
The bulk of the LIV Golf coverage aired on FS2, and while a portion of the final round was on FS1 on Saturday, none of those broadcasts attracted a noteworthy number of viewers (for the sake of comparison, the first event of the 2024 season averaged 10 times as many).
LIV Golf Riyadh viewership in the United States:
Round 1:
10AM-3PM (FS2): 12KRound 2:
10AM-3PM (FS2): 17KRound 3:
10AM-12PM (FS1): 54K
12PM-3PM (FS2): 31K— Manny | Weather, TV, Sports (@sportsontvguy) February 12, 2025
It’s safe to say golf fans were a bit more interested in what was unfolding at the rowdy showcase known as “The People’s Open,” as CBS averaged 2.874 million viewers during the final round on Sunday while peaking at 3.79 million.
There’s no telling what could happen going forward, but that’s certainly a very inauspicious start to this new chapter.