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When LIV Golf burst onto the scene in 2022, most people assumed it had a fairly concrete plan to fulfill its goal of emerging as a serious contender to take on the PGA Tour.
The upstart league was able to poach a number of high-profile golfers with the help of the massive bags of cash it used to get them to defect.
While the Saudi-backed venture didn’t really need to worry about its financials, it became increasingly hard to ignore the end game (or lack thereof) based on the fairly low level of interest LIV was able to generate during an inaugural year where it purportedly generated “virtually zero” revenue.
One of the most glaring issues was the lack of a television broadcast partner, as making curious golf fans track down its events online was arguably a bit of a hurdle when it came to attracting the eyeballs it was hoping for.
However, LIV was able to rectify that issue when it inked a deal with The CW earlier this year to ensure its tournaments would be televised across the United States.
Based on the numbers that trickled out after LIV made its debut on the network last week, it seemed like the organization was still struggling to drum up excitement thanks to the fairly underwhelming ratings that its inaugural CW broadcast generated.
However, on Friday, the league attempted to counter that narrative in a press release where it asserted last week’s event had actually “generated an audience of over 3.2 million total viewers across all linear and digital platforms.”
According to internal data that was supplemented by numbers supplied by iSpot, 1.6 million viewers tuned in to The CW on Saturday, while 1.3 million people watched Sunday’s final round.
That’s certainly a bit more impressive than the initial reports, but now, the biggest question is whether or not LIV will be able to sustain that relative success.