With Bryson DeChambeau as the Face, LIV Golf Finally Cracks the US Coverage Code While PGA Tour Still Seeks an Answer

In just two years and six months, LIV Golf has risen to acquire the hearts of the US audience. At first, the breakaway league was seen as the reason for bifurcation in the golf world. Thus, many golf fans did not pay attention to the LIV Golf events, despite many top-class golfers teeing up at its greens.

But now, the perspective of the fans is changing. And a huge part of it can be attributed to Bryson DeChambeau’s recent U.S. Open victory. After the two-time major winner came to Music City for the ninth LIV Golf event, the fans were roaring in his support at The Grove. This surge in the popularity of DeChambeau resulted in a record 40,000 audience members flocking to LIV Golf Nashville over three days.

It is the highest audience record for LIV Golf’s US-based events, and it includes the sellouts of 14,454 people on both the Saturday and Sunday rounds. For LIV Golf, this is a huge feat, as on the same weekend as the PGA Tour’s last signature event Travelers Championship, the breakaway league was able to set a new record for itself. Furthermore, internationally, LIV Golf gathered more than 94,000 people in Adelaide this year. This indeed sheds light on how, in the next few years, the Saudi-backed league holds the potential to grow and compete with the PGA Tour tooth-to-tooth.

While LIV Golf’s on-course audience has increased, the league has achieved big numbers even in TV ratings. This year, LIV Golf attained a final-round viewership of 432,000 for LIV Golf Mayakoba, breaking every record in the entirety of LIV Golf’s previous tournaments. Evidently, it can be said that slowly, the disruptive league is ranking in terms of audience retention, and that too in just 2 and a half years.

On the other hand, the PGA Tour seems to be struggling in terms of viewership. Although the Tour is still way ahead of the rival league, since it has been a constant for decades, in the 2024 season, the fall in TV ratings can still be seen as a threat to its existence.

PGA Tour’s fallen TV ratings in 2024

As the Sports Journal Business reported, the PGA Tour has been struggling to attract an audience like it did last year. Through ten initial events, the TV rating on NBC for the weekend rounds was down by 16%, whereas on the Golf Channel, the numbers decreased by 18% from 2023.

Moreover, even the PGA Tour loyalist, Rory McIlroy, claimed that overall, the PGA Tour has been seeing a drop of an average of 20% for every event. The PGA Tour’s flagship event, The PLAYERS Championship, was one of the biggest upsets of the year in terms of viewership. From last year’s edition, only 3.529 million people watched Scottie Scheffler cruise to his second PLAYERS victory, which was a 15% drop from 4.141 million tuned in 2023.

It was the lowest-watched final round of the PLAYERS Championship in the last decade. Another flop was the WM Phoenix Open, which saw a 35% drop in viewership on NBC. Overall, it has been trending that while the PGA Tour struggles to put numbers similar to its past. If things progress as such, it would not take long for LIV Golf to chart in millions just like its counterpart, and then the PGA Tour would have a serious problem at hand.