The Big Lead

LIV Golf's first tournament of 2025 displays truly appalling broadcast ratings

So much for the Fox deal making a big difference in viewership.

By Matt Reed

Sep 22, 2024; Carrolton, Texas, USA; Jinichiro Kozuma of the Iron Heads GC plays his shot from the tenth tee during the LIV Golf Dallas Team Championship Finals at Maridoe Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jim Cowsert-Imagn Images
Sep 22, 2024; Carrolton, Texas, USA; Jinichiro Kozuma of the Iron Heads GC plays his shot from the tenth tee during the LIV Golf Dallas Team Championship Finals at Maridoe Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jim Cowsert-Imagn Images / Jim Cowsert-Imagn Images
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LIV Golf kicked off its new season Thursday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with ambitions of really turning the golf world on its head by introducing an evening event under the floodlights. While the aesthetic may look cool for some avid golf fans that ride with LIV, the overwhelming majority aren't buying into the tour.

The tournament in Riyadh also marks the first event that LIV is being broadcast across the Fox family of networks, however, Nielsen's ratings are in for round 1 of the tournament and let's just say the Saudi-backed league has a huge uphill climb in front of them.

According to Nielsen, the first round on FS2 averaged a lowly 12,000 viewers over the course of a five-hour period. For better context, LIV's broadcast of their 2024 Individual Championship on The CW Network at least had 89,000 average viewers, which is still a very small rating for a pro sporting event.

Perhaps the poor ratings can be attributed to the fact that LIV is broadcasting its event early in the day to combat the time change between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Or maybe it's simply because round 1 of the event was solely shown on FS2, which isn't a standard channel in most households.

RELATED: LIV Golf puts more pressure on players with new scoring format

Whatever the case may be though, it's certainly not a good first impression for LIV after moving over to Fox, especially as rumors swirl over potential merger talks with the PGA Tour as U.S. president Donald Trump gets involved in mediation.

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