While LIV Golf has made some strides in the battle for mainstream acceptance over the last year, it’s still searching for a dependable U.S. audience.
While the Saudi-backed league has a deal with The CW to broadcast some of their events, it doesn’t sound like the ratings have been particularly strong so far.
That’s perhaps why they’ve stopped reporting viewership information altogether.
“LIV can do what it wants with viewership data, but if things were going super well, you’d assume the company would want to shout the good news from the rooftops,” said Awful Announcing’s Joe Lucia. “All the lack of information is going to do is create more questions that aren’t being answered.”
The company’s last viewership report appears to have come in March after LIV Golf Tucson.
Naturally, the golf world had a lot of strong thoughts about LIV and the apparent decision for them and The CW to keep viewership numbers under wraps.
The surest sign that everything is definitely okay. https://t.co/mxJol16iSC
— Michael Preston (@RM_Preston) May 17, 2023
And LIV wants to be considered a viable sports league? https://t.co/le2gP0Igm1
— Seth Poho (@sethpoho) May 17, 2023
There's been nothing to report anyway. https://t.co/Ps9byEP5xE
— Jeff Agrest #🟦 (@JeffAgrest) May 17, 2023
CW stint is not going well https://t.co/cfjrPAmfW6
— Chris Uno Cero (@ceroto60) May 17, 2023
It probably doesn’t help that some CW affiliates recently cut away from LIV’s Tulsa event due to time constraints even though it was coming down to the wire.
How well is LIV Golf doing on the CW? Stations across the country cut away at 6:30 PM ET to regularly scheduled programming from Sunday's final round with four holes to go. In Miami, the local CW station started airing a syndicated episode of The Goldbergs. pic.twitter.com/SGSZvNQwS8
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 15, 2023
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for LIV in its attempt to prove that it’s a viable TV product in America and the latest news isn’t going to help much.
