The viewership numbers are beginning to roll through, the second LIV Golf League event for the season. Early numbers aren’t good for the Saudi Arabia-backed circuit.
According to the Sports Business Journal citing a source with Nielsen numbers, Sunday’s LIV Golf Tucson event at Gallery Golf Club in Marana was watched by an average 274,000 viewers. This is compared to Saturday’s average of 284,000 viewers. LIV Golf Mayakoba was the season opener last month. The CW averaged 286,000 viewers Saturday’s second and 291,000 Sunday’s final rounds. The CW app and other digital streams are not available for Friday’s opening rounds.
The SBJ report claimed that the viewership was not the only factor. It also stated that 24% of households in the United States, or 29 million, were unable to view LIV Golf Tucson because the local CW affiliate didn’t carry the coverage between 1-6 p.m. ET window.
LIV Golf will release its own viewership data later in the week. This will be different than the SBJ report that cites only Nielsen numbers. Similar results were seen with the Mayakoba viewership.
In January, the league entered into a multiyear revenue-sharing TV agreement with CW. This will allow its events to be distributed across not only CW affiliates but also other Nexstar properties. It is not clear how many people watched Nexstar channels or whether Nexstar outlets carried LIV Golf Tucson where CW affiliates did not. The viewership numbers are not likely to improve if LIV Golf Tucson is shown in the same area as the NCAA basketball tournaments’ opening weekend.
It is important to understand which numbers are used for television reports. LIV reported 3.2 Million viewers in the first three days of its season opener. The Nielsen numbers cited above, however, are the average-minute audience as the industry standard. LIV also uses iSpot as a TV ad measurement company and an analytics company. This allows for a more accurate measure of viewership than the Nielsen ratings.
LIV Golf will be next in Florida for the third event, which will take place March 31-April 2, at Orange County National Orlando.
