Men’s Golf Ratings Decline: Is It ‘PGA Tour vs LIV’ Fatigue or a Deeper Crisis?

On Sunday, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka’s playoff at Greenbrier ended in the latter sealing his fifth LIV Golf victory. Now, Koepka has one more regular LIV trophy than he has the PGA Tour titles. On the other side, Hideki Matsuyama, days after getting robbed at London airport, netted a victory for the second time this season. However, when it came to delivering the numbers, none were very successful.

LIV generated 165K viewers on CW. Comparably, the Pro Pickleball Briston Open received 295K viewers on Fox Sports that same day. FedEx St. Jude Championship, on the other hand, generated 2.211 million eyeballs, down 30% from last year. What explains the sudden drop? Is it that viewers are fatigued?

Is there too much golf in men’s games?

This is not the first drop for the PGA Tour. The Open Championship recorded its worst TV rating in recent times. While for other regular events, the blame falls on the lack of strength in the field, that wasn’t the case at the Open. Rather logic says the ratings should’ve gone up because it was the last time all the top players in the world were coming together until next year’s Masters.

However, the number of viewers (3.39 million), was the lowest since Zach Johnson’s 2015 Open victory. So, clearly, having the best players on the field doesn’t automatically guarantee more eyeballs. It doesn’t help that not all of them show up when the time comes. The U.S. Open was a two-way battle. And, despite what the Open leaderboard tells you, no one looked poised to overturn Xander Schauffele’s charge.