Feast today, famine tomorrow – How the PGA Tour is killing itself slowly

Just 69,000 viewers tuned in to the Golf Channel to watch the final round of last week’s Procore Championship on the PGA Tour. 69,000!

To put that in context, the same afternoon, 93,681 piled into the AT&T Stadium in Dallas to watch the Cowboys soundly beaten by the New Orleans Saints, 77,827 headed for Lambeau Field to cheer on the Green Bay Packers in their win over the Indianapolis Colts and 70,145 headed for the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte to watch the Carolina Panthers thumped by the L.A. Chargers.

And NFL tickets aren’t cheap either. The average cost across the league for 2024 has soared to $377 per ticket, which, compared with 2010 when the average price was $76.47, only goes to highlight the popularity of gridiron action in the United States.

And while those 69,000 viewers – of which 20,000 were probably golf clubs where the Golf Channel is the de facto network – were watching Patton Kizzire cruise to victory at Silverado Country Club in Californian wine country, an average 27.9 million were watching CBS as the Kansas City Chiefs took down the Cincinnati Bengals in a match that went right to the wire.

There’s an element of comparing apples to oranges with the NFL and the PGA Tour, especially when we’re talking about the FedEx Fall Series events, but even then the Golf Channel figures were less than a quarter of what they were for the final round of the same tournament last year.

It’s a familiar trend, and though the year-to-year comparisons haven’t been quite as stark as this week, if alarm bells aren’t ringing loudly at PGA Tour HQ, they should be.

This comes on the back of news that the latest round of negotiations between the PGA Tour and the PIF came to a sticking point as many of the PGA Tour players aren’t necessarily keen on the idea of LIV players returning to compete on the PGA Tour.

And I don’t blame them really. For a select few, winning titles and cementing a legacy is the primary goal, but carving out a good living is the priority for most, and having the likes of Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Tyrrell Hatton and Cameron Smith back in direct opposition is going to cost them money.