Rickie Fowler & Justin Thomas Warned Against ‘Very Bad Idea’ to Grab Attention for Upcoming Project

After months of delay, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s brainchild is finally set to kick in. The TGL is scheduled to begin on January 7, 2025. Six teams of four PGA Tour golfers will compete on simulator-based greens in two-hour sessions at SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens. TGL is a new concept. It brings technology into the picture. However, the team element is something we all know from LIV.

With the pros and fans excited for TGL, it is only natural to assume that the league will be a hit. But how will that success be measured? James Colgan, an expert writer with Golf.com recently appeared in an episode of The Drop Zone and shared how players like Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Billy Horschel, and others will measure it. “Every single player involved is judging the league’s success based on its TV ratings, ” he said. “I think is a very bad idea,” he continued. But why?

If TV ratings drop, it does not necessarily mean the event is not successful. Take the 2019 PGA Championship, for instance. The 2021 Sunday round attracted 6.6 million, but viewership on CBS in 2019, 2020, and 2022 all hovered between 5.0 and 5.3 million. Does this mean the event was not a success? No! Brooks Koepka‘s dominant performance captured attention, but rain delays and other scheduling issues hurt viewership.

Colgan added, “There is too much focus on if people will like it and not enough focus on how they can be acting and performing and being a part of this league to make people want to like it and want to care about it.” According to him, the players are taking up a passive role to meet the audience’s expectations and this might ruin things. LIV Golf has a global presence but it struggles to garner mainstream TV audiences because of its limited exposure to traditional networks. LIV also lacks the fame that the PGA Tour has. TGL, on the other hand, is backed by the biggest names and its partnership with ESPN is an added benefit. The league’s innovative, fast-paced format aims to attract younger audiences with shorter events and tech-driven features like virtual courses and real-time analytics.

“If ESPN has, like, rolling blackouts throughout the United States on the first night of the launch, they are going to outrate LIV,” said Colgan. Colgan thinks that TGL has the potential to be a grand success, but he has a huge question: “TGL is going to perform well comparatively, but will it be able to sustain that growth, and will it continue to grow? I think that’s the big question.” If that happens or not, it remains to be seen.