How should we view the first batch of LIV Golf Fox TV ratings?
Well, it depends on what you think about LIV Golf.
Let’s start with what we know. According to multiple sources and as first reported by the Twitter account @YeahClickClack, coverage of LIV Riyadh’s final round on FS1 and FS2 drew audiences of 54,000 and 31,000 average viewers, respectively. According to the same Twitter account, Thursday’s opening-round coverage from Saudi Arabia on FS2 drew 12,000 average viewers.
If you view LIV as equivalent to the PGA Tour, then the league’s first batch of viewership data on Fox is astonishingly small. Some hailed the league’s agreement with Fox Sports as a turning point, ushering in a new era of TV viability and stability and bringing the league within reach of the Tour’s lofty viewership. However, the first dataset appears to indicate the opposite. LIV’s opening weekend drew smaller U.S. audiences than much of its previous year on the CW, and its opening night of 12,000 average viewers represents the smallest audience for a league broadcast on record. To put those numbers into context, the audience for the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open, 2.874 million average viewers on CBS, is roughly 53 times as large as the largest LIV number from Riyadh, 54,000 average viewers. That’s not just failing to beat the PGA Tour, it’s failing to compete altogether.
LIV's first Fox numbers (54k on FS1, 31K on FS2) were so small, folks are arguing ***Nielsen*** isn't a relevant tool for assessing viewership.
— James Colgan (@jamescolgan26) February 12, 2025
Legendary goalpost moving. Stop the count!
(These numbers are per @YeahClickClack, who has been on the money with TGL/PGAT data.) https://t.co/ALSfjOtwmJ
Not everybody was holding LIV to the same expectations, though. Golf fans with a slightly better grasp of reality recognized long before Riyadh 2025 that LIV remains far from becoming appointment viewing in the United States — a problem unlikely to be fixed in the league’s first telecast of the year. While a ratings loophole has left us without concrete data on LIV’s CW viewership, even aggressive estimates had the league struggling to reach 250,000 average viewers throughout its tenure with the network. Some of that can be attributed to the CW’s lesser popularity as a golf destination, but much of it can be attributed to LIV. The league has developed an impressively innovative format and broadcast, but it has yet to elicit consistent interest from sports fans in the U.S.
Plus, LIV’s reputation was only half the issue. If you pay attention to sports TV ratings, or are just a regular consumer of sports media, you knew the league was facing an uphill climb on FS2. The network is Fox Sports’ smallest offering and regularly struggles to pull audiences larger than 10,000 average viewers. While some live programming has delivered more than 100,000 average viewers on FS2, it seemed unreasonable for a similarly large audience to tune in for LIV’s first-ever Fox broadcast.
If anything, LIV’s first batch of TV ratings helped to reinforce a key point about the upstart league: Its audiences in the Fox era will be highly dependent upon home network. Telecasts on FS2 will likely be counted in the tens of thousands, with some venturing as low as four digits. Telecasts on FS1 will be counted in the high tens of thousands to the low hundreds of thousands, and telecasts on Fox will be counted in the high hundreds to millions.
If you’re LIV, the good news is that week one was never your breadwinner. It is a challenge to condition viewers to tune into a new network, particularly when you’re airing in the middle of the day on cable. The league still has several weeks to boost ratings, including an expected strong ratings performance this weekend from Adelaide, Australia. Should LIV air to similarly small audiences in several weeks on “Big Fox” — the over-the-air broadcast network — then the conversation will shift, but not yet.
LIV isn’t delivering blockbuster numbers, and it may never deliver PGA Tour-caliber numbers, but it’s not fair to call the experiment a total failure after only one week. Fox Sports is, on the whole, a more reputable avenue for a sports league than the CW — and LIV’s few broadcasts on “Big Fox” in 2025 could make the whole experience worthwhile for a still-new league trying to gain a foothold with a disaffected golf audience.
The question, for LIV and for everyone else, is about expectations. After week one on Fox Sports, it might be best to keep them reasonable.
