‘Witness protection program of sports viewership’: Brandel Chamblee rips LIV ratings

Brandel Chamblee, via posts on his X social-media account, ripped the TV ratings of LIV Golf, saying the tour is in “the witness protection program of sports viewership.”

The comment on Tuesday night came in response to an X post from the Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter, who reported that the CW Network broadcast of LIV’s season-ending individual championship drew 134,000 viewers for Saturday’s second round and 89,000 viewers for Sunday’s final round. Chamblee, a longtime Golf Channel analyst who has also worked on NBC broadcasts, has frequently commented on the Saudi-backed league, which is completing its third season this weekend.

Below is Chamblee’s complete, unedited post:

“Despite billions of dollars for golf megastars, LIV remains in the witness protection program of sports viewership. Partly because they are trying to ‘scale’ the county-fair motleyness of the 16th hole at the WM Phoenix Open and the Seve-like passion of the RyderCup, they fail, not least for the lack of innovation of their ideas but also for the origin of their investment.”

Fifteen minutes later, Chamblee posted again, this time in response to a comment on his original post. Below is the complete, unedited exchange:

Wrote the commenter: “Bud the pga can barely get 300k viewers on national tv”

Wrote Chamblee: “It depends on the event, and to be sure viewership is down, but overall the image of the PGA Tour is still about charity and merit. Which is why it still remains such a strong commercial property. Innovation is no doubt coming, but the PGA Tour with its partners still gives hundreds of millions to charity and has the most sought after demographic in all of sport. None of which can be said about LIV.”

Notably, in a separate post, Carpenter of the Sports Business Journal reported that the Golf Channel broadcast of the PGA Tour’s Procore Championship attracted 69,000 viewers for Sunday’s final round. A year ago, Carpenter wrote, 289,000 viewers tuned in for the final round. 

In an analytically written article published Wednesday to GOLF.com — which you can read in full here — James Colgan examined both tours’ ratings, and the causes for the PGA Tour’s dip were several. Among them, last year’s Procore was won by Sahith Theegala, a popular pro, while this year’s champion was Patton Kizzire, who hadn’t won since 2018; and the broadcast was competing against the NFL — and both tours have experienced the trend of consumers moving to platforms outside of TV. Still, Colgan noted that Sunday’s broadcast ranked beneath the August average for a Golf Channel telecast of any kind (76,000), while Carpenter of the Sports Business Journal, as part of a question last month to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, quoted one PGA Tour network partner as having faced a year-over-year ratings swoon of 15 to 17 percent.  

On the LIV side, as Colgan also reported, the Sunday figure was less than one-third of the 286,000 viewers who watched the league’s first event on the CW, in February in Mexico. LIV was also competing on Sunday with the NFL, along with the Solheim Cup, but Colgan also noted that LIV played arguably its biggest event of the year and saw star Jon Rahm win as it continues to work to gain a viewing foothold. 

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Then there’s the battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, which seemed to be nearing an end last June, when LIV’s backer, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund reached a funding deal with the PGA Tour, but negotiations continue and a resolution date remains vague. When asked this week at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship if he felt optimism on the discussions, though, Rory McIlroy said he did.  

“I think to me it seems like the people that are really making the decisions are all rowing in the same direction, which is a really good thing,” the four-time major winner said. “And even if they are all rowing in the same direction, it still doesn’t mean that a deal may get done because it’s just a very complicated set of circumstances.

“But yeah, from what I hear, there’s optimism there, and that’s good to see.”

Editor’s note: To read Colgan’s complete story, please click here. For more on Chamblee, this article here from GOLF’s Dylan Dethier is also well worth your time.