By ED TRAVIS
It is seemingly inescapable. There’s a train wreck coming in men’s professional golf. Fans are losing interest, and the consequences will be nothing but a disaster for the PGA Tour and to a lesser degree the Saudi Public Investment Fund-backed LIV Golf.
“Who cares” will be the Monday morning watercooler question rather than “who won.”
There have been a lot of words from both sides about the game’s traditions and players’ reputations, but everyone knows it’s really about the money. Regardless of who “wins” the battle most likely the fans supporting the PGAT tournaments and local charities will be the losers.
TV viewership is down and week to week television ratings for PGAT events are not growing nor holding their own but shrinking. According to estimates LIV Golf’s number of viewers sometimes would be hard pressed to match the attendance at the average NFL game.
LIV has very limited outlets and miniscule numbers of people tuning in. The PGA Tour on the other hand has strong broadcast contracts with traditional outlets but even so the EOY Tour Championship could only count 3.1 million on Sunday which was down 13% from 2023. Figures for streaming aren’t included but it’s still not a pretty picture.
For the most popular tournament in the world, the Masters, viewership numbers last April were the lowest in more than 20 years apart from 2020 and 2021 when the world was put on pause for the covid scare. There were also lower numbers for the Players Championship (-17%) and the British Open was down 4%. Viewership of DP World Tour events have been similarly impacted.
The number of people actually playing golf is at an all-time high. The National Golf Foundation says more rounds are being played and millions are taking up or returning to the game. On-course players are about 9% of the population, but the big increase is at the off-course entertainment venues such as Topgolf. Total participants on and off-course reached 45 million in 2023.
This sounds fantastic, a huge built-in audience to attend tournaments and watch the action on television.
The problem is they aren’t.
The PGAT fall season is a lackluster placeholder and competes with gridiron action for fan and media attention, a task that will never be won by those playing pasture pool. Nor should they try.
The defection from the PGAT by Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and lesser stars to the Saudi-backed league caused a huge split and the attendant fan loss of interest. It created confusion and anger with an often-heard comment, “Why can’t all these guys play against each other all the while?”
Evidentially a solution is complicated and appears to be beyond the grasp of those talking about it from the PGAT/DPWT and PIF/LIV for almost a year and a half.
Added to the apparent mysteries of merging the traditional tours with the “other guys” the anger and hurtful words from players not to mention LIV players whining about missing out on spots in international competitions and majors after they took millions of dollars for signing with LIV knowing the rules for those events might preclude their eligibility. It seems to be very selfish to then expect the rules will be changed to accommodate their decision.
If fans continue to be uninterested can advertisers and tournament sponsors be far behind? Once the slide down that slippery slope starts the billions in support of local charities that has made the PGAT unique and beloved by the communities where they are held is in jeopardy.
So, unless a workable fan-friendly solution is found, the train wreck is coming not to the pocketbooks of the players but to the millions of people who need and depend on the charities that will not have the funding when advertisers and sponsors decide their return on investment is not sufficient.
Oh, and just when you think the news can’t be any worse the United States Department of Justice is in the mix looking into the investment by Saudi Arabia in a major U.S. professional sport. Nothing definite yet from the Feds but their contribution to any proposed merger presumably will not be anything positive.
