In the latest case of “Yes, but” when it comes to live sports broadcasts, LIV Golf posted its largest viewership total since arriving to The CW. This Sunday’s broadcast of the LIV Mayokaba tournament drew 430,000 viewers, the most ever for the Saudi-backed golf organization. This number far surpassed its Saturday total of 168,000 and was due to the PGA Tour event at Pebble Beach suspending play due to a rainout.
The bad news for LIV is that the PGA Tour broadcast on Saturday drew 1.931 million viewers, 11 times more than the LIV Saturday broadcast, just about five times more than its most-viewed telecast on Sunday, and 3 times more than both days combined. What’s worse, the replay of Saturday’s Pebble Beach action drew 1.2 million viewers. Viewership figures were provided by Sports TV Ratings on X as well as Sports Business Journal.
At this point, LIV will take any good news, especially as merger talks with the PGA Tour have slowed amidst new investors getting on board with the Tour — investors that may include the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabi, according to the Associated Press.
Viewership numbers were so bad that LIV Golf stopped reporting them back in May as some CW affiliates were found to not even air live coverage.
