LIV Golf just closed out its final season as the deep-pocketed PGA Tour challenger that just a few short years ago had the world of men’s professional golf in a tizzy. But now, with its Saudi benefactors cutting bait and the league attempting to secure funding from private investors to save what little remains, LIV Golf as we know it is over for good.
Its demise, in no small part, is because it failed to ever reach mainstream appeal among golf fans in the United States, as evidenced by its paltry television ratings.
Quite ironically, LIV Golf posted its best season yet from a viewership standpoint, at least for its telecasts on the Fox broadcast network. According to data compiled by Josh Carpenter in Sports Business Journal, LIV Golf averaged 386,000 viewers for its 14 rounds that aired on Fox this season, up 12% from its viewership on Fox a year ago (345,000 viewers). Last year, Fox aired 17 rounds of LIV Golf, but the network only aired 14 this year after LIV was forced to cancel events in New Orleans and Michigan due to the Saudi funding cuts.
Adding to the irony, Fox’s final-round broadcast from LIV Indianapolis earlier this month, the event that formally concluded “LIV 1.0,” was the most-watched in the circuit’s history. The telecast averaged 702,000 viewers.
For reference, PGA Tour audiences on CBS and NBC averaged 2.5 million viewers during the 2026 regular season, about 6.5x the LIV Golf average. Even early-round lead-in coverage on Golf Channel beat out LIV’s season-long average on Fox, with the Golf Channel telecasts scoring 565,000 viewers on average.
It’s unclear what LIV Golf’s television situation will look like next season, assuming it even has a next season. One can only imagine the interest from networks will be at an all-time low, especially as many top LIV golfers attempt to find pathways back to the PGA Tour.
Whatever LIV’s television product looks like will likely be a shell of its former self, which was already a shell of the PGA Tour’s on-screen product.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.