It’s not a stretch to say that the ongoing saga over the founding and inaugural season for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit was the biggest story in golf last year.
Traffic and headlines would bear out the interest, much moreso than the actual streaming numbers for the would-be disruptor’s initial slate of events. Now, LIV finally secured an American television deal. That has been a crucial point of contention for the new tour, which wasn’t aided by the fact the PGA Tour already has rights deals in place with NBC, CBS, and ESPN, leaving few options on the table.
For a while it looked like LIV might resort to being glorified paid programming on FS1 and FS2, which would have been a disaster. Instead, they’ve turned to a somewhat surprising choice: the CW, as predicted last month by John Ourand.
Before we get to any sort of serious analysis, please enjoy this incredible work from golf Twitter legend @sacoomba, mashing up One Tree Hill with LIV Golf. It’s everything you’d hope for.
— Barry W (@sacoomba) January 18, 2023
So, finally, the folks at LIV (a dwindling bunch as some of the more qualified people have jumped ship) have their precious traditional distribution deal. Except it’s not really that at all.
For one, the CW has zero sports inventory. It’s not a natural destination, and there’s no real word yet on how many affiliates are cleared for the weekend programming schedule. And opening rounds will be entirely on the CW app, which is pretty clearly a step back from YouTube as an accessible streaming destination.
— ANTIFAldo (@ANTIFAldo) January 18, 2023
(If you don’t get that joke, here’s a refresher.)
The CW is in 122 million homes and its app has been downloaded 90 million times.
YouTube has 2.6 billion monthly active users.
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) January 19, 2023
But at least LIV is getting a rights fee! Oh, no, they’re not getting that either, instead entering a revenue-sharing partnership in exchange for the airtime. That’s arguably better than the infomercial route, but it’s not the same thing as multiple networks beating down the door.
Instead it sort of just reinforces LIV’s place in the world of sports. It’s really easy to throw a ton of PIF money around, land recognizable names for guarantees, and then hold tournaments. It’s a lot harder to actually have any of that translate to fan interest in a sport that generally draws based on events, not names.
Could LIV have perhaps improved the format of televised golf in a way that might have drawn more interest? Sure! They could have done that. They didn’t, though; aside from a few cosmetic tweaks it’s hard to really see any difference. LIV also brought in staid names like David Feherty and Jerry Foltz to call the action, hardly a play for the non-traditional golf audience.
There’s almost zero chance LIV events turn into a ratings bonanza for the CW. If there was true potential for that, the market would have reacted accordingly. Yes, the Saudi-backed nature of the property adds a political element, but that was always going to be the case. LIV can’t use that as an excuse when it’s the whole mechanism for its own existence.
It’s just not a relevant spectator sport right now. From giving tickets away for free to running opening rounds buried within the CW app, it’d be hard for LIV to come across as any less serious than it currently feels.
Could that still change? Absolutely. There’s enough money behind the entire operation that with the right strategy and a few other key breaks, it could outlast early issues and morph into a tour that draws crowds all over the world. Maybe this sort of deal is a catalyst, so the powerbrokers can point at a distribution deal and claim unwarranted legitimacy en route to actual legitimacy.
But that’s not happening yet. And based on the crowing about this deal, it’s unlikely to happen any time soon.
