THE Shared Sports Business Journal estimated viewership for last weekend’s LIV Golf Mayakoba and PGA Tour Honda Classic, and early reports didn’t paint a pretty picture for the rival circuit.
On Friday morning, LIV Golf shared new numbers that tell a different story.
Using iSpot, a TV ad measurement and analytics company, as well as internal data from CW and LIV Golf, the upstart circuit financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund reported an audience of 3. 2 million viewers across all linear and digital platforms for its season opener. event in Mexico. With its new TV deal, LIV airs in all U.S. markets through CW affiliates and Nexstar stations and grossed 1.6 million viewers on Saturday and 1.3 million viewers on Sunday.
LIV’s report also indicated an average linear viewership in the United States of more than 537,000, which it said is higher than the current season viewership average for MLS (343,000), NHL (373,000) and the 2023 Australian Open men’s tennis final (439,000).
It’s easy to make jokes about some CW shows, but airing LIV in all US markets has been key to its growth in 2023. If accurate, the reported numbers are another step forward, but let’s not forget that this was LIV’s first event of the season, not to mention that it compared its viewership to the season averages of three of the least-watched major sports in America.
That said, according to Nielsen, The CW’s national weekend primetime ratings are up 24% over the network’s weekend average since the start of the season. With Friday’s opening round only available via live stream, LIV reported a 40% increase in downloads of the CW app month over month, as well as 350,000 views on its new app, LIV Golf Plus.
Long story short, more people reportedly watched the opening event than previously thought. Now LIV must keep watching them.