LIV Golf has come a long way, even if only as regards being a disruptor to the established running of men’s professional golf, since it staged its first tournament at the Centurion Club near St Albans in June 2022. This coming Thursday will see its first event on the 2025 calendar, at the Riyadh Golf Club in Saudi Arabia (photo on the home page). Not that the LIV guys have been idle in the close season.
In mid-January, it was announced that Scott O’Neil would be the new CEO of LIV Golf. He succeeded Greg Norman, who will remain involved with the organisation in a different capacity. O’Neil has an impressive CV, seemingly perfectly tailored for his new role. And within 24 hours of his appointment came news that LIV had got what it was very eager to secure. No, not (at least yet) world ranking points for its tournaments, but a television deal with Fox Sports for it to broadcast LIV’s 14 tournaments into homes in the United States.
Previously the main vehicles to show LIV Golf were CW Sports and YouTube, with viewing figures often below 100,000. The financial details of the Fox agreement are not apparent – for sure LIV will not be receiving anything like the $600 million per year the PGA Tour earns from its television contracts – but LIV has certainly moved on from 2022, when it reportedly offered to pay to have its events televised, in this regard as well. As Brooks Koepka, one of LIV’s major-championship stars, said: “Having Fox Sports on board is a huge win for LIV Golf. I’m pumped to see how they showcase what makes our game so unique.” I’m guessing he is not referring to the shotgun starts?
How LIV makes money from this – for example, perhaps by receiving fees for broadcast rights – is opaque but for sure this development bodes for a more positive future for LIV ahead of its if/when deal with the PGA Tour. LIV has confirmed that its televised content will continue to be produced by its in-house team, thereby keeping its idiosyncratic live leaderboard and abundant coverage from drones. LIV claims to show “nearly twice as many golf shots per hour than traditional golf coverage”- although it does help them with that stat that they don’t have Brian Harman, Tom Kim or Patrick Cantlay slowing down their fields.
Of course, Fox had programming schedules planned way ahead, so how much LIV golf it will show in 2025 remains to be seen. Sky has confirmed that at present it has no plans to show LIV golf in the UK. That may be a blow of some sort for LIV but its raft of announcements shows no sign of abating: last week it unveiled a “multi-year strategic partnership with Rick Shiels’ Media”. Shiels declares himself to be (and I’m not arguing) the world’s most-followed golf content creator. So, overall, more golf content from LIV and a wider audience to appreciate it.