In perhaps the biggest move for LIV Golf’s potential popularity, the league announced earlier this month a multiyear deal with FOX to have its tournaments broadcast on the network’s FOX Sports channels.
The league had previously been on The CW, but it continuously led to low ratings, despite more stars jumping ship from the PGA Tour.
The tour has even seen two of its golfers win major championships since the tour’s inception, with Brooks Koepka winning the 2023 PGA Championship and Bryson DeCheambeau taking home last year’s U.S. Open.
Koepka came close to winning the prior year’s Masters, but Jon Rahm took home the green jacket, then bolted to LIV that December on a deal rumored to be worth over $300 million.
The top stars of LIV are some of the game’s best, and six-time major champion Phil Mickelson, one of the first to join the tour, said he is “really excited” for the new TV deal.
“FOX has always been on the forefront of innovation and cutting edge fan experience and audience experience, and that’s exactly what LIV is trying to do with the golf world,” Mickelson told FOX Business’ “The Claman Countdown” on Wednesday. “It’s helping us create a lot of value for our sponsors, and sponsors are coming more now with the value that FOX brings. And hopefully, it’ll be added value for FOX and be consistent with that cutting edge, innovative, younger target audience.”
Mickelson added that LIV Golf brings a new attitude to the sport.
“We’re trying to become an added value to the golf ecosystem. The old model was not getting the younger players involved, it wasn’t a global model. We’re the first global model for golf. We’re able to bring the best players, best teams throughout the world. That hasn’t been the case, so we’re trying to help grow the game on a global basis. We’re all additive. We’re all in this together. We want to grow the fanbase, we want to grow the game around the world,” said Mickelson
“The PGA Tour’s done a great job for many years, but it’s a national centric-based model, where we’re much more global, we’re much younger target audience, much younger in different demographics we’re trying to hit. We’re trying to make the fan experience on site much more enjoyable. We’re additive rather than competitive.”
The fourth LIV season kicks off in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Feb. 6.
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