The Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour started its second season final weekend on the El Camaleon course in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, airing for the primary time on the CW Tv Community.
In its inaugural season, LIV Golf streamed by itself YouTube channel and the DAZN paid streaming platform. The LIV broadcasts are additionally a brand new frontier for the CW Community, which hadn’t carried sports activities.
The preliminary viewership numbers don’t paint the prettiest image for LIV Golf. Within the 1 p.m. window Saturday, LIV drew solely 286,000 viewers and attracted solely 291,000 in the identical time slot Sunday. The Friday spherical, in the meantime, streamed solely on the LIV Golf app.
The LIV occasion was competing in opposition to two PGA Tour broadcasts, each of which outdrew LIV. In keeping with Nielsen estimates from leisure information and information weblog Showbuzz Day by day, the lead-in for the PGA Tour Honda Traditional drew 555,000 viewers on the Golf Channel within the Saturday 1 p.m. time slot and 631,000 within the Sunday 1 p.m. time slot.
The Honda Traditional itself, aired at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on NBC, attracted considerably extra viewers; 1.6 million Saturday and a pair of.38 million Sunday.
Some CW associates didn’t even air the LIV rounds. Whereas associates are obligated to air primetime content material, the identical doesn’t apply to LIV motion.
All in all, Nexstar Media, proprietor of the CW Community, was happy with the primary leads to its multiyear cope with LIV Golf; 13 extra LIV occasions can be aired this yr.
“LIV Golf was seen by over 1.4 million whole viewers. … In comparison with the common linear golf recreation on tv year-to-date, LIV Golf’s two-day common linear viewership was 24% greater than the common. And necessary for us, the linear broadcast scores elevated 21% from Saturday to Sunday,” Nexstar Media CEO Perry Sook stated on a Tuesday earnings name.
The deal itself is atypical for sports activities rights on TV. The CW pays nothing to LIV, and the 2 entities are splitting promoting income. Tournaments held exterior the U.S. air on a delayed foundation, and LIV is paying for its personal manufacturing charges, based on Golf Digest.
