Brandel Chamblee is tearing up the LIV ratings

Brandel Chamblee, in a post on his X social media account, tore into LIV Golf’s TV ratings, saying the tour is “in a witness protection program for sports viewers.”

Tuesday night’s comments came in response to X’s post from Sports Business Journal Josh Carpenter, who reported that the CW Network’s broadcast of each LIV season finale drew 134,000 viewers for Saturday’s second round and 89,000 viewers for Sunday’s final round. Chamblee, a former Golf Channel commentator for NBC, has often commented on the Saudi-backed league, which ends its third season this weekend.

Below is Chamblee’s full, unedited post:

“Despite billions of dollars from golf’s megastars, LIV remains a witness protection program for spectator sports. Partly because they try to ‘measure’ the regional glamor of the 16th hole at the WM Phoenix Open and the Seve-like inspiration of the RyderCup, they fail, not because of a lack of innovation in their ideas but also because of the origin of their investment.”

Fifteen minutes later, Chamblee posted again, this time in response to a comment on his original post. Below is the full, unedited exchange:

Commentator wrote: “Bud the pga can get 300k viewers on national tv”

Chamblee wrote: “It depends on the event, and to be sure the audience is low, but the overall image of the PGA Tour is still about giving and being fair. That’s why it remains such a powerful trading asset. Innovation is no doubt coming, but the PGA Tour and its partners still give hundreds of millions to charities and have the most sought-after demographics in all of sports. Nothing can be said about LIV. “

Notably, in a separate post, Carpenter of Journal of Sports Business reported that Golf Channel’s broadcast of the PGA Tour’s Procore Championship drew 69,000 viewers for Sunday’s final round. Last year, Mbazi wrote, 289,000 viewers watched the final round.

In an analytically written article published Wednesday on GOLF.com – which you can read in full here – James Colgan examined both tour ratings, and the causes of the PGA Tour’s dip were few. Among them, last year’s Procore was won by Sahith Theegala, a popular champion, while this year’s champion was Patton Kizzire, who had not won since 2018; and the broadcast was competing with the NFL – and both programs met the trend of consumers moving to non-TV arenas. Still, Colgan noted that Sunday’s broadcast ranked below the Golf Channel’s August average for any type of broadcast (76,000), while Carpenter’s Journal of Sports Businessas part of a question last month to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, he cited another PGA Tour network partner that experienced year-over-year ratings increases of 15 to 17 percent.

On the LIV side, as Colgan also reported, Sunday’s figure was less than one-third of the 286,000 viewers who watched the league’s first event on the CW, in February in Mexico. LIV was also competing on Sunday with the NFL, as well as the Solheim Cup, but Colgan also noted that LIV played arguably its biggest event of the year and saw superstar Jon Rahm win as he continues to work on getting a spot on the field.

Then there’s the battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, which seemed to be coming to an end last June, when LIV’s backer, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund reached a sponsorship deal with the PGA Tour, but negotiations are ongoing and the date of the decision remains unclear. . When asked this week at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship if he felt optimistic about the negotiations, however, Rory McIlroy said he did.

“I think it seems to me that the people who really make the decisions are all rowing in one direction, which is really good,” said the player who has won four times. “And even if they are all rowing towards the same side, that does not mean that an agreement can be made because it is a very complicated situation.

“But yeah, from what I hear, there’s hope there, and that’s good to see.”

Editor’s note: To read Colgan’s full story, please click here. Learn more about the host, Chamblee. this article here from GOLF Dylan Dethier is also worth your time.

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for planning, writing and promoting news on the golf course. And when he’s not writing about how to hit the golf ball forward and straight, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash down his scores. You can contact him about any of these topics – his news, his game or his beer – at nick.piastowski@golf.com.