The Second Season of LIV Golf is Here. Do You Care?
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After a tumultuous offseason, the former LIV Golf Invitational Series that is now the LIV Golf League is set to begin its second year of tournament operations, having lost a good bit of the momentum it had built through its 2022.
The LIV Golf Mayakoba event begins Friday in Mexico.
The four months since the Miami team finale have seen several LIV executives either leave or be forced out, meddling with the 14-tournament schedule that will see a return to Saudi Arabia while skipping what was one of the most popular venues in Boston, and a less-than-inspiring rollout of players and teams.
Dustin Johnson and LIV Golf return for a second season, which will comprise 14 events from Febru
Lynne Sladky/AP
The league will also begin its season without Official World Golf Ranking points as that process continues to drag on.
Amid all of it was the legal tussles between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, including LIV losing an important decision last week in which the PGA Tour will be permitted to depose LIV’s leaders, the courts having denied a claim of sovereign immunity.
Throw in the lack of big-name signings—unless you consider Thomas Pieters and his No. 34 world ranking a big get—and it’s been a rather a trying time for LIV Golf, which last year somewhat remarkably signed a slew of past major champions including reigning British Open champion Cam Smith and staged eight events with $25 million purses and a $50 million purse for the team championship.
Now comes the hard part: getting people to care.
For the most part, the drama of 2022 will be gone in 2023. There will not be player movement like there was last year, when Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka joined LIV after the first event and Smith joined in September. The 12 four-man teams, save for reserves, will be locked once the remaining players are announced, save for reserves. Now it becomes about the golf.
Although it has been mostly panned, the CW Network deal is a good outcome for LIV Golf. It was never going to get on one of the big U.S.-based outlets, and this one—while known for reruns and syndicated programming—is in more than 100 million U.S. homes. Along with one of its owners, Nexstar, it means all the affiliates will have LIV Golf, which stream its broadcasts on the CW App on Fridays and be over-the-air on weekends.
Starting in Mexico was an interesting decision. Will there be great interest in golf in a resort area? LIV’s "Golf, But Louder" motto is severely tested without big crowds, and that will be an important factor this year as many tournaments last year had restricted crowds or were simply poorly attended.
So getting some mainstream acceptance from golf fans and the ability to attract more viewers and thus sponsors is key. That's what makes this an important week. Are there fans in attendance? Do people tune into the CW broadcast, especially with a relatively weak field competing at the PGA Tour’s Honda Classic?
The story so far about LIV Golf has been its creation and the disruption it caused. Now, until there is some lawsuit resolution, it will be about the golf. Will enough people care about the 54-hole events? That is a big question.