LIV Golf's first event in the United States of 2025 brought record viewership for the league, with 484 000 people tuning in to watch Marc Leishman's triumph in Miami on Sunday.
Unfortunately for the breakaway league, that was still less than a third of the amount of people who opted to watch a standard PGA Tour event the same day.
Despite Brian Harman holding a multiple-shot lead to begin the day and leading by as many as four strokes during the final round, NBC had 1.746 million viewers tune into the Valero Texas Open, according to the Sports Business Journal.
The previous high for a LIV event in the US had been 432 000 for the 2024 season opener in Mexico, which was broadcast on the CW. The league struck a deal with Fox Sports before the 2025 season, and the first round of the event Friday did bring 389 000 viewers to outdraw the PGA event's 327 000 on Golf Channel. By Saturday, the Valero was drawing 1.583 million on NBC compared to only 137 000 for LIV on FS1.
The Valero had more viewers for the week despite lacking an elite field, with Harman holding off the likes of Ryan Gerard and Andrew Novak. Meanwhile, Sunday in Miami saw Leishman out-duel household names including Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia, with Jon Rahm also finishing in the top 10.
Viewership numbers from last week were widely seen as an important litmus test for LIV Golf as it went head-to-head against the PGA Tour for the first time on Fox Sports.
While Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund was long considered to have the upper hand in merger discussions with the PGA Tour due to its vast monetary resources, the creation of PGA Tour Enterprises backed by a $3 billion investment from the Strategic Sports Group appears to have changed the tide.
The tour reportedly rejected the PIF's recent offer to invest $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises. The investment offer came with the provision that LIV would remain intact, which reportedly does not work for the PGA Tour. The tour wants to have the world's top golfers all competing on one circuit.
Viewership numbers for the Valero still represented a 20 per cent drop from last year, but the tour has enjoyed strong ratings overall to begin 2025. After an overall drop last year, the SBJ reported last week that weekend coverage on CBS and NBC has been up 10 per cent compared to the same point last season.
In addition to six consecutive weekends of viewership gains across NBC and Peacock leading into the Valero, CBS' average of 2.3 million viewers was up 17 per cent year-over-year.
"While the numbers are good and strong and positive, pretty much across the board, we've got a lot of golf left," Norb Gambuzza, EVP/media at the PGA Tour, told the SBJ. "We want to be humble. We want to continue to focus on our product (and) giving fans what they want."