LIV Tour Discussion Thread (*** NO POLITICS ***)

[betarhoalphadelta]

19 minutes ago, tomjas said:

LIV and the Asian Tour are expanding their presence in Europe (and Central & South America) as well 

 

Obviously too early to tell whether it will work but they will have the first global tour sooner rather than later 

 

My view is that their biggest weakness is reliance upon US talent as they don’t need to travel atm 

 

 

The biggest weakness is that a global golf tour fails, based purely on the time zone problem. 

 

The Open Championship is potentially the most prestigious and longest history major championship of the four. 

 

But what are its ratings*? https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/major-golf-ratings-historical-masters-us-open-british-pga-championship-tiger-woods/

 

Consistently the worst of the four, even below the PGA Championship, which is generally regarded as the weakest of the four. And it's 100% time zones IMHO. 

 

North American golfers aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in Scotland or Jeddah or Singapore. Euro golfers aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in Las Vegas or Australia. Asian golfers (what few there are) aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in London or Miami--and the MASSIVE bulk of the tournaments are outside Asia. 

 

So who is going to bother watching, when a ton of their tournaments aren't even televised when the local fans are awake?

 

The weakness isn't the lack of American golfers--it's the lack of North American fans when tournaments are elsewhere. 

 

Spoiler

 * To be fair, these are US ratings--but given that North America has half of the world's golfers, making up for a loss of US ratings requires a much bigger ratings gain elsewhere.

 

[tomjas]

19 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

The biggest weakness is that a global golf tour fails, based purely on the time zone problem. 

 

The Open Championship is potentially the most prestigious and longest history major championship of the four. 

 

But what are its ratings*? https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/major-golf-ratings-historical-masters-us-open-british-pga-championship-tiger-woods/

 

Consistently the worst of the four, even below the PGA Championship, which is generally regarded as the weakest of the four. And it's 100% time zones IMHO. 

 

North American golfers aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in Scotland or Jeddah or Singapore. Euro golfers aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in Las Vegas or Australia. Asian golfers (what few there are) aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in London or Miami--and the MASSIVE bulk of the tournaments are outside Asia. 

 

So who is going to bother watching, when a ton of their tournaments aren't even televised when the local fans are awake?

 

The weakness isn't the lack of American golfers--it's the lack of North American fans when tournaments are elsewhere. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 * To be fair, these are US ratings--but given that North America has half of the world's golfers, making up for a loss of US ratings requires a much bigger ratings gain elsewhere.

 

Sorry but cricket fans heard the same self serving nonsense from the establishment DECADES AGO and all it took was a disruptor with deep pockets to completely upend the norms associated with a game that enjoys a much longer history than the PGAT

 

For example, I have no doubt whatsoever that many golf tournaments in the future will be played at night which renders time zones largely irrelevant 

 

Dubai is 8 hours ahead of New York and I know of at least 2 quality courses there that have lights where you can play until midnight 

 

That means that they can play a tournament in virtually the same slot as a PGAT event 

And don’t think it can’t happen with the majors

Test cricket is the most traditional form of the game and they now play day/night matches using pink balls. Both the ratings and match attendance are through the roof as hours of play are more convenient for locals and international viewers alike 

 

The Match wasn’t a gimmick 

 

It’s the future for many golf tournaments 

[bekgolf]

1 hour ago, tomjas said:

Sorry but cricket fans heard the same self serving nonsense from the establishment DECADES AGO and all it took was a disruptor with deep pockets to completely upend the norms associated with a game that enjoys a much longer history than the PGAT

 

For example, I have no doubt whatsoever that many golf tournaments in the future will be played at night which renders time zones largely irrelevant 

 

Dubai is 8 hours ahead of New York and I know of at least 2 quality courses there that have lights where you can play until midnight 

 

That means that they can play a tournament in virtually the same slot as a PGAT event 

And don’t think it can’t happen with the majors

Test cricket is the most traditional form of the game and they now play day/night matches using pink balls. Both the ratings and match attendance are through the roof as hours of play are more convenient for locals and international viewers alike 

 

The Match wasn’t a gimmick 

 

It’s the future for many golf tournaments 

 

Pif might have a better go at establishing Cricket in North America vs Team golf everywhere.  They could start the western hemisphere cricket league with all of the top teams participating in the premier league of the Americas.

 

Edit:  It might of been mentioned before.

Edited March 21 by bekgolf

[ThinkingPlus]

27 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

Pif might have a better go at establishing Cricket in North America vs Team golf everywhere.  They could start the western hemisphere cricket league with all of the top teams participating in the premier league of the Americas.

 

Remember, you read it here first.

[tomjas]

22 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

Pif might have a better go at establishing Cricket in North America vs Team golf everywhere.  They could start the western hemisphere cricket league with all of the top teams participating in the premier league of the Americas.

 

Remember, you read it here first.

You’re behind the times 

 

Major League Cricket held its first season last year and is backed by the IPL and a couple of Indian software billionaires from Silicon Valley 

 

Next season starts in July and will be broadcast live into 87 countries on major networks 

 

Furthermore, the final of the T20 World Cup will be played in a 40,000 seat purpose built stadium in New York in June and is likely to have one of the largest viewership in sports history 

 

And people wonder why we tell them to look at the IPL

[bekgolf]

8 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

 

My apologies.

[ThinkingPlus]

1 minute ago, bekgolf said:

 

My apologies.

It was 1 of only 2 JC gifs in the library. The other one was lame. Find the entire concept of Cricket of any kind in the US as surreal. Looks like a mashup of baseball, bowling, and theater in the round.

[Shilgy]

2 hours ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

Grow what specifically? 

Profit

[Shilgy]

4 hours ago, pingbling23 said:

https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2024/03/05/owgr-liv-official-world-golf-ranking-news/

That’s a good recap.  Thank you.  I would maintain many would have been out of the top 100 within a year but they were at signing.👍

[notsohard]

14 hours ago, aus10KC said:

 

I think it's no surprise that Yasir and the players board are very far apart. It's about control and both sides want it. 

 

Yasir wants his world tour and to use the best players in the world which a large majority are still on PGAT. 

 

He seems like a very personable guy that is likeable. Probably a big reason why he is in his position running PIF. But his talk of growing the game blah blah I don't believe is genuine. If that were the case they'd be growing the MENA tour and developing golfers in their part of the world.

 

 

 

He's very interested in getting golf onto the world stage...may be more appropriate, since the American media have polluted the word "growing"...you have to understand that all the despicable shenanigans Jay engaged in the beginning...THEN turned it around by shaking hands with PIF, now gives him no credibility, hence a lot of boys on the PGAT have no respect for him. The booing by the public at the Players should be enough for the blind and deaf to see what people think of him...YET...they are blind and deaf, and have no thinking capabilities. You really think Yasir wants to destroy golf? Come on, think a little.

[tomjas]

2 hours ago, ThinkingPlus said:

It was 1 of only 2 JC gifs in the library. The other one was lame. Find the entire concept of Cricket of any kind in the US as surreal. Looks like a mashup of baseball, bowling, and theater in the round.

There’s 5 million people of Indian origin in the US plus many more from other cricket playing countries 

 

Golf was established in Hong Kong, Singapore, UAE, etc for the benefit of British expats so it’s just history repeating itself 

Edited March 21 by tomjas

[notsohard]

4 hours ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

The biggest weakness is that a global golf tour fails, based purely on the time zone problem. 

 

The Open Championship is potentially the most prestigious and longest history major championship of the four. 

 

But what are its ratings*? https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/major-golf-ratings-historical-masters-us-open-british-pga-championship-tiger-woods/

 

Consistently the worst of the four, even below the PGA Championship, which is generally regarded as the weakest of the four. And it's 100% time zones IMHO. 

 

North American golfers aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in Scotland or Jeddah or Singapore. Euro golfers aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in Las Vegas or Australia. Asian golfers (what few there are) aren't going to tune in to a LIV tournament in London or Miami--and the MASSIVE bulk of the tournaments are outside Asia. 

 

So who is going to bother watching, when a ton of their tournaments aren't even televised when the local fans are awake?

 

The weakness isn't the lack of American golfers--it's the lack of North American fans when tournaments are elsewhere. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 * To be fair, these are US ratings--but given that North America has half of the world's golfers, making up for a loss of US ratings requires a much bigger ratings gain elsewhere.

 

Oh deary me......... 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, tomjas said:

You’re behind the times 

 

Major League Cricket held its first season last year and is backed by the IPL and a couple of Indian software billionaires from Silicon Valley 

 

Next season starts in July and will be broadcast live into 87 countries on major networks 

 

Furthermore, the final of the T20 World Cup will be played in a 40,000 seat purpose built stadium in New York in June and is likely to have one of the largest viewership in sports history 

 

And people wonder why we tell them to look at the IPL

I lived in the US for 9 years. I got a very good understanding of their thinking patterns, especially sport and politics. 

You are wasting your time. The World Series of everything is in the USA. 

They have no idea what will happen if Yasir unleashes the billions...play money.

[bcjim]

4 hours ago, notsohard said:

 

He's very interested in getting golf onto the world stage...may be more appropriate, since the American media have polluted the word "growing"...you have to understand that all the despicable shenanigans Jay engaged in the beginning...THEN turned it around by shaking hands with PIF, now gives him no credibility, hence a lot of boys on the PGAT have no respect for him. The booing by the public at the Players should be enough for the blind and deaf to see what people think of him...YET...they are blind and deaf, and have no thinking capabilities. You really think Yasir wants to destroy golf? Come on, think a little.

He'd be better off buying a bunch of "1st tee" franchises than giving Jon Rahm 500,000,000 dollars to play lame exhibitions.

[bcjim]

8 hours ago, tomjas said:

 

 

For example, I have no doubt whatsoever that many golf tournaments in the future will be played at night which renders time zones largely irrelevant 

 

 

Just memorializing this in case whatever you're smoking wears off and you come to your senses. 😂

[dcmidnight]

ROFL I keep hearing this ridiculous argument that all the TV fans of golf and all the people who watch golf are not in the USA.

 

Then when I tune into the first round of Jeddah - which was 4a East Coast time / middle of the day for the rest of the world - and there are only 9,000 people watching live, all I hear is what a bad time it was for people to watch. 

 

LIV is proving two things.

 

One, they have all the money in the world. Literally an unlimited supply of money. If they wanted to drag this out forever just out of pure spite and hand out 9 figure deals with zero coming back in return - they could do it. They could do it just for fun and not be hurt one bit.

 

Unfortunately the second thing they've proven is that despite the first thing - they cannot and have not been able to buy fans. They cant buy fans or excitement or clicks or views. Period. Three years in.

Edited March 21 by dcmidnight

[tomjas]

9 minutes ago, bcjim said:

Just memorializing this in case whatever you're smoking wears off and you come to your senses. 😂

Name a major sport that doesn’t want to be in prime time 

Virtually every other televised sport in the world is played at night for one reason but tournament golf can’t?

[tomjas]

8 minutes ago, dcmidnight said:

ROFL I keep hearing this ridiculous argument that all the TV fans of golf and all the people who watch golf are not in the USA.

 

Then when I tune into the first round of Jeddah - which was 4a East Coast time / middle of the day for the rest of the world - and there are only 9,000 people watching live, all I hear is what a bad time it was for people to watch. 

 

LIV is proving two things.

 

One, they have all the money in the world. Literally an unlimited supply of money. If they wanted to drag this out forever just out of pure spite and hand out 9 figure deals with zero coming back in return - they could do it. They could do it just for fun and not be hurt one bit.

 

Unfortunately the second thing they've proven is that despite the first thing - they cannot and have not been able to buy fans. They cant buy fans or excitement or clicks or views. Period. Three years in.

You’re missing the point with Jeddah

 

It’s a tourism ad for Saudi in exactly the same way as the Race to Dubai is a tourism ad for Dubai

 

You think that Sheikh Mo is a golf fan? 😂

 

LIV Adelaide generated $70 million in economic benefits for South Australia and 43,000 extra room nights for its hospitality industry and they’re paying them to come back

[bscinstnct]

4 minutes ago, tomjas said:

Name a major sport that doesn’t want to be in prime time 

Virtually every other televised sport in the world is played at night for one reason but tournament golf can’t?

 

Golf is just not a big deal for people here to be watching on Sat or Sun night. Youd get a small fraction of the viewers that an afternoon event gets. 
 

A guy can put golf on in the afternoon and wife will be cool with it, especially if you’re doing stuff around the house and relaxing. 
 

But I’d love to see on a Sunday night after dinner be  like,

 

Wife, “Ok let’s check out The Gentlemen on Netflix!”

 

Husband, “I thought we’d watch golf”

 

🤣

 

Youd get the look of death 💀 and be cookin your own dinner for a month! 

[bscinstnct]

LIV has completely misunderstood golf fan demographics from the beginning 

 

Thats the problem with “top down” thinking and a the reason for LIV total failure to generate meaningful fan interest despite signing so many big names and so many billions 

 

And its the reason I laugh at the notion of LIV claiming it’s a “startup”

 

A startup, as we generally know it, a real startup begins with a product and 

 

Proof of Concept 

 

The product generates metrics that prove it solves a problem and has strong enough appeal to warrant funding

 

Then the funding rounds correspond in size with continued commercial success of the product 

 

LIV did it backwards and will continue to fail unless it aligns its product with the actual market 

 

 

Edited March 21 by bscinstnct

[tomjas]

4 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

Golf is just not a big deal for people here to be watching on Sat or Sun night. Youd get a small fraction of the viewers that an afternoon event gets. 
 

A guy can put golf on in the afternoon and wife will be cool with it, especially if you’re doing stuff around the house and relaxing. 
 

But I’d love to see on a Sunday night after dinner be  like,

 

Wife, “Ok let’s check out The Gentlemen on Netflix!”

 

Husband, “I thought we’d watch golf”

 

🤣

 

Youd get the look of death 💀 and be cookin your own dinner for a month! 

You can watch it on any device so the wife can do her thing while you look at golf

 

For example, Singapore and other F1s are at night simply so they can be broadcast into major markets at the most profitable times 

[bscinstnct]

Just now, tomjas said:

You can watch it on any device so the wife can do her thing while you look at golf

 

For example, Singapore and other F1s are at night simply so they can be broadcast into major markets at the most profitable times 

The average age of an F1 fan is 32

 

The average age of a golf fan is 65

 

Again, LIV completely fails to understand the market

[Hawkeye77]

6 minutes ago, tomjas said:

You can watch it on any device so the wife can do her thing while you look at golf

 

Because women don’t watch professional golf? 
 

My wife is wondering what her “thing” is she does while I sit in an easy chair in my den and smoke my pipe watching golf after washing the 1964 Ford. 

[BlackDiamondPar5]

7 hours ago, Shilgy said:

Profit

So you don't know how they will provide an ROI on this new investment in the PGA Tour Enterprise. That's what we've been asking and it's still unknown. 

[tomjas]

1 minute ago, bscinstnct said:

LIV has completely misunderstood golf fan demographics from the beginning 

 

Thats the problem with “top down” thinking and a the reason for LIV total failure to generate meaningful fan interest despite signing so many big names and so many billions 

 

And its the reason I laugh at the notion of LIV claiming it’s a “startup”

 

A startup, as we generally know it, a real startup begins with a product and 

 

Proof of Concept 

 

The product generates metrics that prove it solves a problem and has strong enough appeal to warrant funding

 

Then the funding rounds correspond in size with continued commercial success of the product 

 

LIV did it backwards and will continue to fail unless it aligns its product with the actual market 

 

 

You’re making the mistake of assuming that their “actual market” is the traditional market for golf in the US when they have stated otherwise 

 

 

[aus10KC]

5 hours ago, notsohard said:

 

He's very interested in getting golf onto the world stage...may be more appropriate, since the American media have polluted the word "growing"...you have to understand that all the despicable shenanigans Jay engaged in the beginning...THEN turned it around by shaking hands with PIF, now gives him no credibility, hence a lot of boys on the PGAT have no respect for him. The booing by the public at the Players should be enough for the blind and deaf to see what people think of him...YET...they are blind and deaf, and have no thinking capabilities. You really think Yasir wants to destroy golf? Come on, think a little.

 

Most of these players don't want to have to travel around the world. If there is legit competition in the US with access to majors that pays well then it might be hard to get all of the best playing around the world. It's one thing escaping the summer heat for these guys going to UK for a couple of weeks in July. Beyond that I don't see it.

 

As we've seen you have to pay them lots and lots of money to make that happen, and not every guy cares about the money. You think Scottie Scheffler wants to go to Bangkok to play some resort course? 

 

[Hawkeye77]

All I’m getting is cricket (we can sort out 4 enjoyable rounds of the NCAA tourney in the time it takes two teams to play a test match) and how golf at night with pink balls solves the tv issues for Cro Magnon men who will enjoy watching while the little lady does little lady things. 
 

Genius.

Edited March 21 by Hawkeye77

[tomjas]

8 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

The average age of an F1 fan is 32

 

The average age of a golf fan is 65

 

Again, LIV completely fails to understand the market

Cool

 

Shut down investment in professional golf because the target market will be dead in a few years 

 

Btw, why has LIV just signed a deal with a promoter to stage rock concerts at their events if they’re targeting 65yos?

[aus10KC]

33 minutes ago, tomjas said:

You’re missing the point with Jeddah

 

It’s a tourism ad for Saudi in exactly the same way as the Race to Dubai is a tourism ad for Dubai

 

You think that Sheikh Mo is a golf fan? 😂

 

LIV Adelaide generated $70 million in economic benefits for South Australia and 43,000 extra room nights for its hospitality industry and they’re paying them to come back

 

Australia should bump up the purse for their open. Sad how a supposedly golf crazy place has such a measley purse that the govt takes half of, Gooch wasn't happy about that last year.

[bscinstnct]

2 minutes ago, tomjas said:

You’re making the mistake of assuming that their “actual market” is the traditional market for golf in the US when they have stated otherwise 

 

 

No mistake

 

They built their product around a market

 

that does not exist 

 

Isn’t that obvious with how miserable fan interest has been?

 

I mean, be objective here. Again, this F1 notion is concocted out of thin air. 

 

F1 is cool to young people, golf is not.

 

If LIV can’t understand that  it will continue to fail. 

[bscinstnct]

4 minutes ago, tomjas said:

Cool

 

Shut down investment in professional golf because the target market will be dead in a few years 

 

Btw, why has LIV just signed a deal with a promoter to stage rock concerts at their events if they’re targeting 65yos?

 

No, as people get older..they get into golf

 

The same way we all acquire new interests as we age that would not interest us in our youth

 

Cmon, you gotta understand this?

 

Thats the point. You can’t make golf cool to F1 fans by playing mumble rap and wearing shorts

 

You ask the majority of young F1 fans from around the globe what they think of golf and they will say it sucks

 

But by the time they turn 50, maybe 10% of them will watch golf