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

[freddi22cl]

19 minutes ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

Let's also remember LIV streaming is 100% free and globally accessible at livgolf.com. Numbers are low as I've posted numerous times. They only have 1/2 the traffic of the PGAT in Australia where liv is allegedly so popular. 

Sounds like nobody gives a damn 

 

 

[tomjas]

16 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

Can Liv succeed as an Oceania specific tour?  I've mentioned this before, maybe they could get a great footing in Oceania and the ME to get the ball rolling and spread goodwill.  It would take years but I could see it being a success in this manner. 

 

Taking over North America overnight isn't going to happen, especially with all of the bad will being generated.

Norman gave an interview during LIV Adelaide which made a lot of sense 

 

Basically focus upon younger markets with massive growth potential in Asia etc 

 

However, they have just announced that the tour finals will both be held in the US and that makes no sense to me as they’re almost guaranteed to be ratings and attendance disasters 

 

If it was up to me, I would build on the success of Adelaide and give one of those finals to say Queensland in October

 

Crowds & ratings would be enormous because it falls in between footy and cricket season plus the state government would pay to host the event 

 

Then use those successes as leverage in negotiations with other areas 

 

The US is a relatively small, mature and declining market for golf viewership 

 

If you’re going to hose money up against the wall then better to do it in regions where the payoff is potentially far larger 

 

[bekgolf]

1 minute ago, tomjas said:

The US is a relatively small, mature and declining market for golf viewership 

 

If you’re going to hose money up against the wall then better to do it in regions where the payoff is potentially far larger 

 

 

IIRC 70% of the "golf audience" is in North America with the US taking 60% of that total.  The demographics are as good as they get, it's comprised of people who aren't living paycheck to paycheck and retirees having amassed enough to retire. 

 

Disposable income is the phrase I'm looking for, lots of disposable income in the golf watcher demographic.  It refills itself, never really dies off.  That is what drives advertisers to get to these people and their monies.

 

I've read about Liv wanting to get to a younger market but to me it makes no sense.  When I was younger and less established in my career most of my income went toward paying a mortgage and raising children.  There just wasn't that much left over after the bills were paid and what was left over went to further reducing credit obligations. 

 

It was a struggle and I had a very good job/career.  Is it better in the markets Liv is trying to obtain?  I'm wondering what advertisers would want a demographic that doesn't have a sizeable disposable income? 

[tomjas]

58 minutes ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

Let's also remember LIV streaming is 100% free and globally accessible at livgolf.com. Numbers are low as I've posted numerous times. They only have 1/2 the traffic of the PGAT in Australia where liv is allegedly so popular. 

PGAT is streamed on Foxtel which is the home of cricket, league and Australian Rules so the app is already very popular and the equivalent of ESPN in the States 

 

A fairer comparison is between Adelaide and the last PGAT event actually held in Australia 

 

There is no comparison because it’s far larger than the Presidents Cup ever was

Edited April 22 by tomjas

[Golfinfloridaafter40]

41 minutes ago, freddi22cl said:

Sounds like nobody gives a damn 

 

 

Except for the fact that he has no idea what he is talking about and is spreading lies.  This event had 80,000 live spectators last year.  The original expected number was 30,000 and I was in the car with two LIV corporate employees while they were making a plan to expand when it sold out so fast several weeks early.  They then had to call two different times over the next week to get the fire codes changed to allow even more people because the requests for tickets were so high and they kept selling out no matter what they raised it to.  Could have had more spectators but they were eventually cut off.  They were in a real panic trying to figure out how to get enough food, bathrooms, merch, security, VIP seats, etc for so many people. 

[bcjim]

34 minutes ago, tomjas said:

 

 

The US is a relatively small, mature and declining market

 

Lol. That's a bit of a ridiculous claim. Florida alone has nearly the population of Australia.  

[tomjas]

12 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

IIRC 70% of the "golf audience" is in North America with the US taking 60% of that total.  The demographics are as good as they get, it's comprised of people who aren't living paycheck to paycheck and retirees having amassed enough to retire. 

 

Disposable income is the phrase I'm looking for, lots of disposable income in the golf watcher demographic.  It refills itself, never really dies off.  That is what drives advertisers to get to these people and their monies.

 

I've read about Liv wanting to get to a younger market but to me it makes no sense.  When I was younger and less established in my career most of my income went toward paying a mortgage and raising children.  There just wasn't that much left over after the bills were paid and what was left over went to further reducing credit obligations. 

 

It was a struggle and I had a very good job/career.  Is it better in the markets Liv is trying to obtain?  I'm wondering what advertisers would want a demographic that doesn't have a sizeable disposable income? 

Norman is allegedly basing the model upon Indian Premier League cricket 

 

There’s issues with doing that but certain demographic factors apply e.g. population, % of population moving from poverty to middle class, pay tv & streaming penetration etc 

 

Then you have the thing that nobody wants to talk about - sports betting 

It’s enormous in those parts of the world 

 

To put it into perspective, it’s estimated that more money is bet on every ball in the IPL than on the richest horse race 

 

So yes, it is possible but not overnight 

[tomjas]

21 minutes ago, bcjim said:

Lol. That's a bit of a ridiculous claim. Florida alone has nearly the population of Australia.  

Asia has 10 times the population of the USA 😅

[bekgolf]

1 minute ago, tomjas said:

Norman is allegedly basing the model upon Indian Premier League cricket 

 

There’s issues with doing that but certain demographic factors apply e.g. population, % of population moving from poverty to middle class, pay tv & streaming penetration etc 

 

Then you have the thing that nobody wants to talk about - sports betting 

It’s enormous in those parts of the world 

 

To put it into perspective, it’s estimated that more money is bet on every ball in the IPL than on the richest horse race 

 

So yes, it is possible but not overnight 

 

I keep getting the feeling that GN wants to tear down PGA Tour golf.  He's at war with them and I don't understand why.  If it's just to promote Liv then I don't get it.  If it's out of spite I kind of get it but it's not a good path forward.

[cristphoto]

On 4/17/2024 at 5:32 PM, redfirebird08 said:

 

Woods did not finish dead last. He outplayed a lot of people who missed the cut, including a LIV star & Masters champion who recently won a LIV event this year (Dustin Johnson). 

That's true, I stand corrected. 

[bekgolf]

2 minutes ago, tomjas said:

Asia has 10 times the population of the USA 😅

 

How many watch golf and how many have money to spend vs the US?  It's all about demographics.  It the numbers weren't there we would see IPL Cricket instead of golf but we don't, we see golf.

[tomjas]

18 minutes ago, bekgolf said:

 

How many watch golf and how many have money to spend vs the US?  It's all about demographics.  It the numbers weren't there we would see IPL Cricket instead of golf but we don't, we see golf.

Ask & you shall receive 😅

 

Major league cricket had its first professional season in the US in 2023 and is expanding in 2024

 

The US is also a co-host of the T20 World Cricket Cup with  games being held in Florida, Texas and New York City 

 

[idrive]

How Popular is Cricket in the USA?

Despite first being played by British colonists, cricket remains a niche sport in the USA, generally played at an amateur level by around 200,000 players, which equates to less than 1% of the population. The national team largely consists of expatriates from traditional cricket-playing countries. 

 

Crickett is not popular in N America.  Golf dwarfs Cricket both in those playing and watching. It's not even close. IF, and that's big IF it will be several decades before that changes. As poor as the ratings are for the liv exhibitions even they are watched more than Crickett.

 

And now, back to the LIV Tour Discussion Thread.

 

 

[mosesgolf]

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/39991404/miles-russell-15-makes-history-again-t-20-korn-ferry
 

This 15 yr old kid is better than anyone in the bottom half of LIV.  🤣

[tomjas]

30 minutes ago, idrive said:

How Popular is Cricket in the USA?

Despite first being played by British colonists, cricket remains a niche sport in the USA, generally played at an amateur level by around 200,000 players, which equates to less than 1% of the population. The national team largely consists of expatriates from traditional cricket-playing countries. 

 

Crickett is not popular in N America.  Golf dwarfs Cricket both in those playing and watching. It's not even close. IF, and that's big IF it will be several decades before that changes. As poor as the ratings are for the liv exhibitions even they are watched more than Crickett.

 

And now, back to the LIV Tour Discussion Thread.

 

 

You obviously don’t understand the model 

There’s more than 7 million people of Indian origin living in North America and Major League Cricket already has global broadcast deals with CBS, ESPN and Star Sports 

More people watched the last World Cup final than the Super Bowl, the tournament itself had more than 1 TRILLION views and the India/Pakistan match in New York City is forecast to be the highest viewership match in history 

 

There’s no comparison between the popularity of cricket and golf wherever the venue but Norman allegedly wants to tap into that appetite for live sports 

[idrive]

22 minutes ago, tomjas said:

You obviously don’t understand the model 

There’s more than 7 million people of Indian origin living in North America and Major League Cricket already has global broadcast deals with CBS, ESPN and Star Sports 

More people watched the last World Cup final than the Super Bowl, the tournament itself had more than 1 TRILLION views and the India/Pakistan match in New York City is forecast to be the highest viewership match in history 

 

There’s no comparison between the popularity of cricket and golf wherever the venue but Norman allegedly wants to tap into that appetite for live sports 

 

No, you don't understand.

 

Done with Cricket. It means nothing to me or this thread.

[tomjas]

3 minutes ago, idrive said:

 

No, you don't understand.

 

Done with Cricket. It means nothing to me or this thread.

LIV’s model is based upon it

[notsohard]

3 hours ago, bekgolf said:

 

How many watch golf and how many have money to spend vs the US?  

 

 Change the mentality. The rest of the world isn't backwards. It's a growing market. So why not start now.  25mill play golf in the US. 24mill in Asia and growing fast.

 

"....

New research released by The R&A shows golf has surged in popularity in the Asia-Pacific region.

Research conducted by Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS) shows more than 23.3 million people across Asia played golf in 2020. That figure is up from 20.9 million in 2016, representing an 11.5 per cent increase – one of the most significant in the world.

Countries to have experienced the greatest increase in participation are China (+43%), Korea (31%), Malaysia (25%) and India (14%).

The total number of golfers expands to more than 24.6 million when taking in the Oceania region and is part of a record global reach of 66.6 million players.

The measure includes club members and non-member independent golfers playing nine or 18 holes and users of driving ranges in markets where course availability is limited.

The figure reflects a positive trend with participation levels rising worldwide after a period of decline."

Edited April 22 by notsohard

[tomjas]

1 hour ago, notsohard said:

 

 Change the mentality. The rest of the world isn't backwards. It's a growing market. So why not start now.  25mill play golf in the US. 24mill in Asia and growing fast.

 

"....

New research released by The R&A shows golf has surged in popularity in the Asia-Pacific region.

Research conducted by Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS) shows more than 23.3 million people across Asia played golf in 2020. That figure is up from 20.9 million in 2016, representing an 11.5 per cent increase – one of the most significant in the world.

Countries to have experienced the greatest increase in participation are China (+43%), Korea (31%), Malaysia (25%) and India (14%).

The total number of golfers expands to more than 24.6 million when taking in the Oceania region and is part of a record global reach of 66.6 million players.

The measure includes club members and non-member independent golfers playing nine or 18 holes and users of driving ranges in markets where course availability is limited.

The figure reflects a positive trend with participation levels rising worldwide after a period of decline."

DPWT played a tournament in India recently and it was an incredible setup which is owned by a huge conglomerate 

 

India has 1.4+ billion people with a rapidly expanding middle class currently representing over 30% of the population.

 

That’s 500 million people so if 1% of those get interested in golf, the market grows by nearly 10%

 

What’s more, it’s forecast to grow to more than 1 BILLION this century 

 

I do not understand the attitude of “tough, it’s not America & we’ll just take the best players from the DPWT and they can play here” as it’s incredibly short sighted (& naive)

[bscinstnct]

8 hours ago, tomjas said:

Norman gave an interview during LIV Adelaide which made a lot of sense 

 

Basically focus upon younger markets with massive growth potential in Asia etc 

 

However, they have just announced that the tour finals will both be held in the US and that makes no sense to me as they’re almost guaranteed to be ratings and attendance disasters 

 

If it was up to me, I would build on the success of Adelaide and give one of those finals to say Queensland in October

 

Crowds & ratings would be enormous because it falls in between footy and cricket season plus the state government would pay to host the event 

 

Then use those successes as leverage in negotiations with other areas 

 

The US is a relatively small, mature and declining market for golf viewership 

 

If you’re going to hose money up against the wall then better to do it in regions where the payoff is potentially far larger 

 

 

If LIV focused on Asia there would be no issues with the PGA Tour

 

Jimmy Dunne told Arum this from the get go, expand LIV abroad

 

Play 75% of events outside the US and everyone is happy….besides the US players liv paid for. But their contracts are over in a year or two. 
 

But after 2025/26 perhaps they will reset and schedule events primarily overseas and sign players who like that type of schedule. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tomjas]

24 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

If LIV focused on Asia there would be no issues with the PGA Tour

 

Jimmy Dunne told Arum this from the get go, expand LIV abroad

 

Play 75% of events outside the US and everyone is happy….besides the US players liv paid for. But their contracts are over in a year or two. 
 

But after 2025/26 perhaps they will reset and schedule events primarily overseas and sign players who like that type of schedule. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

History shows that the PGAT doesn’t take kindly to any competition so I don’t think it would matter where LIV played 

 

From a business standpoint, I definitely don’t think it should have so many events in the US as the market is well served by top level pro golf anyway 

 

There’s many countries with similar characteristics to Australia to choose from including South Africa, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, Ireland, Canada etc 

 

Then there’s growth opportunities elsewhere 

 

[Short Pete]

Sorry, but all this "we're developping the AustralAsian market as our main target" bla bla is complete nonsense. LIV wanted the Big Fish, for the reasons we all know. They wanted to buy themselves into the lead at the PGA Tour, Monahan said No. Then they hired Sharkie and paid FIGJAM's gambling debts, and told them to buy the biggest players for the LIV Tour. They didn't get that many, so they threw money at whoever was available (Pat Perez;-) and played it like they wanted to establish a cricket-like league system. Had Norman succeeded in buying the Top 20 from the PGA Tour, they would have given a flying f*** about all that. He told them they'd get OWGR points, they could play where they want, they would make money from the teams, nothing of all this came true. They don't have a TV deal (why have one, nobody watches, even when it's free of charge), they don't have serious interests in their teams, their field gets weaker every month as players like Westwood get older and DJ and Cam Smith don't bother to practice. The only thing that works is the tournament in Australia, because it's a One-Off party, like a Mötley Crüe concert. Go once, get drunk, have fun, but only once a year. This circus doesn't even get people to watch in Florida. Playing loud music and Phil Mickelson wearing shorts doesn't attract young people. And the Asian market is not opened by Chucky III Sticks grinding it out and Danny Lee and Pat P the pizza delivery guy playing miss-the-cut golf. The whole thing is a failure, and they don't have a Plan B, so Sharkie takes every straw to hide that he lost his ego battle against the PGA Tour.

[tomjas]

All your PGAT propaganda points in 1 sentence 

 

Impressive

[BlackDiamondPar5]

13 minutes ago, Short Pete said:

Sorry, but all this "we're developping the AustralAsian market as our main target" bla bla is complete nonsense. LIV wanted the Big Fish, for the reasons we all know. They wanted to buy themselves into the lead at the PGA Tour, Monahan said No. Then they hired Sharkie and paid FIGJAM's gambling debts, and told them to buy the biggest players for the LIV Tour. They didn't get that many, so they threw money at whoever was available (Pat Perez;-) and played it like they wanted to establish a cricket-like league system. Had Norman succeeded in buying the Top 20 from the PGA Tour, they would have given a flying f*** about all that. He told them they'd get OWGR points, they could play where they want, they would make money from the teams, nothing of all this came true. They don't have a TV deal (why have one, nobody watches, even when it's free of charge), they don't have serious interests in their teams, their field gets weaker every month as players like Westwood get older and DJ and Cam Smith don't bother to practice. The only thing that works is the tournament in Australia, because it's a One-Off party, like a Mötley Crüe concert. Go once, get drunk, have fun, but only once a year. This circus doesn't even get people to watch in Florida. Playing loud music and Phil Mickelson wearing shorts doesn't attract young people. And the Asian market is not opened by Chucky III Sticks grinding it out and Danny Lee and Pat P the pizza delivery guy playing miss-the-cut golf. The whole thing is a failure, and they don't have a Plan B, so Sharkie takes every straw to hide that he lost his ego battle against the PGA Tour.

 

 

^^^^Truth! Even in Australia where some want us to believe LIV is more popular than the PGA Tour, the actual data doesn't support that. 

 

PGAT website gets 5.5M hits per month. Of those visits 3% are from AUS. Liv website which is also the primary entry point for free streaming only gets gets 461k visits of which 17% are from Australia. By way of basic mathematics 

3% of 5.5M = 165K vs 17% of 461K = 78K. So PGAT is still 2x popular in AUS than LIV. 

 

Plus some think 120k presold tickets for the golf party at adelaide is big. Yet waste management draws ~770k!

 

It's nice that AUS has a LIV event to attend, but it's still a very small and very isolated market with extremely limited growth. 

[freeze16172002]

14 minutes ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

^^^^Truth! Even in Australia where some want us to believe LIV is more popular than the PGA Tour, the actual data doesn't support that. 

 

PGAT website gets 5.5M hits per month. Of those visits 3% are from AUS. Liv website which is also the primary entry point for free streaming only gets gets 461k visits of which 17% are from Australia. By way of basic mathematics 

3% of 5.5M = 165K vs 17% of 461K = 78K. So PGAT is still 2x popular in AUS than LIV. 

 

Plus some think 120k presold tickets for the golf party at adelaide is big. Yet waste management draws ~770k!

 

It's nice that AUS has a LIV event to attend, but it's still a very small and very isolated market with extremely limited growth. 

A quick look on the LIV website and tickets are still available for everyday.  What is a successful LIV event? They are still going to lose millions hosting this event

[dcmidnight]

1 minute ago, freeze16172002 said:

A quick look on the LIV website and tickets are still available for everyday.  What is a successful LIV event? They are still going to lose millions hosting this event

 

It is clearly - to me at least - the most popular and the one that at least looks like it has the most people at it on tv. Does that mean its going to generate the best ratings or the most online viewers? Not sure. 

 

And whether or not being popular makes it financially successful is debatable.

[italianstallion]

9 hours ago, tomjas said:

Asia has 10 times the population of the USA 😅

 

You're recycling a poor argument from many pages ago, so I'll recycle my response from many pages ago:

 

"This has been said a number of times by a number of different people in 504 pages, but since you're new to the discussion this week I'll restate it:

 

The US is the biggest market for consuming golf content in the world. It's not the biggest population no, it's the biggest market. Yes, China and India have significantly more people living in them, but the LIV argument that it's going to only take one generation to convert these population figures into viewers is beyond a fantasy. There's a class system that exists in both countries and unless something significantly changes I don't think people who live in places like Dharavi are going to huddle around the television or radio to witness Pat Perez putt out for an 80 anytime soon.

 

But if you want to play the population game, in the US we've got two states here with more people living in them than people in your country. That's not a knock against where you live (I've been, fantastic country), but we're a first world country with a populace that has more disposable income than anyone but the Saudi royal family. It doesn't mean I'm sitting here chanting "USA! USA!" like we're the best country in the world; I'm just stating the facts as to why interest in the game of golf has grown faster here in the past 100 years than anywhere else, and thus the reason why the PGA TOUR was able to grow and offer the purses they did. Don't look to the PGA TOUR for the mistreatment, look to the Adam Scott's and Jason Day's who wanted to play for the purses the TOUR offered. And before you argue "well that's what LIV is doing, they're just paying people more so why are people upset," understand that the PGA TOUR got here like any other successful capitalist business has: decades of organic business growth selling a product people want to consume. The PIF is an irrational actor with unlimited funds attempting to buy the market with a product very few want, for reasons that have nothing to do with even caring about that product to begin with. That's the rub."

 

https://forums.golfwrx.com/topic/1892422-liv-tour-discussion-thread-no-politics/?do=findComment&comment=25285955

[Hawkeye77]

9 hours ago, tomjas said:

Norman is allegedly basing the model upon Indian Premier League cricket 

 

 

So again, he's an idiot.

[Hawkeye77]

1 hour ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

^^^^Truth! Even in Australia where some want us to believe LIV is more popular than the PGA Tour, the actual data doesn't support that. 

 

PGAT website gets 5.5M hits per month. Of those visits 3% are from AUS. Liv website which is also the primary entry point for free streaming only gets gets 461k visits of which 17% are from Australia. By way of basic mathematics 

3% of 5.5M = 165K vs 17% of 461K = 78K. So PGAT is still 2x popular in AUS than LIV. 

 

Plus some think 120k presold tickets for the golf party at adelaide is big. Yet waste management draws ~770k!

 

It's nice that AUS has a LIV event to attend, but it's still a very small and very isolated market with extremely limited growth. 

And those tickets may not translate to attendance for various reasons.  But no doubt the party hole will be thriving.

Edited April 22 by Hawkeye77

[jdl]

10 hours ago, tomjas said:

Norman gave an interview during LIV Adelaide which made a lot of sense 

 

Basically focus upon younger markets with massive growth potential in Asia etc 

 

However, they have just announced that the tour finals will both be held in the US and that makes no sense to me as they’re almost guaranteed to be ratings and attendance disasters 

 

If it was up to me, I would build on the success of Adelaide and give one of those finals to say Queensland in October

 

Crowds & ratings would be enormous because it falls in between footy and cricket season plus the state government would pay to host the event 

 

Then use those successes as leverage in negotiations with other areas 

 

The US is a relatively small, mature and declining market for golf viewership 

 

If you’re going to hose money up against the wall then better to do it in regions where the payoff is potentially far larger 

 

 

Good plan, because we all know young people love golf! 

 

1 hour ago, tomjas said:

All your PGAT propaganda points in 1 sentence 

 

Impressive

 

Nice lay down