Fox Sports’ debut event for LIV Golf produced meager ratings for the broadcaster at the league’s 2025 season-opening event.
Fox averaged only 40,200 viewers for the final round played under the lights in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which began at 10 a.m. ET on Saturday. While FS1 averaged 54,000 viewers between 10 a.m.-noon ET on Saturday, FS2 averaged only 31,000 for the final three hours, according to Nielsen ratings cited by multiple outlets.
And that was up from the 12,000 average viewers across five hours on FS2 for the first day of the three-round event on Thursday, although that is similar to other daytime programming on the channel, according to Front Office Sports.
Fox Sports has yet to release the official ratings results, which could improve when streaming numbers are included. The timing of the event was moved to make the broadcasts more accessible for viewers in the United States.
It’s a concerning start to Fox’s multi-year media-rights deal with the Saudi-backed league, whose events were broadcast on The CW Network last season with modest ratings. LIV’s Individual Championship averaged 89,000 viewers on The CW last year.
LIV’s second event of the year begins Friday in Adelaide, Australia, before the league travels to Hong Kong and Singapore in March. LIV makes its 2025 United States debut at Trump National Doral in Miami on April 4-6, with the final round slated to air on Fox’s main network on a Sunday afternoon.
LIV’s next three tournaments also are set to be played internationally. The league’s Miami event in April will be a strong test case for Fox, with that final round airing on the main network on a Sunday afternoon — a traditional golf TV window.
Fox Sports announced in January that it will air live coverage of LIV’s 14 tournaments on Fox or FS1, carrying all three rounds of each event.
Select rounds are being broadcast on FS2, Fox Business Network or the Fox Sports App and every round can be streamed on the Fox Sports App and LIV Golf Plus.
LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neal cited the Fox deal in trumpeting the ‘momentum’ he has seen through his first 40 days since taking the role over from Greg Norman.
‘I’ve seen a U.S. agreement with Fox, broadcast agreement, I’ve seen a UK agreement with ITV to get us over the air in the UK. It’s the only golf that’ll be over the air in the UK,’ O’Neil told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday. ‘I’ve seen our first pillar partnership with Madden. I’ve seen stars extended. I’ve seen a successful event in Riyadh. I’ve seen interest from all over the world. We’re now broadcast in 100 countries and territories, over 800 million households.
‘From my perspective, we have incredible interest with television broadcast networks, which has been a bit of an Achilles heel for us, sponsors — marketing partners as we call them — seems to be interest like the group has never seen before, attendance seems to be something that’s going in this trajectory.
‘I think that right now we are going to the moon and back. I’m very confident in where we are in this business and the interest we have currently.’