I guess you can give your argument some more juice by adding words like “collusion” and “financial ties” without regard for meaning
They just all happened to not invite anyone from the second best league?
And decided to just not count any of their rounds in the OWGR
If there are a bunch of rotten bananas sitting at the grocery store, and nobody buys them, do you assume the customers all colluded to not buy these bananas?
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The Masters currently isn’t inviting anyone from LIV based on LIV results. But the PGA and US Open are, starting this year. If the only reason the Masters wasn’t inviting people from LIV was because of their agreement to not do so with the other majors (i.e. collusion), why are they still not inviting anyone?
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You guys remember when it would have been an asterisk on Rory winning the grand slam because Talor Poop wasn’t in the Masters? There are better golfers on the Korn Ferry Tour right now. LIV has 8 guys who can win a major and that’s being super generous. I don’t care if the other 46 get invited or not. Also the most deserving guy to not be invited was Ben Griffin.
Further, the LIV TV product is miserable to watch. Can’t keep track of who is where and who has what hole left because of the shotgun start. Also LIV shows guys who aren’t in contention, I assume because they are famous? Finally, in the beginning LIV showed more shots but lately I feel like the commercial load is about the same.
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Si Woo Kim also wasn’t in the Masters, which surprised me.
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LIV broadcast is incredible. Probably shows 4x the shots of PGA at least. Much better graphics as well (color coded upcoming hole strength, innovate with danger maps off tee and approach etc) way less sponsor nonsense and happy hour garbage with smylie. All about golf shots
I feel like the LIV broadcasts are akin to watching a community college student production of a scramble at my local muni. It is horrifically hard on the eyes to watch on the screen. I have never seen anyone say anything nice about the broadcast. They need a quieter screen with less information and distracting colored graphics and more attention to the golfers hitting the shot. Then again their TV ratings are lower than the LPGA so it probably doesn’t matter.
I don’t believe you can truly be serious here. PGA fans just blatantly lying about stuff like this is not serious.
PGA broadcasts are fairly criticized for being unfocused on golf (sponsor interviews, lots of commercials, talking to smylie, etc). LIV shows 4x more golf and people complain about….a leaderboard? It’s not believable
blatantly lying? I’ve been watching golf on TV since the mid 80s. The LIV broadcasts look like a cartoon. Too busy of a screen with too much going on and too many distractions. I think criticizing the PGA tour broadcasts is definitely valid. But the LIV broadcasts are unwatchable.
It’s akin to watching one of those NFL alternative broadcasts that have every advanced stat up on the screen at once. While some of the information might be useful, it is too cluttered to be a good viewing experience.
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It’s hard to believe we are 4 seasons into this and you still won’t accept that almost nobody likes LIV’s product. Their TV product is pretty bad. They might show a lot of golf, but that’s not the only ingredient to a successful broadcast (also, they are only able to do that because they don’t mind losing billions of dollars a year).
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It’s a leaderboard and the upcoming holes plus strokes gained data on where the danger is off tee. All super additive stuff imo.
Is it just the color that annoys you? That’s incredibly pedantic
What’s wrong with the product? It focuses on golf and competition. PGA focuses on sponsors and smylie and the boys laughing it up. I want to see competition and golf.
Most people come into this looking to defend the PGA, thats how almost all golf content producers make their money so that’s why so many do not support LIV (and of course the fact golf audience is mostly old men who don’t want any change)
I don’t believe it is pedantic to point out the screen is painful to look at when all you want to do is watch a player hit a shot. It’s also relevant to point out their horrific TV viewership as evidence that it probably isn’t appealing to many other people. I mean it’s not that the US lacks people wanting to watch high level golf on TV. If they would have a better presentation it would probably appeal to more people.
I’m glad you enjoy it, but that does not appear to be the case for the overwhelming majority of people that watch golf on TV.
Pointing out ratings as an argument is simply preposterous. Tracker gets better ratings than the Sopranos, does that mean Tracker is better? That’s not a serious way of talking about this.
If you want to watch golf, there is no comparison which broadcasts treat golf shots and the competition as the important product.
Clearly TV ratings have some relevance. The problem for LIV and its few fans is that there isn’t a single metric that any of them can point to that says LIV is doing well.
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I am not arguing about TV ratings. I am talking about the product: LIV as a whole has way more energy, better ideas and focus on right things compared to PGA Tour. A lot of the positives on PGAT last few years (clear cut offs and defined fields) are just copied from LIV.
Obviously LIV has not pulled off totally what they have wanted, and it is far from perfect but it’s easy to forget just how formless the regular PGAT season was. Nothing clearly mattered to fans each week other than the win. LIV has season long points race, team competition and clear (ish) relegation
That’s your opinion about the product. I don’t agree with any of the things you stated, and that’s my opinion. The idea that LIV is more about the golf and competition than the PGA Tour is laughable. This is precisely the reason nobody cares about LIV. Thomas Pieters can’t even be bothered to tuck in his shirt during rounds, there is music blaring on every tee box, and sometimes the winner of a tournament is finishing on hole 2! It’s just an unserious setup and the players don’t seem to care that much. For a while Phil and others were actually leaning into this, saying that LIV provides an alternative, more relaxed atmosphere compared to the PGAT. I think having set fields in professional golf is a death sentence for a tour, and I’m hoping the PGA Tour moves away from that or at least doesn’t lean into it more. I don’t know why you think the PGA Tour was so formless before LIV; it’s had a very clear season-long race since the FedExCup was introduced almost two decades ago.
The reason it’s useful to look at TV ratings or some other metric is it tells us something about what the general public things about the product. And if nobody is tuning in after 3.5 years of existence and some airtime on one of the big TV networks in the US, it’s because nobody likes the product.
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TV ratings are relevant when discussing what appeals to the most people. They are not relevant when talking about personal ideas of quality. It is plainly obvious that the LIV broadcasts do not appeal to many people at all for one reason or another.
I have tried watching LIV on TV several times. Each time I have given up after 15 minutes or so, finding it nearly unwatchable. And I’m a huge golf fan. I particularly dislike shotgun starts for professional tournaments.
Of course it’s my opinion. It’s your opinion that an untucked shirt makes it unserious.
Who cares what hole they finish on? Makes a much better spectator experience when everyone is out at once (no boring opening hours, much fairer, less time) and I think the winner hasn’t finished on 18 once in the entire history?
Music and shorts complaints have nothing to do with the golf. No one says NCIS is better than Breaking Bad because it had higher ratings, that’s just silly. I can’t believe people are treating that as an actual thing, it’s just trolling from PGA sponsored people usually. Of course it has higher ratings it’s on the same basic channels for years at the same prime time and the audience is retired guys. LIV is on FS2 at 2 AM because they are in Hong Kong
I agree long term fixed fields are bad, why it’s so crucial to have promotion and relegation. But week to week stability is good, year to year bad. Month to month in between