"Big mistake to remove Greg Norman”: Fans call out LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil as he claims 2.5M viewers in season opener

Greg Norman served as the CEO of LIV Golf before he was replaced by Scott O’Neil in January, who has allegedly said that the league had pulled in 2.5 Million worldwide viewers for its season opener. Fans are now calling him out on social media, saying that Norman should’ve remained CEO.

LIV Golf was founded in 2021 and is backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The league held its inaugural season in 2022 and is currently in its fourth season. The inception of LIV Golf was met with criticism from the PGA Tour, which placed a ban on its members who decided to join the PIF-funded league.

This year, LIV Golf held its season opener in a star-studded event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to NUCLR Golf, O’Neil reportedly told ESPN that there were 2.5 Million worldwide viewers for the event. However, data from Nielsen U.S. reportedly showed that the viewership numbers were around 12,000 - 54,000.

A fan reacted to the report, saying:

“It was a big mistake to remove Greg Norman.”

Another fan said:

“Lmao. He’s a clown. 🤡 Good for him if he believes anyone buys that.”

Other fans poured in more responses, implying that LIV has always been dishonest.

“He [Scott O’Neil] seems perfect for LIV. They all lie to themselves about how great it is,” one user on X said.

“No, these guys have been lying from the start…They have lied about most things from the start.” another user said.

“It’s possible. That’s 800K total viewers a day, probably indicating about 150K average viewership worldwide? Which is still terrible, to be clear. Obviously this is not an honest way of reporting viewership,” one fan added.

“Hard to believe even 54k people are watching that,” another fan chimed in.

LIV has held four tournaments this year– in Riyadh, Adelaide, Hong Kong, and Singapore. According to Golf Digest, LIV Golf Adelaide, which was held at the Grange Golf Club, had some of the strongest TV ratings and viewership numbers LIV has seen this year.

Per the report, there were about two million viewers who watched the competition via Seven’s Sports broadcast over three days. The final round alone pulled in an average of 220,000 viewers who tuned in to watch the conclusion of the event.

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LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil addresses viewership numbers at Singapore

LIV Golf Singapore was held at Sentosa Golf Club from March 14 to 16. According to the Irish Star, the Saudi-backed league pulled an average of 34,000 viewers in the final round of the tournament.

Comparatively, the PGA Tour pulled 3.6 million for the final round of the Players Championship, which was held from March 13 - 17.

Speaking on the viewership stats for Singapore, Scott O’Neil said,

“So our first 4 events, we were in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, then we went over to Adelaide, Australia, then Hong Kong, and now we're in Singapore. So for those of you who've spent time in New York, you might know that some of our events are played at three in the morning. And so it might not register on traditional rating scales as you might register a US sports league. And we're quite ok with that.”

The next LIV tournament will be held in Miami at Trump National Doral Golf Course from April 4 to 6.