LIV Golf's CEO unfazed about the league's underwhelming TV ratings: 'We are different though'

LIV Golf drew poor ratings in Singapore over the weekend, especially compared to The Players Championship. LIV Golf's CEO Scott O'Neil said that he's not worried about the poor ratings.

According to Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal, The Players Championship drew big ratings over the weekend. The final round averaged 3.6 million viewers on NBC and the event peaked at 6.2 million viewers.

This is in contrast to the 34,000 viewers who watched the final round of LIV Golf Singapore on Fox Sports 1 in the early hours of Sunday Morning.

LIV has struggled to garner ratings since its inception, with only an average of 89,000 viewers watching Jon Rahm's victory in LIV Golf Chicago last September. In the final round of LIV Golf Riyadh, which was the tour's opening event of 2025, an average of 54,000 viewers tuned in to watch on FS1.

As per Flushing It on X (formerly Twitter), Scott O'Neil opened up about TV ratings during a media function in Singapore recently and said:

“We are different though. We’re a global sports league... 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 3 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."

“Especially now that we’re starting to get more and more distribution around the world. We’re getting quite a few viewers in the timezones we are in. Over time, this notion of being the F1 of golf is one I like a lot. Other than LIV, F1 is the only truly global sports league. They have teams and we have teams and it’s very different for golf to have a team sport. You’re definitely playing in a premium market like F1 has," O'Neil was quoted as saying by Flushing It.

Notably, O'Neil has only been on the job for a few months. This decline in the ratings comes amid ongoing talks between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour about a merger.

A look at LIV Golf's upcoming schedule

Joaquin Niemann after winning LIV Golf Singapore 2025 (via Getty)

LIV Golf is set to hit North America soon after its Asian leg of the tour. LIV Golf will be playing at Trump Doral for LIV Golf Miami from April 4-6. Last year at Doral, Dean Burmester won his first LIV Golf event, in a playoff against Sergio Garcia.

After that, LIV Golf heads to Mexico City at the end of April. In May, LIV Golf heads back to Asia for LIV Golf Korea at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in South Korea. LIV Golf returns to the United States in early June for LIV Golf DC at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Washington D.C.

At the end of June, LIV Golf heads to Dallas at Maridoe Golf Club. It will then head to Spain at the Real Club Valderrama followed by a visit to the UK for the JCB Golf & Country Club in Great Britain in July.

LIV Golf will then advance to the US for events in Chicago (August 8-10), Indianapolis (August 15-17) and Michigan (August 22-24).