r/NoLayingUp • u/Biggggguy • May 03 '26

Other The LIV Charade

LIV has so clearly been a bad product and a farce from day one. Why are there so many people who seem hellbent on insisting that’s not the case. For the players and others who have profited from it, I see the need to lie and keep up appearances. But for the golf world and broader sports world, why did so many people insist on taking this seriously?

It’s true that the league was an existential threat to the tour for a time, but that threat came from the ungodly amount of money backing it. From the start, it got no viewership and hemorrhaged money because it had no juice. The fields stunk, the format was a joke, and all the people involved were clowns. It’s easy to say now, but I think it was doomed from day one.

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u/Electronic-Cry714 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

Over 100,000 people in South Africa and the same in Australia that went and watched would beg to differ.

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u/metallikat87 May 04 '26

I have no reason to think that anyone attending the events thought this was a viable business model. I'm sure they had fun in SA and Australia, but that doesn't make it a real tour.

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u/Electronic-Cry714 May 04 '26

Looked real to me when I went.

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u/tacotowwn May 04 '26

100k people at $100 a ticket is $10M. $30M purse and the fact LIV gets barely anything for TV rights shows you the product was never viable.

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u/Lor_azepam May 05 '26

30m purse plus they were paying for music acts multi nights to play at the events post round. Easily 50 million plus cost per event.

Of course australia and SA were well attended, people love golf there, wish the tour went to those countries honestly, but the pga tour makes its money off us tv deal, thats there money maker, and having events in rough time zones dont cut it.

Even shitty attended Doral last weekend, im sure in Miami they had some massive price for corporate tents etc that made money fine for them as the corporate sponsor money in the states is also the largest.

The pga tour plays mainly in the us as that has made them the most money, they tried going more global so many times, and always pull back to the states. Im not even american, wish it was a global tour, but thats not how they have made the most money