The Saudi-backed LIV Golf will sign its most lucrative television deal yet giving the start-up league a much needed boost.
LIV Golf is headed to Fox.
According to Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal, LIV is expected to sign a broadcast deal with Fox Sports for its 2025 season. Fox, which last aired live golf at the 2019 U.S. Open, will air all of the league’s tournaments on its network, Fox Sports 1, or a combination of both—the specifics of which remain unclear. Specific terms of the deal remain undisclosed, and both sides have not yet commented on the matter.
For the past two years, LIV Golf events have aired on The CW Network as part of a two-year deal, but the two sides decided not to renew the option for a third. LIV’s rating struggled on The CW, often garnering less than 200,000 on a weekly basis. Even a Jon Rahm-Brooks Koepka duel at The Greenbrier barely garnered any attention, as only 165,000 viewers tuned in to see these major champions duke it out this past August.
LIV was not the only golf league to struggle ratings-wise in 2024, however. The PGA Tour saw ratings decrease across the board despite Scottie Scheffler’s Tiger Woods-like season. The Masters also suffered a 20-percent rating decline, perhaps due to the fractured landscape of pro golf and the rise of various content creators on social media and YouTube.
Nevertheless, LIV Golf structured its 2025 season with a big-time network partner in mind. They have structured its schedule to conclude by the end of August—not unlike the PGA Tour—so that it does not conflict with American football in the fall.
Fox has numerous properties across its sporting lexicon, including the NFL, MLB, college football, college basketball, and NASCAR, which would allow the network to promote LIV during those events. That can only help increase its ratings, which is something that The CW Network could not provide.
Even then, Fox and LIV Golf have held talks before. Golfweek first reported in September 2022—less than three months after its launch—that LIV was close to a deal with Fox, which would have seen its events play out on Fox Sports 1.
Given that NBC, CBS, ABC, and ESPN all have ties to the PGA Tour and the PGA of America, as well as with Augusta National, Fox made the most sense for LIV. But now, even more so given its struggles with ratings on The CW.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
