LIV Golf vs PGA Tour: Who Won Season 1?
LIV Golf vs PGA Tour: Who Won Season 1?
It is clear LIV Golf has already upset the status quo in professional golf. With a Saudi backing reportedly worth in excess of $500 billion normal sports business considerations do not apply, thus allowing the newbie challenger to focus on disenfranchising the established order before any return on investment is targeted.
With increased recruits for each tournament, the strength of LIV fields have improved with every event, but how do they compare with the PGA: Is it easier to win a LIV event compared to that of the PGA? How much public appetite is there for LIV? Will LIV golf secure a TV deal for its second season? Who is going to win the legal battle? Who will LIV’s new recruits be? This article will discuss and analyse who won the fight in Season 1.
LIV vs PGA:
Who Won Season 1?
LIV Golf is a new professional golf tour financed by the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. LIV represents the number 54 in Roman numerals and has two meanings. First, it represents a golfer’s aggregate score for achieving a birdie on each hole on a typical par-72 course. Second, it is the number of holes to be played in each LIV event which is in contrast to the accepted norm for a golf event lasting four days and 72 holes. According to its own website, LIV’s mission is to “modernize and supercharge the game of professional golf through expanded opportunities for both players and fans alike”.
There are many aspects to LIV Golf’s battle with the PGA Tour, nevertheless, one that is often documented is the amount of money the players earn on both tours. Whilst most players who signed up to LIV in the first season gave reasons such as spending more time with the family or a ‘business’ decision, there is no doubt the amount of money offered was a contributing, arguably persuasive and sole factor. Players such as Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith were reported to have received hefty signing on fees of around $100 million. Notwithstanding the significant golden hello payments, the actual on-course earnings, per event, after the first season are shown below for the top 30 LIV money leaders.
The top 30 players in LIV’s first season saw them earn, on average, just under a million dollars per event compared to their previous earnings of just under $100K per event. That is an increase of 976%, nearly eleven times more money. The money, however, did come with an element of risk. A risk of being suspended from tours, a risk of sliding down the world golf rankings, a risk from being banned from the majors and a risk of losing sponsors. Mistakenly, some of the LIV golfers thought they could have it all, however, that, for now, has quickly disappeared. As soon as the first tee shots were taken on the inaugural LIV event in June, players were suspended from the PGA Tour.
This article will first look at how the players have been affected from joining LIV Golf in terms of money and official world golf rankings. Next, the strength of field of both tours will be discussed, looking at how hard it is to win on each tour. The broadcasting numbers will then be put up against each other, identifying any trends. Finally, the legal battles between the two tours and players will be explained and reviewed. This article is about a 20-minute read.
LIV Players Vs PGA Tour Players
Official World Ranking Points
Any golfer joining or defecting to any new golf tour cannot expect to earn world ranking points in the first year – that’s according to official golf world ranking (OWGR) guidelines (ADD LINK?). The defectors likely knew and accepted the risk that they would not receive any ranking points whilst playing in LIV events in 2022. However, it is likely a good majority thought they could still gain ranking points by continuing to play on other tours, such as the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, despite being threatened with suspensions from these.
As mentioned in the introduction, the threats became a reality with LIV players suspended from the PGA and DP World Tour as soon as the first shots were hit on the new breakaway. Legal battles ensued (more on this later) with LIV players suspended from the PGA Tour and suspension temporally lifted for the DP Tour. Thus, meaning that LIV players could play on the DP World Tour and gain ranking points. Despite this, LIV players have suffered a significant slide in rankings as illustrated in the graphic below. It shows the difference in world rankings when they signed up to LIV through to 12th December.
Only three players (Scott Vincent, Sadom Kaewkanjana and Adrian Otagui) achieved improved rankings since joining LIV. On the face of it, this is a concern for all players, though a concern for some more than others. For some, signing up to LIV was a last throw of the dice for a diminishing skill set and a fall in rankings a likely outcome anyway. For others (the top players), confidence in climbing the rankings when playing the majors and other events will remain high. For others, a slide in performance will be a genuine concern and one that is only going to increase in the near future.
The next LIV Golf season starts February 24th in Mexico, and despite its new ‘strategic alliance’ with the MENA Tour, the application is still being considered and the outcome uncertain. Approval is not a quick process and can take between one and two years. LIV’s fundamental approach of a small field of 48 golfers with events contested over 54 holes with no cut, creates substantial hurdles in seeking to meet OWGR rules and regulations.
However, it is important to note that these rules and regulations are in fact just guidelines. On one hand, a golf tour can qualify for world ranking points without adhering to all the criteria, but on the other hand, a tour can fail to qualify even if all criteria are met. Furthermore, the rules and regulations can be changed at any time by the OWGR. Thus, it appears that the ball is solely in hands of the OWGR. So far, the OWGR pushed back on LIV’s claim that its strategic alliance would immediately qualify for points. The OWGR stance is that insufficient notice has been given and the awarding of points cannot be considered until a review has taken place.
The Saudi Money Tree
Whilst knowingly, and willingly, players joining or defecting to LIV Golf expected to slide down the rankings to some degree, they also knowingly, and very willingly, expected to earn substantially more money. As illustrated in the introduction, the top 30 players in LIV’s money list after the first season earned a whole load of money. Excluding Eugenio Chacarra who went straight from being an amateur to competing on LIV, the other 29’s average earnings per event on the PGA Tour (some on the European Tour) was $92.9K ($92 900). Their average earnings per event on the LIV Tour was $998.9K ($998 900) which is a whooping pay increase of 976%.
The table below shows a breakdown of each player’s full earnings on both the PGA and LIV Golf tours, the number of events played and the average earnings per event. In terms of the calculations produced, a number of points need to be mentioned. First, some of the golfers’ earnings have been taken from the European Tour as they had either not played on the PGA Tour or played fewer than 10 events. Second, for those players who did compete on both the DP and PGA Tour such as Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood, only the PGA earnings were used in the table due to their suspension and the higher prize funds on the PGA Tour compared to the DP World Tour. Third, inflation and increases in prize money have not been factored into the calculations. Fourth, the individual and team bonuses have been included for LIV. Finally, only the Top 30 were included as outside of this, most of the LIV players only competed in a few events.
The findings in the table above clearly show the large differences of money being ‘won’ on LIV Golf when compared to the PGA Tour. Whilst noted earlier that the average earnings per event had increased by nearly 11 times, some golfers have done much better than this. Chase Keopka improved his earnings by 17 444% (about 175 times more), Hennie du Plessis improved his earnings by 8 907% (about 90 times more) and Peter Uihlein improved his earnings by 4 891% (about 50 times more).
The player who increased their prize money the least was Bryson DeChambeau who only increased his average per event earnings from $196K to $502K, a 155% increase (about 2.5 times more). Again, it must be noted that the LIV earnings do not include the signing on fees of which DeChambeau reportedly earned $125 million.
LIV vs PGA: Strength of field
So, who has the best golfers?
Since the first LIV Golf event at the Centurion Club just outside London in June 2022, the fields have grown stronger and stronger. Unsurprisingly, LIV Golf’s main recruitment strategy has been to recruit the highest-ranking players possible. So, how does LIV compare with the PGA Tour? One comparison is to look at the field strength of tournaments. Strength of field is a measure of the quality of the average player in that field. To measure player quality, each player’s adjusted (for course difficulty) scoring average is normalised so that they indicate how many strokes better a player performed than the average player in a regular PGA TOUR event. The strength of field is then defined as the average of the adjusted scoring averages for all players in the field (see strength of field example).
Due to the lack of data on LIV Golf, a very simple comparison is used: how many players are in the top 100, 200 etc in the world playing in each event. The strongest fields for both the LIV and the PGA for the 2021/22 season are presented below along with an average PGA tour field (Rocket Mortgage Championship).
When comparing LIV Bangkok and the PGA FedEx St. Jude Championship, the percentage of Top 100, 200 and 200+ golfers in each field are very similar. The PGA Rocket Mortgage Championship was illustrated above as it does represent a typical PGA Tour event. For those who do not follow golf closely, it may come as a little surprise that the field only has 18% of the top 100 golfers participating. This is followed by only 21% of golfer ranked from 101 and 200 and then the rest of the field, 61%, is filled with golfers with a ranking of over 200.
Below is a table with a further breakdown, including how many golfers in the top 50 and a world ranking over 300.
Again, when comparing LIV Bangkok and the PGA St. Jude, the percentage of the top 50 golfers is similar. The difference between the strength of field for the two events is the percentage of weaker players, with 19% of LIV Bangkok’s field outside the top 300 compared to only 3% for the PGA St. Jude. When comparing actual numbers of LIV Bangkok to the PGA Rocket Mortgage, the Rocket Mortgage has only two fewer top 50 players in the field but has four more when comparing top 100 golfers (28 compared to 24).
How hard is it to win a LIV event?
It may seem counterintuitive, but it is important to note that a tournament with the strongest field does not necessarily mean it is the hardest to win. This is due to field size. Typically, the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour has the strongest field but because there are only 30 players, the tournament is theoretically not as difficult to win as one with a field in excess of 160. Thus, the size of the field impacts how hard it is to win a golf tournament: beating 159 players is harder than beating 29 players, even if the overall skill average of the players is lower.
Another way to try to contextualise the sporting merit of LIV golfers is to calculate how hard it is to win a LIV Golf event in comparison with winning a PGA Tour event. Luckily, DataGolf provides an insight into this. In their field strength measurements, they have a metric called difficulty to win. This is an estimate of the probability that certain ‘player types’ will beat the field. The Top 5 metric is the win probability for a top 5 player in the world (that has a skill level of +2, whereas an average PGA Tour player has a skill level of 0).
In its inaugural event, LIV Golf London, a top 5 player in the world would be expected to win 19.5% of the time, thus if they played the event five times, they’d expect to win one. With players such as Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka joining LIV by the third event, the probability of a top 5 player winning was reduced to 15.1%. As the season progressed, with more and more recruits, the probability of a top 5 player winning a LIV event was getting smaller and smaller. The most difficult LIV tournament to win by a top 5 player was the LIV Bangkok event which saw the probability cut to 11.3%.
But how does that compare with the PGA Tour?
As illustrated above, there are some events on the PGA Tour where a top 5 player would expect to win more often than any LIV Golf event. The weakest field on the PGA Tour in 2022 season was the 3M Open, which would see a top 5 player win about 1 in every 4 attempts of playing (27.9%). However, looking at the other end, the St. Jude and BMW Championships have probabilities of 4.1% and 4.4% respectively of a top 5 golfer winning the tournament (about 1 in every 25 attempts).
Whilst LIV Golf events are becoming more difficult for a top 5 player to win, for a golf tour that prides itself of having the ‘best players’, it still has a long way to go. According to DataGolf, the hardest LIV event (LIV Bangkok, 11.3%) is still easier to win for a top 5 golfer than the average PGA Tour event (9.4%).
LIV vs PGA: Broadcasting
LIV Golf’s Streaming
In its inaugural season, LIV Golf did not have a broadcasting deal, something that any new sporting venture would struggle to get. Consequently, LIV streamed events live on its website and on YouTube for free. Typically, the final round of a golf tournament show the highest rating due to the conclusion of the event (i.e., finding a winner) and it being on a weekend. The LIV Golf streaming figures from YouTube for the final rounds are shown below courtesy of Robopz on Twitter.
The highest streamed LIV event was in its fourth event in Boston with an average of 117K streams and a peak of 182K streams on YouTube. Whilst there are many factors that influence viewing figures, a couple of notable ones are worth mentioning. First, the Boston event was the closest fought tournament that resulted in a playoff between Dustin Johnson, Anirban Lahri and Joaquin Niemann. Second, the event had no NFL or PGA competition, so the lack of sport in America at the same time is likely to have influenced this.
The Bangkok and Jeddah events are the lowest streamed LIV events with only an average viewing of 21K and 27K respectively. Being outside of the USA could have been a factor on these figures, noting the difference in timings. What do these figures mean though, are they any good? Not really – No. Whilst many TVs nowadays are smart, there is no doubt that a good proportion of these figures came via a computer screen and not in the comfort of someone’s TV chair which will of course have an influence. Having said that, one trend is certainly not encouraging for LIV golf: the data shows a downward trend.
PGA Viewing Figures
LIV Golf’s narrative of the PGA Tour’s viewership has been staunch: it’s sinking, and its audience is dying. Typically, in sports television, a younger audience is a better audience. Since the early days of television, programming decisions have been predicated on the maxim that viewing numbers and thus advertising revenue rise with a more youthful audience. With younger fans seemingly demanding shorter sports, LIV promotes itself as having each round finished within five hours of the first tee shot, as opposed to 10 hours or so of the PGA Tour.
Now, due to the multiple network deals that the PGA Tour have (Golf Channel, CBS, NBC), it is hard to find exact viewing figures for a typical event. Notwithstanding this, according to GolfMagic, the PGA Tour’s average third round audience has 1.8m viewers. Data from Nielsen showed that the third round of the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational averaged 2.5 million viewers, up 41 per cent on the previous year (1.77m viewers in 2020).
When comparing LIV Golf’s average streams of 64k, to that of the PGA Tour’s third-round average of 1.8m, the numbers are fairly telling. LIV’s average viewing figures are 3.6% of the average third round of the PGA’s. What, if any, impact has LIV Golf had on the PGA Tour’s figures? Below is a graphic from the sports business journal detailing the impact LIV has had on the 2022 PGA Tour’s viewing figures.
Whilst acknowledging the small sample size of five events, it is unclear what impact, if any, LIV Golf has had on PGA Tour television numbers. CBS boasted its biggest final round viewership in 22 years at the RBC Canadian Open. The final round of the John Deere Classic showed a 25% increase in CBS’s figures, which was the best final round of the tournament since 2015. However, between these two events was the Travelers Championship showing a 36% drop on CBS. Two tournaments one week apart, the 3M Open and the Rocket Mortgage Classic, both won by Tony Finau, produced differing results, with one showing an 11% increase and the other showing a 4% decrease in CBS’s viewings. Interesting though, the Rocket Mortgage Classic was held at the same time as LIV Bedminster. LIV’s average YouTube feed on Sunday was 76K whereas CBS’s coverage of the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic averaged 2.5 million viewers.
What are the trends for viewing figures on the PGA Tour though? Analysis of PGA Tour viewership since 2013-14 shows a relatively steady state for CBS, NBC and Golf Channel. For example, PGA Tour events TV audience for the above three networks increased by 7% compared to five years earlier. During that period, a drop of 6% of the overall number of sports hours consumed on television was recorded. Thus, the PGA Tour showed growth when sports as a whole decreased.
According to data from Nielsen, in 2021, US broadcasting giant NBC has seen viewership for its coverage of golf’s PGA Tour increase 30 per cent year-on-year. 26 tournaments broadcasts across Golf Channel and NBC have seen viewership growth of at least 10 per cent this year compared to the first two months of 2020. The final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational averaged 3.9 million viewers on NBC, up 49 per cent on 2020, with viewership peaking at 5.6 million as Bryson DeChambeau took the victory. The third major network, CBS, saw a leap of 29 percent in the final round of the 2021 Waste Management Phoenix Open, resulting in an average of 3.7 million viewers.
A couple of caveats on viewing figures. First, even if the percentage of people viewing remained the same, one would expect more viewing figures due to population growth. Second, whilst these trends have been shown over a number of years, the impact of covid cannot be overlooked, with more people being forced to stay inside and golf being one of the few sports that had less disruption during the pandemic than other sports. Thirdly, there is no doubt that the PGA Tour has had to deal with the declining Tiger Effect. To be clear here, Tiger Woods is still the biggest needle mover, this is evident with him winning the Player Impact bonus from the PGA Tour in 2022 despite only playing three times (nine rounds in total). Having said that, the fact that he plays far less nowadays, the casual Tiger-only golf fans will no doubt be tuning in less, thus impacting on viewing figures.
LIV vs PGA: The Legal Battle
Threats quickly became real
With very little, if any, compromise from either side, and the vast resources of both sides, it is of no surprise that the future of the game, in particularly LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, will be shaped in the courtrooms. On the 9th June 2022, as the PGA defectors teed up for the LIV Golf Invitational inaugural event, they were served with indefinite bans from playing PGA Tour events. On August 3rd, eleven former PGA Tour members who jumped ship to LIV Golf filed a lawsuit against their former employer in August. Put simply, the lawsuit allege that a breach of federal antitrust laws and of the players’ contracts with the Tour.
The players (known formerly as plaintiffs) argue that the suspension is unlawful in that the PGA Tour is using its “monopsony” of elite professional golfers as the only buyer of their services. This antitrust case appears weak for two reasons. First, the argument is paradoxical. It cannot be argued that the PGA Tour is exploiting its power as the only buyer of the services of elite professional golfers when the reason for the ban is because an equally wealthy competitor has paid them vastly more money, including a significant sign-on fee. Second, PGA Tour players are, in fact, independent contractors who earn the right to participate in tournaments that the PGA Tour organizes. As members they agree to the PGA terms and conditions which include rules about which professional golf activities they may or may not participate in along with the consequences of violating such rules.
On the 9th August, just six days after eleven LIV golfers filed an antitrust case against the PGA, three players (Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford and Matt Jones) asked the court to issue a temporary injunction that would allow them to play in the FedEx Cup Playoffs (the PGA Tour season ending tournaments with huge prize purses). The three argued financial harm as a result of the lost opportunity to make additional income. The federal district court judge did not agree, reasoning that the players have arguably earned more money from LIV than what they would have expected to earn in the playoffs. The judge also appeared to cast doubt on the players probability of success in the wider anti-trust lawsuit.
On August 26th, LIV Golf joins the plaintiffs in the anti-trust case at which point a number of players had withdrawn. On September 26th, another four players withdraw from the anti-trust case, leaving just three (DeChambeau, Jones and Uilein) out of the original eleven. On September 29th the PGA countersues accusing LIV of “tortious inducement of numerous, repeated breaches of contract” by former PGA members. The anti-trust case has a provisional summary date in July 2023 and the expected trial date is January 2024.
On October 14th, in a U.S. District Court, LIV Golf’s lawyers, along with the three remaining plaintiffs, maintained that their initial request for discovery was appropriate, while the PGA Tour’s lawyers labelled the request as “burdensome”. The initial request from LIV Golf was certainly broad, covering nearly all the PGA Tour’s employees for any communication over a four-year period of “any prospective or any new professional golf tour or league or promoter of professional golf events.” As reported from the Golf Channel, since October 1, the Tour has produced around 32 500 pages of requested documents (e.g., email searches and financial statements). Despite this, Lawyers for LIV have continued to throw the net far and wide, asking the PGA Tour for communications from 83 individuals but the Judge suggested that was “too broad.”
On October 21st, the PGA Tour has also pursued their own discovery process, filing a federal lawsuit against Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan. The lawsuit is for two purposes. First to get Al-Rumayyan to be deposed and Public Investment Fund to release documents to the PGA Tour for discovery purposes.
Other legal battles
On August 16, 2022, Patrick Reed filed a $750 million defamation lawsuit against the Golf Channel and Brandel Chamblee. The following month, Reed refiled the lawsuit with more defendants including more Golf Channel employees, the Golf Channel’s parent companies Golfweek and Gannett, as well as the DP World Tour and its commissioner. In November, a federal judge in Florida on Friday dismissed Reed’s $750 million defamation lawsuit, giving Reed until December 16 to file an amended complaint. The defendants have until Jan. 13 to respond. In his ruling Friday, the judge stated, “…fails to give Defendants notice of the grounds upon which each claim rests because Reed alleges 120 factual allegations, then proceeds to incorporate all 120 allegations into each and every count.”
The European Tour have not been able to stay out of the LIV Golf vs. PGA Tour’s battle, and on November 16, filed a motion against LIV Golf to “quash” a subpoena that requested the European Tour to provide information for its discovery against the PGA. LIV Golf filed its opposition to this and, on November 29, argued that the federal court has sufficient jurisdiction for the European Tour to abide.
LIV vs PGA: Conclusion
Fight 1: LIV Players vs PGA Players
Winner: TIE
Well, if you measure by rankings, then the PGA Tour players won, if you measure by money, then LIV players won, thus a tie. In terms of world rankings, the LIV golfers have certainly taken a significant hit and will continue to do so in the near future. And even if LIV do get ranking points in 2023, these are unlikely to be at the level of the PGA Tour, thus the majority of LIV players are still likely to see a downward trend.
In terms of money, then the LIV golfers won. The PGA Tour will never compete dollar for dollar with LIV. However, it is not only the LIV players who will gain financially, as the PGA Tour players will compete for even more money at eight events in 2023 such as the Sentry Tournament of Champions ($15m up from $8.2m) and The Genesis Invitational ($20m up from $12m).
Fight 2: LIV Competition vs PGA Competition
Winner: PGA Tour
Whilst LIV’s recruitment policy has many aspects, such as, high-world-ranking golfers, popular names, nationalities etc, it would have been expected for LIV to have recruited more higher-ranked golfers, especially as the amount of money (signing on fees) that have been reported. Even LIV’s strongest field was still a fair bit weaker than the average PGA Tour event. It appears, and has been reported, the PGA’s suspension of LIV players has thwarted a number of players to defect across to the start-up tour, which of course hurts LIV’s recruitment of top players.
There are a number of caveats which concern the validity of the strength of field comparisons used in this article. First, with most LIV golfers not earning any world ranking points since defecting, to use world rankings as a measure of field strength distorts the findings a little. Second, the top 5 golfer winning metric used above is only one metric to measure field strength. Would the differences between the PGA and LIV be wider or narrower if a top 10 golfer was used instead? What about a top 20 golfer etc? What about finishing in the top 5 or top 10? The differences between the PGA and LIV would unlikely to be linear, thus meaning it would either become easier or harder for a particular golfer to either win or place in the top 10 for example. DataGolf have also acknowledged these differences stating, “The LIV Boston field is harder for a Top 5 player to beat but actually easier for the average European player (-1 skill level) to beat. This is due to the weakness of the bottom half of LIV.”
Fight 3: LIV Broadcasting vs PGA Broadcasting
Winner: PGA Tour
LIV and its players’ narrative that the PGA viewing are ‘dying’ do not appear to true. The PGA Tour’s viewing trends over several networks have remained steady over the last 5 to 10 years. With regards to LIV’s streaming figures, they are certainly not impressive and the downward trend of streams throughout the season would be encouraging for the PGA Tour. However, until LIV gets a TV deal it is hard to compare.
In early September it was reported that Greg Norman was confident a deal would soon be struck with US cable network Fox Sports 1, though this has failed to materialise. And despite LIV Golf’s continued verbatim that there is “enormous” interest from networks, it is still yet to come to fruition with less than two months away from the next season. It has been widely reported that LIV Golf are considering paying to acquire broadcasting airtime and putting forward their own commercial sponsorships, though this has been rebutted by LIV.
Fight 4: LIV Legal vs PGA Legal
Verdict: A TIE
Well, this is messy! And it always was going to be. Regarding the anti-trust lawsuit against the PGA Tour, it does appear weak for two reasons: there is not a monopsony and that as members of the PGA they are bound by the latter’s rulebook.
The Stat Squabbler says:
- The PGA have done well so far in battling a monumental challenge to golf’s status quo and have just edged the battle in season 1.
- World ranking points, suspensions being upheld and major tournament qualification are all huge gatekeepers in deciding who wins in the long run.
- Season 2 is only going to see this battle heightened further – the golf world awaits!
Do you agree with the Stat Squabbler that the PGA Tour have just edged Season 1? How do you see this battle progressing in 2023?
