It is quite interesting, particularly considering the careful line the Tour walks between appeasing its television partners (who pay a very pretty penny for the Tour’s media rights) and addressing the realities of sports viewership, which like the rest of the ratings world, has been in some level of decline over the last decade.
Of course, it helps the Tour that ratings have held steadier as of late — a product of both better recording metrics and a slower decline among the Tour’s core audience from traditional linear TV.
“Then of course a day or two later he sent me the final ratings [from the WM Phoenix Open] and it was I think the highest event, I can’t remember what day, Saturday or Sunday, but it was the highest viewed event since the Players the year prior,” Homa said. ”So I thought that was a really good sign.”
Another good sign for the Tour came just a few weeks later, when the Tour’s ratings from the Honda Classic walloped those of LIV Golf’s first 2023 event at Mayakoba. During the two weekend rounds, the average Tour audience during one minute of NBC’s coverage eclipsed that of the total reach of LIV’s CW broadcast.
That’s to say nothing of the Tour’s ratings during its first designated events, like the Phoenix Open, where strong leaderboards have helped to produce strong audiences.
“I think it’s easy for us to, as players, to look at these events and say, man, this is working great,” Homa said. ”Look at the last few designated events and the finishes and the players battling against each other and the leaderboards and just all of it, and it just seems so great.”
It’s easy to understand why Homa might have an increased interest. For the Tour, this year’s schedule is a massive gamble, particularly considering its TV partners are paying upwards of $600 million annually for the right to broadcast its events. If a supercharged product on designated event weeks isn’t worth the ratings fall-off from a diluted product on non-designated weeks, the Tour could find itself in trouble. So far, that hasn’t proven the case, but we won’t have concrete answers until later in the golf season.
“It’s hard,” Homa said. ”I would assume [the changes] would mean great ratings and great attention, but we don’t know that. So I kind of lean on, since I’ve had this conversation with Jay, where he can kind of continue to show me, not just explain, but show me that it is doing a great job.”
For Homa, it’s not the telling that’s the hard part, it’s the showing.
“I love this game and I want other people to get involved and love this game and watch it,” he said. “I don’t want to put up or be a part of a product that people find to be boring and stale. So I am very much about what we’re doing and these meetings and pushing the envelope and making changes that benefit the golf fan, because again, I am a golf fan.”
Source: golf
