TV chief blasts LIV Golf as ‘total sideshow’

There are 14 LIV Golf players in the US Open field at Oakmont Country Club this week. 

A handful of those, namely, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, are anticipated to be among the key protagonists for the third major of the season at the notorious Pittsburgh course.

The breakaway league that those two former US Open champion’s now ply their trade on, however?

“A total sideshow.”

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That was the withering assessment provided by prominent NBC chief Sam Flood in a wide-ranging interview with GOLF‘s James Colgan.

Flood, the executive producer at the US network, presides over NBC’s entire golf output with its partners the PGA Tour, the PGA of America and USGA.

LIV, meanwhile, has struggled to capture a television audience since its inception, but signed a deal with FOX Sports to show its 54-hole events ahead of the 2025 season.

And while PGA Tour viewing figures are on the up after a worrying slump in 2024, Flood insists that LIV has done nothing to change the status quo in terms of golf viewership Stateside.

Instead, he thinks the league has proven an irrelevance.

“The LIV stuff is almost a total sideshow,” he said.

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Flood highlighted LIV Golf’s Miami event at Trump Doral – when Marc Leishman prevailed on a leaderboard packed with major champions – as the case in point.

LIV recorded their highest ever viewing figures for Sunday’s final round at the feared Blue Monster course with a total of 484,000 people tuning in to watch the action.

Yet those numbers were still dwarfed by the Valero Texas Open, a PGA Tour event on the same weekend won by Brian Harman that attracted over 1.7million viewers.

“The reality is, their opportunity was when the tournament happened in Doral [LIV Miami], and they had every name on the leaderboard and no one paid attention,” Flood said.

“That to me said [the LIV] product is not relevant in this country.”

LIV have signed a multi-year deal with Fox, which showcases all three days of their 14 tournaments.

After the US Open, the league will head to Dallas before a European swing at Valderrama in Spain and JCB Golf and Country Club in Staffordshire, England.

Ben Parsons is the Senior Writer at bunkered and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.