Golf’s television ratings are plunging, but here are 5 possible ways to fix them

In many ways, comparing the television ratings of the 2025 American Express tournament to the 2024 tournament in La Quinta is unfair.

After all, the 2024 tournament featured some tour history, with Nick Dunlap becoming the first amateur winner on the PGA Tour in 33 years. And the tournament had top golfers like Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, who combined to win nine tournaments including three majors the rest of the year. So the 2024 ratings jumped from the 2023 ratings, even if Jon Rahm won in 2023.

Now comes the 2025 tournament and a 57% drop in the ratings on Golf Channel. Then again, there was no real history being made at the event in La Quinta last week, other than a 17-year-old making his professional debut. And Scheffler and Schauffele, the Nos. 1 and 2 players in the world ranking, respectively, withdrew before the event.

In addition, Sepp Straka’s lead was a comfortable margin most of Sunday, providing little final-round drama. Straka’s victory drew just 232,000 viewers, according to Nielsen.

Yes, that’s a concerning number. But it is also concerning because it is a trend that dates back more than a year on the PGA Tour. When Dunlap’s win in 2024 drew 534,000 Sunday viewers, it was one of the few times a tournament’s TV viewership improved from 2023 during the season. That downward trend has continued early in 2025, with The Sentry and the Sony Open, both played in Hawaii, failing to reach 500,000 viewers this year.

So the question isn’t whether TV viewership for golf is broken. It clearly is. The question is how to fix it.

Here are five suggestions:

Fix the sport

The divide between the PGA Tour and LIV is entering its fourth year, and if the two sides are closer to reconciliation, fans haven’t been told about it. Having the best players in the world playing on two separate tours and getting together only four times a year doesn’t promote interest in the game. Getting everyone back together will make ratings better, but the negotiations need to speed up.

More: Steady Sepp: Sepp Straka wins American Express golf title by two shots

Football

The NFL season seems to get longer and longer, and it impacts the start of the PGA Tour season. The American Express was faced with two NFL playoff games on Saturday and two more on Sunday. Even if Tiger Woods was playing and in contention those days, the NFL would have won hands down. The tour might need to look at different ideas like they do in San Diego  with a Saturday finish for the Farmers Insurance Open.

More access

Justin Thomas wrote a letter to his fellow pros this week suggesting the pros do more to help the television partners put on better broadcasts. Clearly, some pros are worried that the ratings are down. With Netflix shows like Full Swing providing greater access to pros (think what the NFL does with ‘Hard Knocks’), maybe a weekly show behind the scenes on the tour would help improve interest.

Liven up the broadcasts

The networks have been working on new features, including a “Friday with Smylie” format during NBC/Golf Channel events with Smylie Kaufman that seems to have done well, much along the line of the Manning-cast for ESPN during Monday Night Football. Johnson Wagner recreating shots from that day’s round has an appeal. But the broadcasts have lost personalities in recent year with Nick Faldo and Johnny Miller moving on from CBS and NBC, respectively. A little more personality in the main analyst chair would help.

More golfers on the broadcast

When a golfer finishes early in the day, who better to put up in the 14th tower to talk about how the hole is playing that day? Too often a player is finished with his round and heads off to the practice range or an early dinner. Having the real golfers talk about the real course beyond short interviews post-round might get people to know who the golfers are, and might help the golfers talk more about the reality of what they do for a living.

There are some other possibilities, of course, but the point is that golf needs to work with the networks, and the networks need to work with golf, to reverse a bad trend of falling ratings. Otherwise, who will be left to watch in 2026?

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: American Express television ratings another sign golf needs changes