The much-awaited Tour Championship begins in a few hours! However, before the top 30 players tee off at the newly restored East Lake Golf Club on August 29, the course hosted The Creator Classic on Wednesday. It featured sixteen of the top golfing influencers, from Paige Spiranac to Fat Perez and Robby Berger.
The format had stroke play for eight holes, starting from the back nine, with the top four making it to the 18th hole. Wesley Bryan, Luke Kwon, Roger Steele, and Sean Walsh emerged to the four-way final hole. The Oklahoma Sooners College golfer made a birdie on the 18th hole, grabbing the win at the inaugural edition of the Creator Classic at East Lake.
The Creator Classic streamed live via PGA TOUR’s YouTube channel, Peacock and ESPN+, and the PGA TOUR channel on PlutoTV, Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi, and XUMO, among other FAST platforms. What stood out was, despite the concerns of Jay Monahan regarding the drop in the viewership of the events of the Tour, the opener event had a staggering spectator rate.
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As reported by NUCLR GOLF on their official X account, “JUST IN: The Creator Classic has surpassed 100k viewers on YouTube.” This came despite them not distributing across platforms and the creators’ channels. It was a good mix of produced features, live interviews, and social posts.
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While the reporters of the golf world from NUCLR Golf to Neil Horowitz were all left impressed, the golf world, however, ended up taking a jab at LIV’s disappointing spectator rate.
Creator Classic had more viewers than LIV events?
LIV Golf is being surpassed by even the most minuscule events happening in the world of golf. Last weekend, the LIV Golf Greenbrier managed to draw only 136,000 viewers on Saturday and 165,000 viewers on Sunday on CW. It was surpassed by the viewership of Pro Pickleball Association’s Bristol Open, which attracted 295,000 viewers on Fox on Sunday. Despite Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm grabbing the top two positions, the event failed to garner much audience.
This is approximately pretty close to what the Creator Classic had in terms of viewership. Given it was only a one-day event, and that too for the influencers, not the star players of the Tour. Taking to this, people left comments like, “More viewers than LIV” and “Isn’t that more than a LIV event (laughing emoji)”.
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LIV’s second event of 2024, held Feb. 8-10 in Las Vegas, totaled 3.03 million across three days, the league said. This was the highest number of spectators that a LIV Golf event has received in the past three years, ever since its inception. Even last year at the Tour Championship as Viktor Hovland won after terrible weather conditions, nearly 5.5 million viewers streamed in, which is close to two times the highest number of viewers the breakaway league has had so far.
Taking to this, one follower made fun of the league and hinted that the breakaway league will soon reach out to the PGA Tour for some suggestions to help them increase their viewership. They wrote, “LIV: What’s your secret?” While another, bluntly stated, “Ouch For LIV”.
The game was more like an entertainment play to bring the YouTube stars to the golf course so that they could engage in a friendly competition. Although it meant a lot to some of the influencers, including Paige Spiranac, who came back to the world of professional golf after eight years, it was pretty much just a way to market more viewership for the final 2024 PGA Tour event.
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Taking to the viewership rate, some of them even mocked the spectators and left comments like, “100% of them are bored as f*ck” and “100k people with absolutely no life”.
LIV Golf is yet to have an official viewership program, which might be the reason behind fewer spectators. Nonetheless, it does indeed have a staggering difference! What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments section below!
