LIV Golf held its first tournaments this year and has quickly established itself as a threat to the PGA Tour. It has poached some of the sport’s biggest names, including Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith, luring them away with massive sums of money.
Amazon’s lack of interest in LIV Golf was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal, which also said that Apple Inc. had passed on the rights. Apple didn’t reply to a request for comment from Bloomberg News. Now, FOX is the leading candidate to grab the media rights for the controversial tour, sources told Front Office Sports.
Most of the major US sports broadcasters -- CBS, NBC and ESPN -- have long-term contracts with the PGA Tour. It’s unlikely that they would air a rival league and jeopardize that relationship. Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., which owns TNT, also has a deal to show the PGA Tour outside the US.
Fox Corp. isn’t encumbered by a relationship with the PGA Tour, but the company has struggled with golf broadcasting in the past. In 2020, it walked away from a TV deal with US Golf Association, which runs the US Open, one of golf’s four majors.
At the same time, former Fox Sports executive David Hill has been working as a consultant for the new league, and LIV Golf Chief Executive Officer Greg Norman has a longtime relationship with Fox’s Rupert Murdoch.
In an interview Thursday, Will Staeger, LIV Golf’s chief media officer, said the league is still in the “early stages” of trying to secure its first US TV deal, which would take effect in 2023. Fourteen tournaments are planned for next year, up from eight this season.
LIV could find other ways to get on American screens, such as buying airtime on another network or pursuing a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., the largest owner of local sports channels in the US.
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