Here Are Seven Realistic Ways LIV Can Improve

Let’s assume that, one way or another, LIV is here the long haul.

While I’m skeptical LIV will become popular and profitable, there are still opportunities for it to be more additive to the professional golf landscape. The in-person experience was better than I thought it would be, and I think there are tweaks they could make to get more people interested.

Let me be clear: I’m highly uncomfortable with how LIV was formed, its real purpose for existing and the divide it has created in pro golf. I doubt that will change.

However, if it’s going to be here, it might as well be entertaining.

Here are seven avenues that would make LIV more enjoyable.

Go All-In On Team Golf

My first move would be to completely do away with any individual component for tournaments. Every element of LIV should revolve around the four-man teams. Nothing else matters.

The arguments I make in this article will point to how LIV should differentiate itself from the PGA Tour. Having individual titles for each event is too similar to the Tour, and it’s also confusing to have multiple winners at a tournament (team and individual).

The best team golf is the Ryder Cup, Walker Cup, NCAA Championship match play and similarly formatted events. There are individuals celebrated within those events but all of the energy gets poured into which team wins.

There is no need for LIV to have individual titles. It unnecessarily complicates the fan experience.

Add Structure Around Team Financials

I’m going to use hockey to make my point here but this applies to several other major sports.

A key part of following the NHL is knowing how much each player makes, the length of their contract, potential for trades and what flexibility teams have to make improvements. It’s added context for the entertainment. A player who makes less but outperforms his contract is highly valuable. A player who makes $10 million a year but struggles is a massive weight on his team. There is site called CapFriendly where hockey fans constantly check. (Side note: the Washington Capitals bought it and the site is about go dark).

I think LIV should create some structure around the team financials. Maybe it’s a salary cap. Maybe certain players can be traded but others (such as the captains) are untouchable. Maybe it’s releasing enough of the contract details to get a sense of how valuable someone is. And that leads to understanding which players are more or less deserving of roster spots.

There are a lot of creative avenues in this area. That leads me to my next point …

Find Ways To Encourage Trading Among Teams

This obviously goes hand in hand with the previous point.

LIV has a trade window but nothing legitimate has ever happened in that window. There wasn’t a single trade this season. If a player belongs to a team arbitrarily, and there is no threat of being traded or replaced, then there is not much bite to the team concept.

Sports revolve around consequences, which causes pressure. I understand how those two words are antithetical to the entire concept of LIV but the league could at least try to manufacture some consequences.

I’m not exactly sure what the answer is here but perhaps the teams have to make one trade per year. I want to see drama around contracts. If a player has an expiring contract, there should be questions about whether it will be renewed at all. How will that player be replaced?

There needs to be more context as to why these players are on each team and how their performance matters to keep a LIV roster spot.

Get Less Serious On The Course

One of my frustrations with LIV is that it’s basically just another golf tournament as we’ve always known golf at the highest level. Every event is 54 holes of stroke play. The team element uses college golf rules of dropping the worst score.

The atmosphere is more casual than the Tour but the league also wants us to take the golf seriously. It feels caught in the middle. It’s clearly inferior to the Tour as a serious golf product but it’s not unserious enough to be wildly different from the Tour.

I think LIV should ditch any notions of traditional golf. Veer more into the absurd. On par-3s, spray-paint greens with circles that show average proximity to the hole. You get a shot taken off your team’s score if you get inside the circle. Long drive (and most accurate drive) contests during the round. Add skills competition elements within the round.

You can keep the golf legitimate while adding other entertaining parts that distinguish the product.

We Need More Than One Format

One of LIV’s best assets is the teams but they aren’t really being used much. Players on a team compete in separate threesomes with players from other teams. You don’t even see them together outside of press conference or the cringe-worthy podium celebrations (I would get rid of that, too).

LIV has given up on its pursuit of Official World Golf Ranking points so why does every event have to be 54 holes of stroke play? Even if they are hell-bent on having the individual portion continue, they could at least add a match-play tournament to the calendar.

I would create events where teams each have a pair of two-man units playing matches against other teams. Make it six-hole matches so you can create a bracket system with a championship round the final day.

Once again: LIV should be very different from Tour golf.

Center Tournament Calendar Around Golf-Starved Areas

I think one of LIV’s primary mistakes has been the fumbling of its calendar.

There have been a lot of locations selected over the past three years that don’t make sense. The example I’ve been using is Houston, where they played a few weeks ago. The Tour already goes to Houston every year. The LPGA already has a major there every year. Choosing to play an event there—opposite a signature tournament on Tour, no less—doesn’t make sense.

The tournaments in Australia, Spain, Nashville and other areas desperate for high-level pro golf were successful with fan support. Go to those places. How about the Pacific Northwest, which the Tour has ignored for years? How about South Africa?

Carve Out More Unique TV Dates/Slots

Another frustration with LIV is that it chooses to go up against signature events and the TV windows are often overlapping with Tour coverage or other golf that ends on Sunday evening.

I know Sunday afternoon is valuable real estate from a TV ratings perspective but LIV’s ratings are abysmal. They really can’t get any worse. The league is never going to beat the Tour’s TV exposure so I would try to get away from that time block.

First, go back to playing events when the Tour has its weakest tournaments. I’m not sure why they ever stopped doing that in the first place. Second, try to find ways around finishing on Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Take advantage of being in different time zones by finishing at 2 p.m. ET or 10 p.m. ET. Play a night golf event for one of the tournaments. Just try to carve out more unique TV space for the time being.

Those are the ideas I have for LIV’s future.

Do you have any thoughts? Is there anything they can do to make you watch?

Let me know below in the comments.

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