Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - The Amazing USGA Women's Open Championship
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Old 06-03-2024, 09:55 AM
Rainger99 Rainger99 is online now
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When I saw the original post, I thought he was referring to the fact that almost nobody would recognize the names. Most people don't want to tune it to see a bunch of players that they don't recognize.

I don't follow women's sports and the only one I recognized was Minjee Lee.
Unless you follow the women's golf very closely, I doubt if anyone recognized three of the players.

The only WNBA players I know are Clark and Griner (and the only reason I know her is because she was arrested in Russia).

The purpose of professional sports is to get money - usually through television viewership. Unless you have names that people recognize, people aren't going to tune in and watch.

Even the PGA is having problems with television ratings.

The final round of the Masters (9.58 million viewers) was down about 20 percent from 2023. It was the lowest-rated Masters since 1993 with the exception of the two Covid years.

The final rounds of the Phoenix Open and Arnold Palmer Invitational were down over 30 percent from last year.

The Players Championship, the final round was only viewed by 3.53 million viewers. That was down 15 percent—and all four rounds of the tournament were lower than 2023.

As for regular tournaments, most casual observers don't recognize more than a handful of players. The top ten players at the Canadian Open only had one player in the top 10 FedExCup rankings - Rory McIlroy. The winner (Robert MacIntyre) is ranked 32 in Fedexcup points; Ben Griffin finished second and is 54th, Victor Perez is 80th; Tom Kim is 66th; Rory is 3rd, the fourth place player is 45; Ryan Fox is 96th; Mackensie Hughes is 40th; and Maverick McNealy is 57th. These numbers are after the tournament. Going in, they were ranked lower. Not must see television!

The PGA misses Tiger and with many of the top names going to LIV, mens' golf is not as interesting.