golf's ongoing Rift with live golf continues to take its toll on the PGA tour as evidenced by the dip and viewership for the 2020 for BMW Championship compared to the previous year a concern previously voiced by Rory maroy the star golfer had cautioned that the pga's bitter Feud and legal wrangling with the Renegade live golf league could deter fans from tuning in his words seemed prophetic as the 2020 for BMW championships at Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado saw American Keegan Bradley Triumph with a minus 12 across for rounds but with significantly fewer eyes watching the championship suffered a substantial rating slump attracting just 2.4 for 6 million viewers across NBC the Golf Channel and streaming on peacock this represents a stark decline of over 20% from the previous year when the event featuring a comparable lineup and H at the same time managed to pull in 3.03 for million viewers Enoch Burke returns to school maroy attributed the downturn to the pga's persistent conflict with Liv golf if you look at the TV ratings of the PGA Tour this year they're down 20% across the board that's a fifth that's big I would say the numbers on live aren't great either in terms of the people tuning in I just think with the fighting and everything everything that's gone on over the past couple of years people are just getting fatigued and it's turning people off men's professional golf and that's not a good thing for anyone in 2023 Victor havin stormed to victory in the final round of the BMW Championship playing nine under to finish at minus 17 overall leaving Scotty Sheffer trailing in second place at minus5 Matt Fitzpatrick Rory mroy and Xander chaul all made it into the top 10 promoted Stories the 2020 for BMW Championship also saw its fair share of big names with Tommy Fleetwood chaffel and maoy all finishing within the top 12 however the BMW championships are not alone in their struggle with dwindling ratings even major tournaments have taken a hit with the Open Championship experiencing its worst ratings in 10 years this year's Masters only managed to surpass two other tournaments in terms of viewership over the past 30 years those being the 2020 and 2021 editions which were affected by the covid-19 pandemic the 2024 FedEx Street Jude Championship earlier this month saw a significant drop in viewers with just two 211 million tuning in compared to the 3.27 million who watched in 2023 marking a 30% decrease