TGL Already Thinking About Expansion?
After a solid debut last week, TGL, spearheaded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy may already be thinking about expansion.
With its long awaited debut garnering solid ratings last week from the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is TGL already looking beyond this year with visions of expansion?
In its opening week on ESPN, one that did not include the headliners and co-founders of TMRW Sports (run TGL) Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, TGL was still seen as a success by many with regards to ratings. Average viewership from 9-11 pm EST was 919,000 viewers, which for comparison was up about 200,000 viewers from a Duke versus Pitt college basketball game a year ago in this time slot.
Heading into week two, which airs at the 7:00 EST slot on January 14th and features Tiger Woods team, we will see what kind of numbers are generated with the largest needle mover in the history of golf teeing up at the SoFi Center.
Expansion to add more teams may already be on the minds of TGL ownership. Mike McCarley, the third co-founder with Tiger and Rory had some interesting comments in Sports Business Journal magazine. Hours before the opening night he said, “We’re living in a world where everything that’s ever been produced is available to watch. So how are you going to be able to cut through when someone has the choice of everything?” Some have taken these comments to possibly mean expansion with more players and teams, or even possibly new sports.
Owners from other sports teams including the Ford family (Detroit Lions), the Wilf brothers (Minnesota Vikings) and John Bitove (Toronto Raptors) were in attendance on opening night in the 250,000 square foot SoFi Center. And according to reports, Las Vegas, Scottsdale and Southern California are all seen as expansion options with TMRW officials already scouting out these sites last year.
An interesting topic dealing with TGL expansion is that more teams equals more players needed, and the possibility of LIV players coming into the TGL. Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton were once slated to be involved on TGL teams, but backed out once going to LIV.
When asked by Sports Business Journal if he had a list of potential LIV players in mind, McCarley answered “ Oh yeah. Yes, absolutely.” One has to imagine with the explosion in Bryson DeChambeau’s popularity in the last year, TMRW and TGL has to have their sights set on one of golf’s largest superstars.
With the TGL inaugural season running through March, time will tell if the popularity of the opening night keeps growing or if it is just another example of declining viewership in professional golf.