It is no secret that since Tiger's wife chased him with a 3 iron and every bimbo, shameless hussy, and call girl on the face of the earth got their minute of fame - and I am NOT saying that i defense of this mentally ill person, but I didn't notice any Little Miss Innocents running before the cameras - Golf's television ratings are in the toilet....and that is the big problem...both for the networks and for the future of golf. It isn't too complicated so let me explain.
Many sports "packages" are sold in the network upfront timeframe. That is a period in late spring when networks make long term (following broadcast year) deals with big advertisers at the best prices. Advertiser "A" goes to NBC and buys 100 gross rating points for $X. The network guarantees delivery of these points so its a real give and take and the negotiations are intense with every penny counting. Golf was usually sold with a GRP (gross rating point) deliver of about 3.0 per commercial. If Tiger were playing there was this thing called the Tiger factor where the GRP per commercial might be 5-6 instead of 3...he was that much of a factor. The networks had his playing schedule and there was actually insurance written in case of injury.
So now Tiger is on the sidelines and golf's ratings are in the toilet....worse than Notre Dame football if you can judge from that...and the networks have to make good delivery of these rating points so that means they have to give up some free commercial space to advertisers who bought golf in the "up front" market. VERY bad for the networks....and worse for golf. With Tiger, the sport had a spot due to its ratings but without him, well Phil Michelson is great but he is a vanilla milkshake and if you want to just watch for the skill, then there is the golf channel. The shoe will drop sometime here as it does with anything that doesn't produce eyeballs in quantity....there is some life yet....but ...it ...is ..fading.