The clock is ticking for LIV Golf as the final day of the league could very well be nearing.
Recently, there were widespread reports that the Saudi government, which had given billions of dollars to the Rebel Golf League to launch tours around the world and attract top stars from the PGA Tour, had changed its priorities and intended to allocate the money elsewhere.
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In response, LIV Golf initially took a defiant stance, with the announcer harshly criticizing the media personnel who reported and commented on the incident. But the Saudi-funded armor soon began to show cracks. A power outage occurred during live coverage of an event in Mexico City and the outage was extended. The Tour has since deleted and republished an interview with CEO Scott O’Neill with TNT Sports UK in which he deleted a confession about the funding crisis. This week, the tour’s New Orleans stop was abruptly canceled.
Now, the Wall Street Journal has published a report that seems to confirm what we all expected, with LIV Golf reportedly telling players and staff on Thursday that a major source of funding would end at the end of the 2026 season.
After spending the last few weeks on life support, LIV Golf has lost its Saudi backer’s funding.
Officials said LIV plans to inform athletes and staff by Thursday that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will no longer fund the circuit after this season. The move sounds the death knell for the upstarts that have poured billions of dollars into professional golf, poached A-list players and disrupted the game.
The writing remained on the wall for nearly a month. When the PIF recently announced its vision for the next five years, it did not mention the league that has divided the golf world since its start in 2022. Officials said that while LIV had grown the sport globally, its operations were no longer consistent with the new phase of PIF’s investment strategy.
LIV Golf has indicated plans to seek additional outside investment and sponsorship to continue the tour, but it is difficult to see a suitable path forward.
Star players were offered nine-figure contracts by the Saudi PIF just to participate in LIV, not to mention the huge sums of money the tour provides for tournaments. Talor Gooch, who won one title on the PGA Tour, won four events at LIV and collected more than $70 million. Jon Rahm, perhaps the most controversial of his departures from the PGA Tour, tops the LIV money list with earnings of over 90 million won. Even artisans like Pat Perez, Jason Koklak, and Harold Varner III have earned more than $20 million in their short time with LIV.
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Perhaps the most important part of the WSJ News was the on-the-record response from PGA Tour Commissioner Brian Rolup. The Tour offered Brooks Koepka a major winner-only opportunity earlier this season, but has already signaled that it was a one-time offer. Players who stole Saudi Arabia’s money and fled the country will face difficulties returning home.
“I don’t necessarily have scar tissue, but there are a lot of people around our tour who do,” Lollup told the Journal. “That has to be explained somehow.”
After an initial slump, the PGA Tour has found a way to bounce back nicely from the breakup. Ratings are rising, new stars are emerging, and Lolap appears committed to modernizing its touring schedule and media approach. And as LIV ratings and interest slumped, the PGA Tour increasingly held all the cards in the golf civil war.
While LIV failed to make an impact in the United States, it did find viewers in underrepresented parts of the golf world, such as Australia and South Africa. Could this tour continue as a smaller, more sophisticated regional tour? Maybe. Perhaps they will find a way to continue innovating team golf and become self-sustaining. For players who jumped at the chance to leave the PGA Tour, they may be stuck with what’s left of it, if at all, as LIV Golf won’t be a vestige of its former self after 2027.
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The only thing that is certain at this point is that LIV’s dream of turning the world of golf upside down and winning the PGA Tour appears to have been accomplished and reduced to ashes.
The post LIV Golf Ready to Deliver News of Saudi Funding Failure appeared first on Awful Announcing.
