When we last checked in with LIV Golf, the breakaway golf league nobody ever watched or cared about, it was ready to be flushed from our lives once and for all. After losing its financial backing from Saudi Arabia, the tour started to come apart. Events were cancelled, players made plans to scramble back to the PGA Tour, a lawsuit claiming unpaid invoices hit, and the Asian Tour ended its partnership. But to hear LIV CEO Scott O’Neil tell it, the tour has lined up the investment it needs to stride confidently into the future. Just don't ask where the money is coming from, or how much is on the way.
O'Neil announced on Wednesday that LIV's board had signed a term sheet with a new lead investor that, according to him, will keep the tour alive in 2027 "and 2028, and 2029, and 2030.” O'Neil didn't explain who the investor is, or how much money might be coming LIV's way, or under what conditions. The tour released a statement that was similarly cagey about the details, but also nauseatingly boastful about its status as a hot investment opportunity. "We're also seeing strong interest from more than a dozen additional parties to potentially serve as minority investors, creating a multi-partner model built for long-term stability and growth," the statement said. The tour also announced that in the future LIV's players will become majority equity shareholders, and will have their Name, Image, and Likeness rights returned to them.
Equity and NIL might sound like good deal-sweeteners for the players, right up until you remember that every player who defected to this tour in the first place did so for entirely mercenary reasons. None of them actually cared about LIV Golf beyond its ability to act as a conduit between them and the billions of dollars piled up in the Saudi Public Investment Fund. To offer them equity in the tour now, after the PIF money has all been spent, is like gifting someone a piggy bank that's just been smashed.
LIV's offer to the players gets less enticing as you get further into the details. After LIV promised that a healthy investment was coming its way, Bloomberg reported that the tour is working to secure a loan from private equity firm BC Partners, which has a financial relationship with GSE, an agency that represents multiple LIV golfers. It's not clear if this loan is the big investment that O'Neil was trumpeting, but the appearance of GSE calling in a favor to help keep the tour afloat does not inspire much confidence.
And then there are the concrete plans for the new iteration of LIV, which O'Neil outlined on Wednesday. The goal is to put on just 10 events per season, with five of them being held in the United States and five of them abroad. When asked if he felt that stars like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm would be excited to stick around the tour under these conditions, O'Neil didn't sound confident: "We would certainly love them to come along for the ride.”
One thing that might be complicating O'Neil's ability to sell players on the new and improved LIV Golf is the fact that he still hasn't offered any clarity on whether the tour's big Team Championship event, which is supposed to happen at the end of the month and pay out a $40 million purse, will be played. "This is a very fluid situation," O'Neil told reporters on Wednesday. "We just don’t have any update or certainty.”
So, as things stand, it looks like the rosiest outcome for LIV is that it will cancel its most lucrative event of the 2026 season, come back in 2027 attempting to lure players into a freshly capitalized tour that is only capable of holding 10 events per year, and likely say goodbye to its biggest stars. Add in the fact that not a single person ever willingly watched a LIV Golf event even when it had money and star power behind it, and you've got yourself a recipe for the world's saddest golf tour. O'Neil and his buddies should just stay in the toilet.
