[Photo: Jan Kruger]
After much speculation about the fate of LIV Golf in the wake of losing funding after this season from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the upstart league appears to have a future beyond 2026.
RELATED: LIV Golf plan new future after securing lead investor
On Wednesday morning (US time) at a press conference at Trump National Bedminster, the site of this week’s LIV New York event, chief executive Scott O’Neil announced that he had secured an investor to keep the league afloat.
“LIV Golf has an agreement in place with a lead investor, signed by the investor and approved by the board, to anchor the transaction and play a key role in supporting the path forward for the league’s next era, driven by and for the players,’’ he said. “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.”
O’Neil declined to say who the investor or the additional parties were, or how much money has been committed so far, or what 2027 might look like for LIV Golf. He did, however, add one key detail about the vision for LIV’s future.
“Notably, our next chapter will make our players the majority equity holders in LIV Golf, a first for a major global sports league,” he said.
O’Neil said that terms will be finalised in the “coming weeks”, with the goal of having the deal settled in September.
The news follows a players-only meeting on Tuesday led by Bryson DeChambeau, which followed a meeting with O’Neil and other executives. The Athletic reported that players were still uncertain whether the LIV Team Championship, set for late August, would even be played, although details of the meeting beyond that remained vague.
Speculation what would happen to the league, launched in lavish fanfare in 2022 as officials signed players to multi-million contracts and offered $US20 million prizemoney payouts at each event, had been lingering since April. That’s when the PIF, which had reportedly spent at least $US5 billion on LIV, announced it would no longer fund the league past 2026.
What LIV Golf actually looks like in 2027 is still unclear. Reports state the new model for LIV that O’Neil had been shopping for investors would see a series of about 10 events, half which would be held internationally and focus on team competition. The others would be scheduled prior to major championships, most based in the US. The purses are also likely to be reduced potentially below $US15 million.
Additionally, it’s unclear if players who have expiring contracts – most notably the league’s most high profile golfer, DeChambeau – will stick around for 2027. Asked about that during his overnight press conference, O’Neil said: “Would certainly love them to come along for the ride and journey because they carry maybe more weight than anybody in the game and I have a lot of time for that.
“I think we have enough support from enough players, and we have such an interesting format and global format, I think we’ll do quite well in getting the right stars for this game.”
