The long-term funding for LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed breakaway golf tour, has been in question for several weeks, ever since Saudi officials outlined a financial future that did not mention ongoing sports investment. Now, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal, players will be notified Thursday that funding is officially coming to an end.
The WSJ reports that the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has poured billions into the tour over its four-plus years of existence, will end its funding as of the end of this season. The loss of PIF backing would all but certainly end LIV Golf in its current incarnation, with small fields of highly paid players competing for massive tournament purses.
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Yahoo Sports has reached out to LIV Golf for comment.
Later on Wednesday night, Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter reported that Yasir Al-Rumayyan stepped down from his position as chairman of LIV Golf’s board. Al-Rumayyan is the chairman of the PIF, too, and was the man who initially founded the organization alongside Greg Norman.
Bryson DeChambeau was among the big names LIV Golf lured away from the PGA Tour with a nine-figure paycheck. (Photo by Jason Butler/Getty Images)
(Jason Butler via Getty Images)
LIV began in the early 2020s as a breakaway golf league offering players as much as nine-figure signing bonuses, and a significant number of notable players, primarily those on the back half of their careers, jumped at the opportunity for one more major paycheck. But LIV was also able to attract several stars in the primes of their careers — Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm — and, for a moment, appeared to be a viable competitor, and even an existential threat, to the PGA Tour itself.
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However, while LIV has seen some success on the international front, the tour has never captured a significant stateside audience. Koepka and Patrick Reed have left LIV with the intention of returning to the PGA Tour. DeChambeau’s contract with LIV is up at the end of this season, and he has given no indication which direction he’ll go once he’s a free agent.
News broke earlier this month that Saudi Arabia was realigning its investment strategies away from broad-based cultural initiatives like sports. LIV officials tried to project an image of confidence, indicating that they would continue with their operations as planned. But earlier this week, the news that LIV would be postponing its Louisiana tournament to an indefinite date set off even more alarms about the long-term future of the tour.
If LIV loses its Saudi PIF backing, it’s virtually impossible that the tour will be able to make up the shortfall by more traditional means like sponsorships and ticket sales. Whether that means the tour would fold up operations, operate at a downsized capacity, or merge with another existing tour is a question for down the road, as is the fate of LIV’s players who could be left without a tour after this season.
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Earlier this year, a small set of LIV players that included Koepka, DeChambeau and Rahm was offered a one-time pathway back to the PGA Tour. Only Koepka took it. Reed opted not to re-sign with LIV and instead will sit out a year of PGA Tour events before he’s reinstated. The question of what, if any, pathway back for those who remained with LIV is still up in the air.
