LIV wont be the same in 2027 as boss responds | Golf News
Scott O’Neil, LIV Golf CEO (Image: Getty Images)
Scott O’Neil has spent the week trying to project an air of calm. The LIV Golf CEO fired off an e-mail to employees on Wednesday insisting the season would continue “exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle.”
He sat down for a pre-recorded interview with the league’s in-house broadcaster, speaking up the growth trajectory of the LIV Golf operation. But it was his subsequent dialog with TNT Sports in Mexico City that cut through all of the noise.
When pressed on the golf league’s future, O’Neil confirmed that funding only extends through the current season. “It’s just not the way the world works,” he told TNT Sports on Thursday. It comes as Rory McIlroy provides up $1.9M of Masters winnings proper after defending Green Jacket.
“We have commitments to have this be a going concern. The reality is you’re funded through the season, and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going. But that’s not different from any other private equity-funded business in the history of mankind.”
The candid admission stood in stark distinction to both his inner memo and his other public statements this week, in which he told LIV’s broadcaster Arlo White that the league’s income growth had positioned it on a sustainable long-term trajectory.
Jon Rahm of Spain hand shakes Bryson DeChambeau of the United States after ending the 18th gap during day one of LIV Golf: Greenbrier at The Old White Course on August 16, 2024 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. (Image: 2024 Getty Images)
“This notion of, do you have to raise money? Probably. Like, this is business, you know? But if we keep the trajectory going the way we are, and the revenue growth going, this is going to be a really good business for a really long time.” Regarding what 2027 would possibly appear like, O’Neil supplied a frank yet fastidiously worded response. “The only thing I can tell you is it won’t be the same as 26,” he said, while also stating the league already has 5 occasions on sale for next yr and is deeply concerned in planning for the subsequent season.
The hypothesis has been mounting for days. The Financial Times reported earlier this week that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which has reportedly poured more than $5 billion into LIV Golf since the league’s 2022 launch, spending an estimated $100 million per month, is close to withdrawing its financial backing.
The PIF’s just lately unveiled 2026-2030 strategic imaginative and prescient contained no reference to LIV Golf. PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan told media that sure offers and investments have been being “reviewed, whether due to war in the Middle East or for reasons related to economic feasibility,” noting that regional battle “places greater pressure on the need to reposition certain priorities.”
The PIF has not launched an official assertion relating to LIV’s future. No last determination has been publicly disclosed.
Within the LIV locker room, gamers have been saved principally uninformed. Fireballs GC captain Sergio Garcia said the message he had obtained from Al-Rumayyan at the start of the yr recommended long-term dedication remained in place.
“We haven’t heard anything other than what Yasir told us at the beginning of the year, that he’s behind us, that they have a long-term project,” Garcia said. “You know there are always a lot of rumors, and I can’t tell you anything more than what we already know.”
Jon Rahm, one of the league’s most outstanding and reportedly highest-paid gamers, believed to have earned around $64 million since becoming a member of in 2023, said he refused to let the hypothesis distract him forward of his opening spherical in Mexico.
“Until the people in charge told me if the rumors were valid or not, it didn’t make sense for me to think about it,” he said. “We were here, we knew we were going to play, so the idea was to prepare for a tournament. And that’s it.”
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