Last Thursday marked the final closure of the Saudi-backed breakaway league long awaited, concluding professional golf’s most draining era. It did not end with a bang but a whimper, as the league moved into liquidation in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. After the circuit spent roughly $6 billion from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, it became clear that No LIV Golf 2.0 will emerge.
The Wrong Bet On Personality
LIV Golf failed because it made a wrongheaded assumption about what makes the sport popular. It foolishly staked billions on the idea that star players could carry the entire game as the engine of success. The league siphoned off major champions like Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau to join a circuit of 54-hole events with shotgun starts. Even with large contracts, these events attracted few in-person spectators and limited TV and online audiences in most areas. Professional golfers as a class of people have never had enough personality to sustain a league on their own.
A Private Equity Plot Thickens
Even as the league folds, new money is circling the wreckage in a confusing twist. According to Sports Business Journal, BC Partners has “quietly revived its efforts to create a successor to the LIV Golf league” after publicly abandoning plans for “LIV 2.0” this week. The private equity firm remains “still willing to invest more money” and is “seeking to acquire” a $50M bankruptcy loan from the PIF. This deal “would give the private equity firm the time and freedom to revive the so-called LIV 2.0,” though the 2027 version may now “look thinner than BC’s previous 17 tournament proposals.”
BC is also “seeking to preserve” the $5B of financial losses that LIV has accrued since 2021 to use as a tax asset. The firm could later use these net operating losses as the “foundation of a corporate acquisition vehicle to hunt for companies to buy, some of which may be in the sports industry.” This financial maneuvering shows that while the league is dead, the desire to monetize the brand remains alive for investors.
The Tour Learns The Lesson
The PGA Tour continued on while undergoing its own changes, shrinking fields but growing purses significantly. Scottie Scheffler’s $122.8 million earned during his current streak of five official money titles exceeds the combined leading money winners’ totals from the prior 14 years. Inflation will remain a major component of LIV’s greasy legacy, requiring years before winning’s value returns to sensible levels. He conceded that certain comments were unhelpful and referenced Arnold Palmer’s statement that no player surpasses the game itself.
