LIV Golf’s existence has always depended on one thing: Saudi Arabia’s willingness to pay for it. Since 2021, the league has operated as if it had a blank check, buying up stars to play at lavish global events. Total spending has exceeded US$5 billion.
That largesse is now in question. Last week, there were reports that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund was reconsidering the investment. LIV’s chief executive officer Scott O’Neil told TNT Sports over the weekend that the league is funded through this year’s season, revealing the precarious situation. Previously, he told players it was funded at least through 2032.
The key question is whether LIV would have money to continue. A more important question is why US$5 billion has not been enough to transform the league into something more than a spectacle.
One answer is that LIV has been trying to buy the wrong thing. The real currency of sports is attachment to rivalries and histories. LIV bought attention and naturally expected attachment to follow. So far, it has not.
Consider the competition. The PGA Tour was formed in 1968, but many of its events date back decades earlier than that. Over time, as players return to compete in hallowed tournaments, they are not simply playing each other. In the eyes of fans, they are joining a standard and a legacy. The same events, the same courses, played year after year, teach spectators what matters and why.
LIV’s founders can be excused for thinking that the PGA Tour’s slow-burn fandom could be disrupted. By the late 2010s, even some of the latter’s top players were publicly voicing frustration with the state of the game. Rory McIlroy complained about the slow pace of play and Bubba Watson said it was “stale.” Neither adjective is exactly conducive to building a 21st-century sports business.
LIV debuted in 2022 with a faster format designed to make golf more palatable to the age of short-form video attention spans.
However, above all, LIV bet on star power. Money was no object. During its first season, the league offered record prizes, including a US$50 million team championship purse. LIV also poached PGA Tour players with massive guaranteed contracts. In 2023, Jon Rahm received a deal reportedly — and some might say, notoriously — worth over US$300 million.
The business logic was straightforward: In today’s highlight-driven sports culture, fans follow stars. So if LIV wanted to become relevant (and stay that way), it needed enough stars to draw attention.
It worked — briefly. Each player poached from the PGA Tour generated headlines (and outrage), but LIV and its backers failed to understand that watching a group of stars is not the same as caring about what happens to them. For many fans, the most pressing question around Rahm was not whether he could uphold the standard of play he had established on the PGA Tour. It was whether he had sold his soul for a league that few golf fans were watching.
Viewership numbers tell the story well. In February, LIV’s 2026 Riyadh opener averaged 23,000 US viewers across four days. That same weekend, the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Open averaged 3.1 million.
Adding insult to injury, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, two of LIV’s expensive stars, returned to the PGA Tour before the start of this season. In a clever bit of marketing, the Tour is promoting this year’s competition with the slogan: “Where the Best Belong.”
LIV’s missteps are not unique to golf. China decided to spend heavily on becoming a global soccer superpower in the 2010s. No expense was spared. During the 2017 winter player transfer window, clubs in the Chinese Super League collectively outspent Premier League clubs, and Shanghai SIPG even signed Brazilian star Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Junior away from Chelsea FC.
The strategy drew global attention, but China’s soccer clubs had shallow roots in their communities, and the money did little to build real loyalty. When the real estate bubble fueling much of the spending burst, so did China’s soccer boom. Many clubs, including former champions, went bust.
In the aftermath, Chinese officials have shifted to a slower, more sustainable model focused on domestic players and long-term development. Fandom, they have learned the hard way, cannot be rushed.
For governments that do not want to slowly build something from the ground up, there is another option. In 2008, Abu Dhabi United Group, an investment group connected to Abu Dhabi’s royal family, purchased Manchester City FC. The company did not try to create fandom from nothing. Instead, they invested in an existing fanbase and a league that is followed globally. The money bought success and enduring attention because the rivalries and the stakes were already there.
LIV never had that luxury. And now it seems likely that Saudi Arabia would soon stop funding the league. What would be left behind if it does? Without a dedicated fanbase, the league might have little to show beyond receipts for its spending. It is an expensive lesson.
Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author of Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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