Financial Times<\/a> claimed a PIF announcement of the removal of Saudi funding for LIV could come as soon as Tuesday.<\/p>\nPart of the mystery around the situation is that the media centre at LIV\u2019s Mexico City event was closed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
That has not stopped journalists trying to grab a hold of players for comment.<\/p>\n
One golfer, who chose to remain anonymous, told The Telegraph that the news could lead to a coming together of the two tours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be honest. None of the players have heard anything. It\u2019s hopefully a merger. Everyone gathers at Augusta don\u2019t they?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While Sergio Garcia, the 2017 Masters champion who created headlines at Augusta National on Sunday for smashing his driver, said in a press conference, where he apologised for his actions a few days ago, that the reports contradict what the players were told by PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is not what Yasir [Al-Rumayyan, governor of PIF] told us at the beginning of the year,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[He told us] that he is behind us, that they have a project of many years. There are always rumours and I cannot comment anything more to you than what we know.\u201d<\/p>\n
LIV players were allegedly told at their most recent event in South Africa that funding is in place to support the league until at least 2032.<\/p>\n
That came after LIV chief executive Scott O\u2019Neil, the former president of Madison Square Garden Sports and CEO of the NBA\u2019s Philadelphia 76ers who replaced Greg Norman, said in February that the tour would not be profitable for another five to ten years.<\/p>\n
Murmurs began to bubble away about the financial viability of LIV\u2019s future in January when a senior Saudi Arabian source told the BBC that there was a shift in attitude towards investments – namely a greater focus on technology and artificial intelligence rather than sport.<\/p>\n
LIV Golf CEO, Scott O’Neil at a press conference during day one of LIV Adelaide at The Grange Golf Club.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Since LIV began in 2022, the PIF have spent nearly $5 billion on the rebel league.<\/p>\n
Players like 2023 Masters champion Jon Rahm have cashed in with the Spaniard reportedly jumping ship in the same year he won the green jacket for $500m.<\/p>\n
While the likes of major winners Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka (who is now back with the PGA Tour), Dustin Johnson and Australia\u2019s Cameron Smith all received more than $100m to abandon the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
The PIF\u2019s total losses are unknown, but The Telegraph reported that United Kingdom-based company LIV Golf Ltd – which manages activities outside of the United States – lost \u00a3461.8m in 2024.<\/p>\n
It is believed by The Telegraph that LIV is losing as much as \u00a3100m per month.<\/p>\n
Huge crowds have supported events in Johannesburg and Adelaide, which has signed a deal to host the annual tournament until 2031, this year, but LIV has struggled to crack the broadcast market.<\/p>\n
They have deals with broadcasters FOX TV in the US, TNT Sports in the UK and Channel 7 in Australia, but LIV executives have allegedly been regularly disappointed with ratings at a time when interest in golf is booming.<\/p>\n
By comparison, the final round of The Masters peaked at more than 20 million viewers in the US, making the largest audience in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
But LIV has made ground in the partnership stakes with sponsorship deals being inked with HSBC, Rolex, Salesforce and Qualcomm in recent times.<\/p>\n
Although, it may be a case of too little, too late.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neil is expected to speak to the players following the pro-am in Mexico City which will take place Thursday morning Australian time.<\/p>\n
A more clear picture of what is actually playing out is likely to come from that meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIV Golf\u2019s future is in grave doubt as Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF) consider withdrawing their financial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[296214,6074,2095,254,1724,64,11537,63,689,216707,2090,3193,2791,296220,6927,296217,676,25404,296219,45891,2105,755,1745,24416,56485,296212,5575,45884,15811,138388,2184,1025,2041,2067,677,296215,668,756,14640,121136,6952,1183,18780,12540,153918,248218,85,296221,102313,2614,296213,12000,296218,296216],"class_list":{"0":"post-609343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-activities-outside","9":"tag-africa","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-asia","13":"tag-au","14":"tag-augusta-national-inc","15":"tag-australia","16":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","17":"tag-breakaway-league","18":"tag-british-broadcasting-corporation","19":"tag-cameron-smith","20":"tag-central-america","21":"tag-club-de-golf-chapultepec","22":"tag-dustin-johnson","23":"tag-emergency-meeting","24":"tag-final-round","25":"tag-financial-support","26":"tag-financial-times-inc","27":"tag-gauteng","28":"tag-getty-images-inc","29":"tag-golf","30":"tag-golf-news","31":"tag-greg-norman","32":"tag-hsbc-plc","33":"tag-investment-efficiency","34":"tag-iran","35":"tag-johannesburg","36":"tag-jon-rahm","37":"tag-media-centre","38":"tag-mexico","39":"tag-new-york","40":"tag-north-america","41":"tag-northern-america","42":"tag-oceania","43":"tag-partnership-stakes","44":"tag-press-conference","45":"tag-rory-mcilroy","46":"tag-saudi-arabia","47":"tag-scott-oneil","48":"tag-sergio-garcia","49":"tag-south-africa","50":"tag-southern-africa","51":"tag-southern-asia","52":"tag-sovereign-wealth-fund","53":"tag-sponsorship-deals","54":"tag-sports","55":"tag-tee-box-sign","56":"tag-the-grange-golf-club","57":"tag-united-states-of-america","58":"tag-wealth-fund-worth","59":"tag-western-asia","60":"tag-withdrawing-funding","61":"tag-yasir-al-rumayyan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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