Topline<\/p>\n
The embattled LIV Golf league is well on its way to a deal worth between $250 million and $350 million that would save it from what once looked like an inevitable folding after Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund backed away from its promise to support the league through 2032. <\/p>\n
Jon Rahm at the LIV Golf Invitational on Feb. 2, 2024.<\/p>\n
Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n
CEO Scott O\u2019Neil, who joined the league last year, is close to completing a deal that will support the league through at least 2027 and fund the creation of \u201cLIV 2.0,\u201d a scaled-down version of the league, a source familiar with talks told Forbes on Friday. <\/p>\n
The new version of LIV would host five team majors across five continents\u2014likely including in Adelaide, Australia and South Africa after hosting two, 100,000-plus attendee events there this year\u2014and five U.S.-based team signature events per year, all timed ahead of individual major championships.<\/p>\n
LIV 2.0 would also introduce eight to 10 “National Opens,” or individual-play events aimed at allowing players to rack up Official World Golf Ranking points for major entry. <\/p>\n
The league, which will host its New York event at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster next week, hasn\u2019t said who the new investor may be, but is considering bankruptcy as an option to restructure its debt, as first reported by Flushing It Golf.<\/a> <\/p>\n LIV owes hundreds of millions of dollars to players like Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton and Joaquin Niemann, who signed massive multi-year deals<\/a> to join the league, and the restructured LIV 2.0 would offer players equity in exchange for some of those outstanding contractual obligations. <\/p>\n It would also return most individual commercial rights\u2014like their name, image and likenes\u2014to the players and, outside of required team events, would not impose any restrictions on which events they could participate in. <\/p>\n NEWS PEG<\/p>\n It was announced in April that LIV would be losing its funding from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, which had bank-rolled the league from its inaugural season in 2022 and was thought to be funding it through 2032. It scrapped a tournament scheduled for New Orleans in June and is likely canceling the team championship scheduled for Michigan in August. <\/p>\n Key background<\/p>\n Upon its founding, LIV faced criticism immediately for accepting funding from Saudi Arabia, which was accused of using its money to buy its way into a prestigious American sport to improve its international image. Nonetheless, the league did succeed in wooing major players like Rahm, Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka away from the PGA tour with massive<\/a> monetary promises. Since then, LIV has built a genuine international audience\u2014the league reports ticket sales are up 129% year over year\u2014but the American TV audience<\/a> hasn\u2019t broken through and the league has burned through cash. LIV has said it expects four of its events and 10 of its 13 teams to turn a profit this year, but O\u2019Neil has said the overall league could be a decade away<\/a> from profitability and LIV has spent a reported $6 billion in five years. <\/p>\n BIG NUMBER<\/p>\n More than $3 billion<\/a>. That\u2019s how much LIV has paid its players in tournament winnings, salaries and bonuses since its first tournament in 2022. Reported signing bonuses for major players included $300 million for Rahm, $200 million for Mickelson and $100 million for Koepka. <\/p>\n further readingForbesLIV Golf Loses Saudi Arabia Funding\u2014Effectively Ending PGA Rival, Report SaysBy Antonio Peque\u00f1o IV<\/a>ForbesHere\u2019s How Much LIV Golf Paid Its Players\u2014As The Saudis Yank FundingBy Mary Whitfill Roeloffs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline The embattled LIV Golf league is well on its way to a deal worth between $250 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,15811,14239,409746,216712,14640,85],"class_list":["post-837386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-jon-rahm","tag-liv-golf","tag-liv-golf-is-on-the-cusp-of-a-new-funding-deal","tag-public-investment-fund","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837386","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=837386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}