{"id":397150,"date":"2026-04-17T14:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/397150\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T14:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:54:10","slug":"liv-golf-ceo-confirms-saudi-arabia-funding-rumours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/397150\/","title":{"rendered":"LIV Golf CEO confirms Saudi Arabia funding rumours"},"content":{"rendered":"

To date, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund has pumped almost $6 billion into LIV Golf and, according the Wall Street Journal<\/a> and\u00a0Financial Times<\/a>, is on the verge of withdrawing its financial backing of the breakaway golf tour.<\/p>\n

Despite power outages making for a rather embarrassing start<\/a> to LIV\u2019s latest event in Mexico City<\/a>, the coverage did manage to include a couple of interviews with Scott O\u2019Neil to address the swirling rumors of the league\u2019s imminent demise.<\/p>\n

At first, O\u2019Neil \u2013 a former CEO of NBA team the Philadelphia 76ers and president of Madison Square Garden Sports \u2013 took aim at those reporting on the ongoing story, telling anchor Arlo White<\/a> that he has \u201cnever been in an industry that has more unnamed sources than this one\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIn fact, I was reading through some coverage this morning and I couldn\u2019t find one source on the record from all the articles that were written.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhat crucially, though, O\u2019Neil was unable to produce any proof that what he describes as \u201cclickbait stories\u201d that are \u201cgrabbing for headlines\u201d are untrue, instead insisting that he is \u201creally excited about where we are going\u201d and how \u201csome structural changes\u201d are coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can ask the 50 people I met in Augusta,\u201d he continued. \u201cI rolled out the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis notion of do you have to raise money? Probably. This is business. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

He realizes, though, that taking on the PGA Tour in the United States is a battle not worth fighting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the US market,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the number one TV market in the world, period. It\u2019s the number one sponsorship market in the world, period.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, long term, do you want to bet on 340 million people or 7.5 billion people? I\u2019m taking a 7.5 billion person bet. That\u2019s something we should be excited about. Because golf should be seen around the world with some of the biggest stars in the game. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Who<\/p>\n

But then the kicker. <\/p>\n

In a now deleted interview with TNT, which broadcasts the league\u2019s tournaments in the UK, O\u2019Neil all but confirmed that this is the last season LIV Golf will be backed by the PIF.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked by presenter Oliver Wilson if Sergio Garcia was right to say<\/a> that players have been told LIV is funded until 2032, O\u2019Neil replied:\u00a0\u201cThe reality is that you\u2019re funded through the season, and then you work like crazy to create a business, and a business plan, to keep us going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not different from any other private equity-funded business in the history of mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n

That plan, it seems, is to lean on the team aspect of LIV Golf \u2013 something O\u2019Neil has never made secret in the 16 months since he took over from Greg Norman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in the sports business America,\u201d he continued. \u201cI\u2019ve worked in the NBA, the NHL and the NFL, and when I started with the Nets, I remember in 1992, Utah Jazz were sold for $13 million. They recently sold for just under $2 billion. Then I went to go work for the Philadelphia Eagles. Jeff Lurie, who still owns the team, bought it for $188 million and people thought he had lost his mind. It\u2019s just been reported that he sold a piece of it for $8 billion and so the essence of the return on this business will come through the equity in our teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another plan O\u2019Neil hinted at was to \u201cblend a version of LIV and the great national opens around the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think they\u2019re the most underappreciated, undermarketed, and underdeveloped assets in golf,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd the reason is it gets us on the ground to grow the game of golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the national Opens are all DP World Tour events \u2013 and the Wentworth-based circuit currently has a strategic alliance with the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

One thing is safe to say, and that is that this is far from over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To date, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund has pumped almost $6 billion into LIV Golf and, according the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-397150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}