On Wednesday afternoon, after reports from several media outlets cast doubt on the future of LIV Golf, the league’s CEO, Scott O’Neilsent an e-mail to his staff that he addressed to reporters later in the day. The message read in part: “Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and full pressure. While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass.”
O’Neil was responding to reports from several media outlets — including Financial Times, New York Times AND Wall Street Journal — this indicated that LIV’s financial backer, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, was on the verge of withdrawing its funding.
These reports came on the same day as the FASH announced a strategic shift for the next five years in which the fund said it would transition from “a period of rapid growth and acceleration to a new phase of sustainable value creation, with a strengthened focus on maximizing impact, increasing investment efficiency and implementing the highest standards of governance, transparency and institutional excellence”. (On Thursday, PIF announced that it has sold 70 percent of its shares at Saudi Pro League football club Al Hilal.) The reports also came against the backdrop of the war in Iran, which has led to significant cuts in the Kingdom’s oil production, which largely funds the PIF.
As the news buzzes around the golf world, Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and the rest of the LIV players were in Mexico City for this week’s LIV event. A local source told GOLF.com that the scene at Club de Golf Chapultepec was “business as usual.” Rahm and his teammates played a practice round on Tuesday. Match times for Thursday’s opening round were released, right on schedule, and a pro-am was played on Wednesday. Asked at a press conference about the reports, Sergio Garcia said: “We haven’t heard anything other than what Yasir (Al-Rumayyan, PIF governor) told us at the beginning of the year. That he is behind us, that they have a long-term project. You know there are always a lot of rumors, and I can’t tell you anything more than what we already know.”
But behind the scenes, serious discussions were reportedly taking place. According to James Corrigan i TelegraphLIV executives were summoned to LIV’s New York City offices on Wednesday for an emergency meeting. An agent told GOLF.com that he flew to Mexico City on Wednesday morning in response to speculation about the purpose of that meeting.
Wednesday’s reports came just three days after completion of the Masterswhere O’Neil was present and there was no indication on the grounds that LIV was facing such a crisis. In recent months, in fact, LIV seemed to be gaining momentum with a wave of new sponsors and other corporate partners. Beginning this season, LIV players qualified for Official World Golf Ranking points, creating more pathways for its players to qualify for major championships. Last month, in South Africa, the league held one of its own the most successful events so far. And earlier this year, Al-Rumayyan approved a capital injection of $266.6 million for LIV.
The league has also shaken up and, in some ways, reinvented the upper echelons of the men’s professional game. The ubiquity of $20 million purses, the proliferation of team golf and the rise in importance of major championships are all linked to the arrival of LIV Golf.
But the league has also faced significant challenges, starting with its bottom line. Since its inception in 2022, LIV has reportedly posted losses running into the hundreds of millions. (Wednesday, Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard reported that several LIV players and vendors told him they had not been paid “for the last few weeks”; LIV did not respond to GOLF.com’s inquiry on the matter.) The league’s viewership numbers have been light, particularly in the US, and some of the league’s stars, in Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, have moved forward.
LIV and the PGA Tour have tried but failed to find a way forward together. After the leagues agreed to pursue a partnership in June 2023, discussions continued until The White House in February 2025where President Donald Trump hosted Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, Al-Rumayyan and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. While the meeting was publicly deemed “constructive”, it was one of, if not the, finals THE final, times when the parties would meet.
Much of the past year has been spent with each party going their separate ways, with little talk of a reunion. The Tour hired a new CEO, Brian Rolapp, and is taking an aggressive path to reinventing itself with a new competitive structure based on fewer heavily promoted and relegated events. LIV Golf followed suit with its international events and occasionally found success, especially in golf markets like Australia and South Africa that the PGA Tour hasn’t visited in years. But a few key factors matter more than on-field attendance, namely how many events attract significant broadcast audiences and generate major sponsor interest.
LIV players are contracted to play 14 events per year. The league is set to an annual calendar with most of the first half of events played abroad and its summer events in the United States. In 2025, LIV saw huge crowds at many indoor events, setting records in Chicago and Indianapolis last August. But staging winter and spring events in far-flung corners of the world has been challenging when it comes to attracting American television audiences. The time zone difference between, say, Saudi Arabia for the start of the league season and the American East Coast, requires match schedules to be delayed to serve American fans … or ignore that audience all together.
like GOLF.com’s James Colgan reported last springTour has outperformed LIV repeatedly by a scale of 10x to 11x. For any number of reasons — like decades of viewing habits that drive golf fans to CBS and NBC, NO FOX Sports – golf viewers aren’t tuning into LIV competition like they have been for other pro events. Considering that more than half of the PGA Tour’s primary revenue is tied to television rights, similar to other major sports leagues, the value that LIV could glean from a small television audience was a glaring void on the profit and loss sheet.
Despite this, LIV continued to spend lavishly to host her tours. From its debut event – outside London in 2022 – it was clear that little expense had been spared in building its futuristic fan village, covering the courses and, most importantly, paying for the talent. That spending continued to this day, with superstar DJ Calvin Harris’ first performance on the African continent.
The cost of creating high-powered events with massive musical acts and creating a different version of what golf tournaments can look like hasn’t been cheap. According to UK business filings, LIV’s international events business has suffered losses of more than $460 million in 2024 alone and north of $1 billion over the past four years. LIV’s loss rate had slowed in recent years, but O’Neil explained Financial Times at the start of 2026, he didn’t see the league turning a profit in the next five years, or maybe even the next 10 years. And yet, the money was always there. UK business filings show steady capital support from LIV’s backers.
If PIF drops LIV, the league will, of course, need new investors to stay operational beyond this season. One way forward could be the sale of minority ownership stakes in LIV teams, which earlier this year league officials and players said was a possibility. Partnering with another tour or tournament may also be an option.
This week marks LIV’s sixth event of its 2026 season. Next on the schedule is the league’s first US tournament of the year, at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, May 7-10. The following week, LIV’s top players will gather in Philadelphia for the PGA Championship at Aronomink.
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