Breaking: LIV cites deal to keep it alive (updated)
CEO O'Neil announces unnamed lead investor, equity ownership for players going forward
The Daily Drive is a reader supported newsletter. For about $1 a week, your paid subscription can help sustain our full-time coverage of golf.
LIV Golf announces investment deal that will keep league alive beyond 2026 (Charles Laberge/LIV Golf)
LIV Golf’s quest for survival will apparently carry on, with a deal in place announced Wednesday morning for a lead investor to help carry the circuit beyong 2026.
At a news conference Wednesday morning in Bedminster, N.J. — site of this week’s LIV Golf New York event — LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil announced that he has a signed deal with an unnamed investor that has been approved by the LIV Golf board to “play a key role in supporting the path forward for the league’s next era, driven by and for the players.”
“We’re very fortunate that a lead investor has signed a term sheet approved by our board, which will carry and fund LIV going forward,” said O’Neil is his press conference Wednesday morning in Bedminster, N.J. “It’s very good news for us.”
O’Neil’s press conference was high on enthusiasm but short on details including a timetable for formalizing it. “At this point, we are keeping the details of the deal, the investor, and much of what you might want to know in this second phase out of the media.”
“We’re at 0-0, locked in, focused on driving it,” he said when asked if anything could scuttle the deal being finalized. “So I’ve spent my entire career, and certainly the last two, climbing a mountain with some incredible people. Sometimes the wind’s in our face, sometimes a piano on our back, and we just keep going. This is a moment that we’re very happy about, that we’re thrilled to announce, that we’re proud to be a part of.
“It’s certainly an investor of weight, and we’re all locked in on making it happen. So I haven’t spent a lot of time on thinking about what might not make it happen.”
In a media statement, O’Neal said that LIV Golf 2.0 will make players “the majority equity holders … a first for a major global sports league, and gives the league the foundation to keep growing the game worldwide.”
“Man, it’s a really exciting day, the chance to get to steward a league where it’s majority owned by players, which has never been done before in the history of sports, is more than special,” O’Neil said of a deal that he said will keep the lights on in 2027 “and ’28 and ’29 and ’30.”
LIV Golf is said to be considering a bankruptcy filing, which would potentially place some of its own players who are owed money on existing contracts as creditors.
That could lead to a situation where LIV Golf negotiates new terms with the players who are owed money, including equity in the league. O’Neil has said previously that the plan is to lean into the team model and also seek franchise owners, as has long been the business model.
O’Neil cited the word “optionality” when the possibility of bankruptcy was brought up Wednesday. “When you’re in a situation that is a bit fluid, where there’s a bit of uncertainty, where there’s some challenges and maybe some surprises here or there around the corner, we want to make sure that we are giving ourselves the best opportunity to do what’s best for this organization to carry forward,” he said. “We’ll consider the best options at that time. That’s not a decision we have to make, and we’ll continue to do what’s best.”
O’Neil had not planned to meet the media in advance of this week’s LIV Golf New York event in New Jersey. But late Tuesday, LIV Golf announced that its CEO would have a news conference on Wednesday morning, in which some of these details were announced.
Previously, O’Neil has said that he has been looking for outside investment of more than $300 million in order to fund a new, leaner LIV Golf 2.0 that would see a reduction in tournaments from the 14 currently on the schedule as well as smaller purses than the $30 million events now being played.
A LIV Golf source confirmed that termination emails have been sent to some employees, giving them 30 days notice, but that new investment could possibly impact other opportunities at the company.
The league has endured a tumultuous four months in the aftermath of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia’s decision in April to no longer back LIV following the 2026 season. That has already led to short-term issues, as a June event near New Orleans was postponed (and hasn’t been rescheduled) and its season-ending Team Championship in Michigan in three weeks appears on the verge of cancellation, with no buildout underway at the venue.
The Saudi sovereign wealth fund was the main financial supporter of the league going back to its 2022 inception, with an eight-event schedule that first year and 14 tournaments starting in 2023.
Backed by the PIF, LIV Golf signed a number of big-name players, including Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Cam Smith, Brooks Kopeka, Jon Rahm, Patrick Reed and others. Various reports have put its expenditures at more than $5 billion.
When asked specifically about whether new investment would be enough for LIV Golf to retain its biggest stars Rahm and DeChambeau, O’Neil deflected his response with stories that danced around those specific players. When pressed further about retaining Rahm and DeChambeau specifically, O’Neil still wouldn’t bite.
“I think when you have a global game and you have 57 players from 21 countries and you’re playing in 10 countries on five continents, how you define stars gets really interesting,” he said.
“So while I have all the time in the world for Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, I think I’d be remiss in saying they’re not only two of the biggest, best golfers on the planet, but I think they’re some of the biggest stars in sports, let alone golf. Would certainly love them to come along for the ride and journey because they carry maybe more weight than anybody in the game and I have a lot of time for that.
“I think we have enough support from enough players, and we have such an interesting format and global format, I think we’ll do quite well in getting the right stars for this game.”
Without significant sponsorship and a modest media rights deal, LIV Golf has been losing money at a substantial pace, with O’Neil saying earlier this year that it would still be several years before it could break even.
The PIF’s sudden departure sped up that timetable considerably, and he’s been scrambling to hold the league together while searching for outside funding.
Is it a bright new day for LIV? (Charles Laberge/LIV Golf)
“We anticipate finalizing terms in the coming weeks, with the goal of entering a transaction in September,” O’Neil said.
He added: “We’re also seeing strong interest from more than a dozen additional parties to potentially serve as minority investors, creating a multi-partner model built for long-term stability and growth.”
Cam Smith was optimistic about LIV’s future on Tuesday.
“I’m a positive guy, so I’ve made no effort to go seek anything else,” Smith said. “I don’t really understand what is going to happen. I think it’s all up in the air. I know that the LIV team is working hard to get us to play next year and working hard for us. They do a lot of hard work behind the scenes.
“I want it to work, really, to be honest. It’s great fun out here. The team that we’ve got, I feel like we make each other better, better people and better golfers as well. Yeah, I’d hate to see it go away. We’ll see what happens.”
This week’s LIV Golf New York event, which begins Thursday, is the 11th to be played this year and only the second in the United States. Two more domestic events are scheduled: LIV Golf Indianapolis — which is supposed to be the season-ending individual event — is in two weeks, followed by the Michigan team event. If the last event is not played, the Indianapolis tournament could be altered to the team championship format.
“We have not made any final formal decisions and hope to in the coming weeks,” O’Neil said of the scheduled Michigan event.
“This is a very fluid situation. We are all working tirelessly to do everything we can to deliver the events of this season. Some of the stuff is completely in our control. Some of the stuff is not. We are working to deliver the best we can. We just don’t have any update or certainty as we are now.”
According the league’s release, LIV Golf 2.0 will feature 10 premier team events
