Report: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund on Verge of Dropping LIV Golf Funding

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is reportedly on the verge of ending its financial support for LIV Golf ahead of an event in Mexico City scheduled to begin Thursday morning. 

Rumors quickly spread throughout the golf world in the early part of the week, and the Financial Times was first to report the news on Wednesday afternoon after the Telegraph reported an emergency meeting of LIV’s leadership. There have been claims that players and vendors haven’t been paid for weeks. That Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants to “use the war as Force Majeure to pull the plug” on LIV. 

Sergio Garcia was asked about the rumors in Fireballs GC’s pre-tournament press conference in Mexico City: “We haven’t heard anything other than what (LIV chair Yasir Al-Rumayyan) told us at the beginning of the year. That he’s behind us, that they have a long-term project.”

Despite the reports, the league appears to be carrying on with business as usual on the tournament operations front.

The Athletic reported Wednesday evening that “members of (LIV Golf’s) leadership team were first told on Sunday, following the Masters Tournament, that they would soon lose their positions” and that the league is desperately working to stay afloat without PIF investment, “or by negotiating a deal to press forward with a smaller budget.” Bloomberg reported in January that LIV was open to selling “minority stakes” in teams with valuations of up to a lofty $300 million. 

While the timing of the news is surprising, the news itself shouldn’t come as a shock. 

Despite signing some of the biggest stars and characters in professional golf — Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, and Phil Mickelson, to name a few — the league has never caught on with fans. There has always been more interest in what was happening outside the ropes than inside. Greg Norman and Jay Monahan trading blows. Players rattling off every reason other than “the money” for why they left the PGA Tour. The churning player rumor mill kept LIV in the conversation for years, but the big names have stopped signing, and the golf hasn’t taken center stage. Instead of an upstart league that would challenge the PGA Tour and grow the game with a worldwide approach, LIV has been nothing more than a mildly entertaining reality show with a side of golf. 

Wednesday morning the PIF board approved a new investment strategy across three portfolios — Vision, strategic investments, and financial investments — aimed at “maximizing financial returns.” LIV was projected to spend more than $6 billion total by the end of this year, a tough figure to justify for many reasons. The league hired high-profile executives from C-Suites across the entertainment and sports industries to little avail. A deal with the PGA Tour was never reached. TV ratings are often embarrassingly low. Koepka left his contract early. Patrick Reed decided not to re-sign. Critics will say, in an attempt to sportswash its human rights record, that the PIF has set all that money on fire for nothing. After 55 events, what has the league accomplished? 

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The wins have been few and far between, but not nonexistent. LIV hosted incredibly successful events in areas of the world starved for professional golf, like Australia and South Africa. Official World Golf Ranking points were granted this season, but only after a second application was filed when the league format switched from 54 to 72 holes, altering a key part of the LIV’s identity. Most importantly, though, the league has forced systemic change at the PGA Tour. 

Whether that change is good or bad is still far from being determined, but it says a lot about LIV that its biggest impact has been on improving another tour and not building a sustainable one of its own.