LIV Golf Claims It Will Be Rescued From The Toilet Any Day Now

When we last checked in with LIV Golf, the breakaway golf league nobody ever watched or cared about, it was ready to be flushed from our lives once and for all. After losing its financial backing from Saudi Arabia, the tour started to come apart. Events were cancelled, players made plans to scramble back to the PGA Tour, a lawsuit claiming unpaid invoices hit, and the Asian Tour ended its partnership. But to hear LIV CEO Scott O’Neil tell it, the tour has lined up the investment it needs to stride confidently into the future. Just don’t ask where the money is coming from, or how much is on the way.

O’Neil announced on Wednesday that LIV’s board had signed a term sheet with a new lead investor that, according to him, will keep the tour alive in 2027 “and 2028, and 2029, and 2030.” O’Neil didn’t explain who the investor is, or how much money might be coming LIV’s way, or under what conditions. The tour released a statement that was similarly cagey about the details, but also nauseatingly boastful about its status as a hot investment opportunity. “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,” the statement said. The tour also announced that in the future LIV’s players will become majority equity shareholders, and will have their Name Image, and Likeness rights returned to them.

Equity and NIL might sounds like good deal-sweeteners for the players, right up until you remember that every player who defected to this tour in the first place did so for entirely mercenary reasons. None of them actually cared about LIV Golf beyond its ability to act as a conduit between them and the billions of dollars piled up in the Saudi Public Investment Fund. To offer them equity in the tour now, after the PIF money has all been spent, is like gifting someone a piggy bank that’s just been smashed.