LIV Golf CEO on tour's future: 'Funded through the season'
LIV Golf CEO on tour's future: 'Funded through the season'
Jay BusbeeFri, April 17, 2026 at 3:12 PM UTC
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Jon Rahm's fate is one of many open questions about LIV Golf right now. (Hector Vivas/Getty Images) (Hector Vivas via Getty Images)
LIV Golf is now on the clock, according to its CEO. In a TV interview that was posted to X and later deleted, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil indicated that the breakaway golf tour is “funded through the (2026) season,” raising significant questions about the tour’s long-term viability.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has served as the financial backer of LIV Golf since its 2022 inception, pouring billions into the operations, logistics and salaries of the worldwide tour. However, in light of recent geopolitical events and a retrenchment of Saudi Arabian strategic priorities, the PIF appears to be reconsidering its funding for sports-related endeavors, which would include LIV.
The PIF’s strategic plans released Wednesday indicated that the fund is moving away from short-term, rapid-growth projects into more economically sustainable and domestic endeavors … and LIV fits into neither of those latter categories.
Rumors began spiraling on Tuesday evening that LIV was in danger of losing its financial backer and potentially facing shutdown, perhaps even before the start of this week’s Mexico City event. While the event teed off as scheduled, the questions about LIV’s future flared throughout.
In the midst of what has been a chaotic and error-ridden few days for LIV, O’Neil was asked about Sergio Garcia’s belief earlier this week that LIV was funded for the foreseeable future.
“It’s just not the way the world works,” O’Neil said during a TNT broadcast. “We have commitments to have this … the reality is you're funded through the season and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going. But that’s not different from any other private equity-funded business in the history of mankind.”
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(The clip was later deleted from TNT’s account, but preserved by several other accounts on X.)
While that shorter-term view about PE-backed businesses is largely correct, it offers a much shorter and more defined timeframe than the one that LIV officials implied earlier in the week. In an email to LIV employees, O’Neil said that “Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle.” A high-level source with knowledge of LIV’s operations indicated that “LIV Golf funding and operations continue as scheduled.” While neither of those statements offers any guarantee of future funding, there’s no indication in either that the timeframe for funding is limited.
Should LIV lose Saudi Arabian funding, could the league survive? At its present scale, the challenge to pay hundreds of millions in salary alone could be impossible. Bryson DeChambeau, one of LIV’s two marquee draws, will be a free agent at the end of this season, and it’s highly unlikely a PIF-less LIV could afford the massive contract he would require.
DeChambeau and Jon Rahm are the most visible — and, for golf fans, most pressing — question about the future of LIV: namely, will LIV players be allowed to return to the PGA Tour? LIV defectors Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed have already found pathways back. Koepka was extended a special invitation that came with a hefty expected charitable donation, while Reed has agreed to sit out for a year from his final LIV event last August.
LIV has secured sponsorships from some notable brands like Rolex and Under Armour, but the tour has struggled to gain domestic footing and ratings to compete with the PGA Tour. While O’Neil has said that 10 of the tour’s 13 teams will be profitable this year, their value remains uncertain, untested and unclear, especially without a Saudi financial backstop.
Where the tour does continue to have promise, however, is in the establishment of tournaments in traditionally underserved markets. Both the South African and Australian LIV tour stops drew more than 100,000 fans earlier this year. Those alone could be attractive for a merger or partnership with another worldwide tour such as the DP World Tour.
LIV has eight remaining events on the schedule this season. The slate includes five United States-based tournaments, starting with an early May event at Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C.
Source: “AOL Sports”
