LIV Golf on the edge of disaster

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LIV Golf on the edge of disaster

Since its inception in 2022, LIV Golf has been luring top talent away from the PGA Tour with massive contract offers to golf’s top stars. However, it sounds like the league has been seeing massive losses and faces a grim future.

A report from Money In Sport examined the 2023 financial filings filed this week by LIV Golf’s UK group, which operates all LIV operations outside the U.S. And the report does not paint a great picture for the golf league.

Operating losses for LIV Golf UK grew from $244 million to $394 million in 2023, leading Money In Sport to conclude that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – which financially backs LIV Golf – will need to keep injecting more money into the struggling golf league.

“The losses being incurred by LIV are piling up at a staggering rate, necessitating regular injections of new capital by the Saudi PIF. The total capital injected to LIV Golf UK topped $1.0 billion after a recent issue of new capital in December 2024,” Money In Sport wrote.

To make matters worse, a substantial chunk of the operating losses comes from the massive contracts LIV Golf pays out to its players and several of those contracts are set to expire in the near future. If LIV Golf is going to retain that top talent, their expenses will only increase.

“PIF’s investment in LIV Golf could approach $5 billion by the end of this year, with further big bills on the horizon if they want to retain the top golfers as their contracts expire,” Money In Sport reported.

While Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is not short of money as one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world with total estimated assets of about $930 billion.

Still, this influx of money into LIV Golf is an investment, and the league is showing no signs of turning a profit anytime soon. If anything, it looks like the hole is just getting deeper