LIV Golf’s bid to survive collapses as investors and top players pull out
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- LIV Golf told a bankruptcy court it will liquidate its assets after plans to relaunch the league collapsed for lack of funding and player commitments.
- Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund spent an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion on the league.
- A prospective $300-million investment fell through as top golfers declined to return in 2027.
Golf tournaments can’t exist without golfers. That fundamental fact resulted in LIV Golf’s lawyers announcing in bankruptcy court Thursday that the upstart league is pursuing full liquidation of assets.
The abrupt development came on the heels of BC Partners pulling out of its arrangement to invest $300 million into the LIV Golf League after a simple head count made clear not enough of the circuit’s top golfers planned to return in 2027.
A plan to restructure into what was billed as LIV Golf 2.0 crumbled without the investment from BC Partners, a London-based firm that had planned to replace Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as LIV Golf’s primary financier. The Saudi PIF spent an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion on LIV Golf in less than five years of operations before ceasing financing in April.
The number of golfers committed to the league in 2027 hovered around 30, but another 10 or so were unwilling to do so by an Oct. 25 deadline. Those golfers were wary of a proposed model that would have replaced the guaranteed contracts and generous tournament purses provided by PIF with promises of equity in the league and an abbreviated schedule.
Several top golfers had already announced they would not return for LIV 2.0, including Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell and Tyrrell Hatton. And those defections came after an initial wave of golfers that included Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed left LIV. Several plan to play on the DP World Tour next season.
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All of which prompted BC Partners to pull the plug. LIV attorney Matthew Williams told the New Jersey bankruptcy court Thursday that the league would file a new Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan Monday.
“The debtors were ultimately unable to bring the key parties to a fully consensual arrangement that would have supported a financially viable LIV 2.0 league,” Williams said during the hearing. “As a result, the debtors are not currently proceeding with the LIV 2.0 plan. Instead, the debtors are toggling to a value-maximizing winddown of their business.
“Every constituency made meaningful efforts to find common ground, but ultimately, despite everyone’s best efforts, we just couldn’t get to the level of combined financial and player support necessary for a viable LIV 2.0 within the required timeline.”
LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil had worked tirelessly to hold the league together after PIV pulled out, creating the restructured LIV 2.0 model and offering players commercial rights along with making them the majority equity holders, calling the plan “second bite of the apple.”
But the only investment firm that would commit the $300 million necessary to relaunch the league was BC, and O’Neil acknowledged in a statement Thursday that without funding, the effort was over.
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“Building a global platform designed to bring new, younger, and more diverse fans to the sport of golf has been the round of a lifetime for all of us,” O’Neil said in a statement Thursday. “LIV Golf was fun, demanding, inspiring, at times challenging — but always rewarding.
“Together, our team delivered world-class individual and team competitions across five continents, built a global business, secured pathways to The Open and U.S. Open, earned Official World Golf Ranking points, engaged with stakeholders focused on the health and future of the game, created value in our teams, attracted premier sponsors, brought investors to the table around a next-generation business plan, and built a league capable of attracting both elite and rising talent from around the world.”
BC Partners also released a statement Thursday.
“BC Partners Credit supported a transaction that aligned the interests of players and investors, offering a credible path toward building a sustainable future for LIV Golf,” the statement said. “While there was great support for the league, we are disappointed that mutually acceptable terms could not be reached among the various stakeholders.”
