Since its start in 2022, LIV Golf has been shelling out massive money to lure top talent away from the PGA Tour. However, it sounds like the league is now facing some pretty horrible financial challenges that don’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
A report from Money In Sport dove into the 2023 financial filings submitted this week by LIV Golf’s UK group, which manages all LIV operations outside the U.S. Let’s just say the report does not paint a great picture of the financial state of the golf league.
Operating losses for LIV Golf UK increased from $244 million to $394 million in 2023, leading Money In Sport to conclude that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – the financial supporter of LIV Golf – will have to keep pumping more money into the league to keep it afloat.
“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 into LIV Golf UK topped $1.0 billion after a recent issue of new capital in December 2024,” Money In Sport wrote.
Compounding the issue, a significant portion of these operating losses stems from the enormous contracts LIV Golf offers its players, many of which are due to expire soon. If LIV Golf wants to keep that top talent on which it has built its league, its expenses are set to rise even further.
“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.
Needless to say, this is pretty horrible news for LIV Golf, and it sparked a lot of reactions on social media.
“Unsustainable,” one person wrote on X.
“PGAT is still doing 3-4 million viewers and 100k on site. LIV posted 114k in viewers for its flagship event. If PIF keeps pumping money in it it’s because they like watching their court jesters do as they’re told. If it was going to compete with the PGAT it would have already,” another person added.
“Will be interesting to see what happens when the big contracts expire,” someone else said.
“Who could’ve ever seen this coming?” another person asked rhetorically.
“Anyone should have been able to see this. They have used the PIF like a money tree and hopefully will end once the PGA & LIV come together,” someone else wrote.
“Nobody could have possibly seen this coming,” another person said sarcastically.
It’s worth noting that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund isn’t lacking in funds, boasting one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds with assets of around $930 billion. Still, it’s not great news that LIV Golf continues to lose money at such an eye-popping rate.
