Mel Smooth
Hacker
Is it enough to support the PGAT - now they've increased purses, without the SSG money?
Can men's pro golf reconcile & what might it look like?
- Thread starter BubbaP
- Start date
Is it enough to support the PGAT - now they've increased purses, without the SSG money?
Arthur Wedge
Well-known member
It’s not needing a oil country to stand it up
The PGAT has multiple revenues steams that can support the tour and stand it up
Take away the PIF fund and LIV falls over
There is no global audience that can sustain it
It’s the US audience that brings in the money
The losses at LIV increased to over £350mil
LIV's financial losses reportedly 'piling up at a staggering rate'
amp.awfulannouncing.com
New report details LIV Golf's "staggering losses" | bunkered.co.uk
The latest Money In Sport newsletter has taken a forensic look at LIV Golf's financials - and the numbers are eye-watering.
www.bunkered.co.uk
It’s not sustainable without PIF
It’s why Saudi want to be part of the PGAT
Mel Smooth
Hacker
It’s not needing a oil country to stand it up
The PGAT has multiple revenues steams that can support the tour and stand it up
Take away the PIF fund and LIV falls over
There is no global audience that can sustain it
It’s the US audience that brings in the money
The losses at LIV increased to over £350mil
LIV's financial losses reportedly 'piling up at a staggering rate'
New report details LIV Golf's "staggering losses" | bunkered.co.uk
The latest Money In Sport newsletter has taken a forensic look at LIV Golf's financials - and the numbers are eye-watering.
It’s not sustainable without PIF
It’s why Saudi want to be part of the PGAT
The Saudis want a seat at the PGAT table to help grow LIV, and golf, across the planet. The PGAT as it was - was never enough to promote the sport for tourism in the KSA - which is fundamentally why the Saudi's are in the game.
If they can't get that seat without maintaining LIV, then there will be no deal.
Dunesman
Well-known member
It is ???
Then it seems a very hare brained way to go about it.
Why dont they just use the billions to build super golf courses in Saudi (by the way, who calls it KSA ?), cheap flights, and Europe will flock there in the winter.
Spain or Portugal didnt attempt to start rivals to the PGAT, yet developped very strong golf tourism industries.
The Squirrel
Active member
No it is not. No idea why you’d think that. If you wanted to promote Saudi as a golf holiday destination then holding a hyper expensive world tour where only the week 1 de facto warmup event is in Saudi, and the rest is in potential golf tourism places not in Saudi, would not be what you’d do. You could build, network and extensively market the most high end golf resort on Earth for what Rahm cost them. Or attract and sponsor several Saudi stops on the DPWT. Both would be far more effective in that goal. They haven’t.
pendodave
Tour Rookie
The sad thing is that one of the (only?) Good things about LIV is the promotion of golf in places which are otherwise unable to afford to host top level tournament golf - Australia being the obvious example.
I just don't see this being maintained by any US centric PGA tour. The players just don't travel, the timezones don't work for the TV. There is a long history of this just not getting off the ground.
The only way would be if the players were centrally contracted, like LIV. I don't think they'll get this through.
We'll see.
I don't think even those close to the action have the faintest idea, so I somewhat doubting the chances of anyone here having an inside track.
I just don't see this being maintained by any US centric PGA tour. The players just don't travel, the timezones don't work for the TV. There is a long history of this just not getting off the ground.
The only way would be if the players were centrally contracted, like LIV. I don't think they'll get this through.
We'll see.
I don't think even those close to the action have the faintest idea, so I somewhat doubting the chances of anyone here having an inside track.
Mel Smooth
Hacker
McGinley isn't far off the mark here with what a reconciliation would look like imo. I suspect there are a few PGAT players who would like to play a few LIV events, so maybe have a PGAT team that participates through the season with players rotating.
Really like Paul McGinley’s proposal for unity. Very similar to what I’d propose. pic.twitter.com/dIN5ELKDfh
— Matt Vincenzi (@MattVincenziPGA) March 12, 2025
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Fore Right
Well-known member
It’s not needing a oil country to stand it up
The PGAT has multiple revenues steams that can support the tour and stand it up
Take away the PIF fund and LIV falls over
There is no global audience that can sustain it
It’s the US audience that brings in the money
The losses at LIV increased to over £350mil
LIV's financial losses reportedly 'piling up at a staggering rate'
New report details LIV Golf's "staggering losses" | bunkered.co.uk
The latest Money In Sport newsletter has taken a forensic look at LIV Golf's financials - and the numbers are eye-watering.
It’s not sustainable without PIF
It’s why Saudi want to be part of the PGAT
As explained in another thread.
The PIF doesn’t NEED LIV Golf to be profitable—sure, they’d like it to be, but profitability isn’t essential to their strategy.
To put it in perspective, the $5 billion they've spent so far represents just 0.6% of their fund, which generates approximately $104 million per day.
If Liv Golf profitability were the goal, they would have shut it down already.
The PGA Tour operates under traditional business rules—it needs to deliver a return for Strategic Sports Group (SSG) investors. But those same rules don’t apply to the PIF. For Yassir, LIV Golf is not simply a profit-and-loss golf venture, and assuming that losses will cause it to fail is likely a mistake.
The additive value from LIV extends beyond the golf course:
- Yassir now has a seat in the inner circle of the U.S. President and has gained acceptance by corporate America.
- There are likely other global political and business benefits tied to LIV that have real value—potentially exceeding the financial losses from the Liv tour itself.
BubbaP
Occasional Player of Golf
Interesting speculation, but he doesn't have a seat at the table ...
Dunesman
Well-known member
The key stumbling block, and why closing LIV is at least somewhat in the discussion, is that LIV has failed. Why would the PGAT or any tour build it into a future golf structure when players, media, spectators, have consistently turned it down. Its hard to see a purpose for it, if not as a touring circus but devoid of serious competion, in a restoration of some of its golfers to the regular tours. One would struggle to count ten in LIV today who would genuinely add to the PGA. For sure, Rahm, Koepka, Bryson, would add to it in a big way. But overall, LIV is bringing little to the party. Money, yes. But I think what we have seen is that money only sustains the front if, or superficially, a tour. Closing it down fully, while tough for some to accept such a crystalising of its failure, would seem the critical step for a resolution, and the PIF buying its way into pro golf proper.
Arthur Wedge
Well-known member
When it comes to LIVs “success or failure”
It will depend on the metric used
If the idea is to get top players playing outside the US then they have had success there
If it’s about putting on events in other areas where they can see the top players then they have managed to find some level of success there
Fore Right
Well-known member
Actually the main obstacle to a deal is that Yasir Al-Rumayyan is unwilling to agree to closing LIV Golf as part of any agreement—meaning a place needs to be found for LIV within professional golf's ecosystem.
While Jay Monahan has suggested folding parts of LIV into the PGA Tour, that’s not something Yasir is prepared to accept.
Paul McGinley, who is part of the DP World Tour management structure, likely has insight into the terms being discussed. That’s why his proposed solution with both tours running con currently—shared on TV—made sense:
- PGA Tour & Liv Golf Continue.
PGA Tour benefits by having top LIV players participate in signature events. - DP World Tour strengthens its field by granting LIV players unrestricted access to their events.
- LIV Golf would benefit from having two PGA Tour teams added to its season ending LIV Team Championship, creating an exciting matchplay element with some spice.
The only complication is scheduling. With 14 LIV events plus the 4 majors, LIV’s top players wouldn’t be able to play in all the PGA Tour’s signature events.
Dunesman
Well-known member
I dont think the PIF is a charity, with a mission to just bring a show to towns golf doesnt normally play. Its drive, we reasonably presume, was for LIV to make money by being a serious top of the tree global golf tour to equal or pass the PGAT.
That was its positioning. It has waved hundreds of millions more at players but they have turned it down.
Partly its own doing, with the teams, the LOUDER and the transparent manufactured/bot social media effort, partly, that golf revenue is still very USA-centric. Sure, due to its isolation, pent up demand will deliver on course spectators in Australia. But the rest of the world is just not putting up the type of money that US sponsors are willing to.
Taking it around the world sounds fine. But if the rest of the world doesnt want it in the first place, thats a bit of a fly in the ointment.
The DP tour have been a big loser in all of this, it’s really hurt European golf in my opinion.
Like Phil said, we need golf worldwide not just a closed shop in the USA.
I’m not sure of the financial situation the PGA are in, but is it sustainable with the amount of prize money now.
Do the metrics add up….
LIV is clearly running at a loss with signing on fees and superb prize money, they are a young company though and would be interesting to see their business model plan, something we will never know I suppose.
Like Phil said, we need golf worldwide not just a closed shop in the USA.
I’m not sure of the financial situation the PGA are in, but is it sustainable with the amount of prize money now.
Do the metrics add up….
LIV is clearly running at a loss with signing on fees and superb prize money, they are a young company though and would be interesting to see their business model plan, something we will never know I suppose.
Mel Smooth
Hacker
You heard that the PGAT are laying off staff as they struggle to meet their budgets?
Yasir can consign the PGAT to the history books if he wants to.
Dunesman
Well-known member
The supposed unlimited firepower of the PIF has been touted since the beginning as the argument for this being an unwinnable war for the PGAT. But 4 years down the road, it is the PGAT that is continuing with some, but nonethless light damage. LIV, has not launched in any meaningful way. It didnt attract a credible number of top golfer to provide meaningful top level tournaments. Why not ? Why didnt the PIF unload the gun they supposedly have, and indeed consign the PGAT to history. If it could have, it would have surely, especially when it was clear it wasnt attracting quality golfers en masse, and is in an illusory holding pattern as a tour. Partly I guess, that while the PIF has phenomenal resources, they are not all, nor anything like, earmarked for golf. Within, or even maybe beyond its originally budgeting, it has failed.
Arthur Wedge
Well-known member
I would have to ask Phil why he only started to go outside the US when he was offered significant amounts of money
If Phil wanted worldwide golf there was nothing stopping him from going around the various tours playing in events
Arthur Wedge
Well-known member
Fore Right
Well-known member
Your hope that LIV will fold simply because it's not operating as a profitable golf tour is misguided.
The PIF fund is set to surpass $1 trillion later this year. While the money so far invested in LIV may seem staggering from the PGA Tour's perspective—more than three times the SSG investment—it’s essentially a drop in the ocean for the PIF.
This isn’t just about building a rival golf tour; there’s a much larger strategic play at work.
The value Yassir and the PIF are seeking extends far beyond profit and loss in the golf world.
Arthur Wedge
Well-known member
What’s the larger strategic play at work
