By Ellis Zuckerman
Saudi Arabia, with the help of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has made a huge splash in the sports world recently: buying 80% of Newcastle United, a soccer team currently in third place in the Premier League; bringing in soccer-legend Cristiano Ronaldo to play for Al-Nassr FC; hosting Formula 1 events. But perhaps the most expensive endeavor of this Saudi sports push is LIV Golf. Founded in 2021, LIV Golf had been in the works for years. The league, a brain-child of bin Salman and golf legend Greg Norman, was never thought to pose a threat to the century-old PGA tour, but now, not even two years after its conception, it’s looking at taking over as the pinnacle of professional golf.
LIV has already poached Bryson Dechambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith, and 43 other players from the PGA tour for their 2023 season. The reason they can get these superstars on the roster isn’t because LIV has prestige or viewership, it’s because it has money and wants to make a statement. The five players listed above are guaranteed a combined $650 million. While that price tag is extraordinary, it’s also the fact that LIV pays middle-of-the-road PGA tour players, like Ian Poulter, $40 million to join. LIV has guaranteed a total of over $1 billion in player contracts. In addition to the contracts, the purses for tournaments are huge. Last place at every tournament is guaranteed at least $100,000, which increases to over $4 million for winning an event.
On the contrary, PGA tour players are not guaranteed a penny. If they play in 15 tournaments, they can receive $500,000, which is relatively little compared to the LIV money. PGA players have to make “the cut”, the top 70, to make money for playing in a tournament. The tour doesn’t give money towards accommodations for players, caddies, families, and trainers, all of which are given out by LIV. Players also have to play more golf on the PGA Tour, playing in almost double the tournaments, with each tournament having an additional day.
From a player’s perspective, it seems like a no-brainer to go with LIV: more money for less play. Because of this, they have been able to acquire top-tier talent, but the real question is how long can LIV golf sustain itself. While they have all the expenses mentioned above, they also have to pay for courses to host events, a huge team of executives, live musicians at every event, top-tier fan hospitality, and their own television broadcast. They are hemorrhaging all of this cash while having virtually zero revenue. They sell tickets for cheap, have an advertisement-free broadcast, and have no brand deals. Perhaps the worst of all for LIV is the lack of viewership. The LIV Golf Invitational at Bedminster drew an average viewership of 74,000 people during its final round, while at the same exact time, the PGA Rocket Mortgage classic drew an average viewership of 2.5 million people.
While these two tours have turned “the gentlemen’s game” into a game filled with lawsuits, suspensions, and alliances, perhaps there is a solution that would benefit both tours. In this solution, LIV golfers get to keep money offered to them and get to pick their own schedules, but they’re allowed to participate in prestigious majors and the PGA’s Ryder Cup. In exchange for this, LIV provides PGA with financial assistance. While this resolution on paper makes sense, the chances that the tours collaborate are extraordinarily low considering the staunch stance the PGA has taken against LIV. PGA players would also be angry because they missed out on money for being loyal and now the LIV players would be let back in.
As a golf fan, the emergence of LIV is a nightmare, with talent being split between tours. But for now, there is nothing to do but watch the drama unfold, as Patrick Reed throws tees at Rory Mcilroy and Greg Norman shares memes of PGA tour players. As we look towards the future, it’s a mystery as to whether the two tours will coexist, collaborate, or die out, but whatever happens, top-tier golf will continue to be played on the highest of levels.
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