Since the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia pulled back on its financial support of LIV Golf, the upstart league has been looking for new investors and capital. Now, the details of LIV’s financial needs are starting to emerge.
LIV Golf is seeking an investment ranging between $250 million and $350 million to continue operations beyond 2026, according to a recently distributed pitch deck viewed by Sportico. Under its new business plan, which aims to operate a 10-event annual schedule, the tour anticipates reaching profitability after three years. In April, LIV Golf retained investment bank Ducera Partners to run the process, which officially began on Thursday.
“LIV Golf is firmly focused on securing a transaction that positions the organization for the long term,” the tour said in a statement. “In the coming days, we will be sharing the framework of our commercially rigorous, go-forward business plan with prospective capital partners.”
LIV Golf launched in 2022 with a team format, music on the courses, players wearing shorts, $25 million per tournament purses, 54-hole events and a global schedule. In its quest to establish a rival to the PGA Tour, LIV Golf wrote big checks to lure some of the golf’s top stars to the nascent tour, reportedly making guarantees equal to or exceeding $100 million to Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith and Jon Rahm in its first two years in operation.
PIF has invested more than $5 billion into LIV Golf thus far. And while that’s merely a drop in the bucket for one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, which has $925 billion in assets under management, PIF took steps to cut costs before announcing in April it would no longer back LIV Golf beyond this season. Those measures coincided with a regime change in the C-suite—veteran sports executive Scott O’Neil was hired to replace golf legend Greg Norman as CEO in January of last year.
With an eye on making the business more sustainable, LIV Golf doubled its revenue from 2024 to 2025, and the tour is on pace to add another $100 million to that mark this year. It now boasts sponsorship deals with HSBC, Reebok, Salesforce, Callaway and Rolex, as well as media rights deals with Fox and TNT Sports. It says it hosted two events with more than 100,000 spectators in 2026. LIV Golf expanded its format to 72 holes earlier this year and received a boost when it was granted world ranking points, which allow players to qualify for major tournaments.
LIV has also been vocal about its aspirations to sell equity stakes in its 13 franchises, 10 of which are expected to be profitable in 2026. “The team franchises, there’s enough making profit now to where we could sell them for close to $200 million, and that’s not talking about my team either,” DeChambeau, the captain of Crushers GC, told ESPN in May.
However, LIV is dealing with a talent exodus. Koepka, the only other player besides DeChambeau to win a major while active at LIV Golf, and Patrick Reed rejoined the PGA Tour in January despite having to do so under a program that caps some future earning opportunities. A handful of other familiar faces—including Henrik Stenson, Kevin Na and Mito Pereira—left the LIV Golf roster for different reasons.
DeChambeau, meanwhile, is out of contract after the 2026 season, and multiple industry insiders previously told Sportico that he could command a payday anywhere between $200 million and $500 million. That could put LIV Golf in a precarious financial position while trying to re-sign its biggest star.
But players have been briefed on the latest plans, and the feedback has been positive, according to a person familiar with the matter. If LIV Golf is going to continue, its constituents have already acknowledged the tour will have to look vastly different.
“I think we all, as captains and team owners and players that are involved in the league, need to in essence have a large majority to agree on for it to work,” Rahm—the world’s highest-paid golfer, with estimated total earnings of $102 million before taxes and agents’ fees—said in a press conference before LIV Golf’s Virginia event in May. “I do believe that for the business plan to change, whatever they’re coming up with, there will need to be some concessions on our part, yeah.”
LIV Golf resumes play on May 28 at Asiad Country Club in Busan, South Korea.