LIV Golf to lose Saudi PIF funding: Answering 5 burning questions
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, LIV has learned that it will lose funding from the Saudi PIF.
LIV Golf to lose Saudi PIF funding: Answering 5 burning questions Alan Bastable The Saudi Public Investment Fund is on the brink of pulling funding from LIV Golf, thrusting the future of the breakaway league into question beyond the 2026 season. LIV employees, players and staff will be officially notified on Thursday that the league is losing Saudi financial support at the completion of the 2026 season, ending weeks of speculation — including from LIV’s own CEO — that the Saudis might be on the verge of getting out of the business of running a golf league. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Wednesday, followed by several other outlets, including CNBC.
On Wednesday evening, a league source confirmed the PIF’s plan to GOLF. com. The news casts fresh doubt on LIV’s future as a competitive entity, which has been propped up by more than $5 billion in Saudi funding since its 2022 launch and relied upon regular cash infusions to stay afloat while enduring heavy financial losses.
Reports first called LIV’s Saudi-funded future into question two weeks ago, around the time the PIF announced a new set of initiatives aimed at tightening up the sovereign wealth fund’s balance sheets. Reports at the time suggested that LIV was fully funded by the PIF through the completion of the 2026 season, but left the league’s plans opaque beyond the team championship at the end of August. While the future of the Saudi investment had not been confirmed at the time of the initial flurry of news, several reports from the Financial Times , New York Times and Wall Street Journal , among others, suggested that a Saudi withdrawal from LIV was expected, if not imminent.
In a since-deleted interview with LIV’s European TV rights holder, even LIV CEO Scott O’Neil suggested that the league could be on its own financially at the end of the season. “The reality is you’re funded through the season,” O’Neil said in the clip, which was later deleted and reposted without the quote included. “Then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going.
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