LIV Golf Laying Off Most Employees After Announcing Deal With Unnamed Backer

Aug 27, 2026 03:04 AM - 1 hour ago 3

Topline

LIV Golf, the arguable play task initially funded by the sovereign wealthiness money of Saudi Arabia, told its 300-plus-employee activity unit Wednesday that astir of them will beryllium laid disconnected adjacent week arsenic the convention attempts to reinvent itself pinch a caller financial backer.

A adjacent up of a motion connected the first tee connected time 1 of the LIV Golf Team Championship Michigan astatine The Cardinal astatine Saint John's connected August 22, 2025.

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Key Facts

The employees, who activity successful the U.S. and the United Kingdom, are being laid disconnected arsenic LIV useful connected "scaling backmost operations arsenic we modulation to the adjacent chapter," a spokesperson said.

LIV, which mislaid its Saudi backing successful April, has been moving for months to finalize a woody pinch a caller lead investor to money a reimagined, smaller type of the convention CEO Scott O’Neil is calling "LIV 2.0."

Sources adjacent to LIV told Forbes astatine the extremity of July a woody was close, and earlier this period LIV said it had signed a word expanse pinch an unnamed investor (reported by respective outlets to beryllium Ted Goldthorpe of BC Partners) to backmost the convention going forward.

O’Neil said the caller investor has met pinch LIV players, which see Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, and called him a “visionary, charismatic, driven, well-connected leader, investor, businessman.”

But LIV’s early remains uncertain and sources told Forbes successful July bankruptcy was a apt action to restructure the league’s debt, which would let it to cancel its existing monster contracts pinch immoderate players and restructure its organization.

BIG NUMBER

$5 billion. That’s really overmuch Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund put into LIV Golf from its founding successful 2022 done April. In that aforesaid period, the convention lost much than $1 billion.

WHAT WE DON’T KNOW

Which players will enactment pinch LIV. Some, for illustration DeChambeau and Brendan Steele, person been steadfastly loyal to the convention while others person been openly skeptical—or already jumped ship. Brooks Koepka parted ways pinch LIV Golf up of the play and reports person suggested a awesome rift is increasing betwixt the convention and Rahm.

Key background

LIV collapsed into the play world 4 years agone and instantly faced disapproval from institutions and individual critics for accepting backing from Saudi Arabia, which was accused of utilizing its utmost wealthiness to bargain its measurement into a prestigious American athletics and amended its world image. The PGA Tour instantly declared warfare connected LIV and suspended players who participated successful its events, launching a bitter conflict for the early of master golf. LIV, pinch its deep pockets, wooed awesome players for illustration Rahm, Phil Mickelson and Koepka distant from the PGA Tour pinch monolithic monetary promises, including reported signing bonuses of $300 cardinal for Rahm, $200 cardinal for Mickelson and $100 cardinal for Koepka. Since then, LIV has built a genuine world audience—the convention reports summons income are up 129% year-over-year—but the American TV assemblage hasn’t surgery done and the convention has burned done cash. A recently imagined LIV 2.0 will beryllium a scaled-down type of the league, pinch 5 squad fields crossed 5 continents, successful summation to 5 U.S.-based squad signature events per year. LIV 2.0 would besides present 8 to 10 "National Opens," aliases individual-play events aimed astatine allowing players to rack up Official World Golf Ranking points for introduction to awesome tournaments. LIV 1.0 had less variations successful arena type, typically hosting astir a twelve dual-format events (which included some individual and squad competition) and a standalone LIV Golf Team Championship per year.