After Brooks Koepka walked away from LIV Golf with a year left on his contract, Ryan Lavner didn’t ask about money or loyalty. He asked something simpler on Golf Channel: Where are the new headline names? NBC Sports’ Rex Hoggard didn’t dodge it. In simpler words, he explained how LIV isn’t just missing stars; it’s missing conversation, clarity, and consequence. That is where the uncomfortable questions begin.

“The offseason was non-existent the way it kind of has been the last few years. And this absolutely kills me because we’ve talked a lot about this on this podcast,” Hoggard told Lavner.

Hoggard argues he loves to discuss trades and free agency in the NFL. Fans love to play GM and talk about big money deals. But LIV Golf keeps every contract a secret. No one knows the money or the terms for any player. This lack of clarity kills the fun for every golf fan.

Lavner agreed, “They haven’t wanted to, Rex. They don’t have transparent contracts. We don’t know what the terms are. We don’t know the amount of money.”

And we can’t argue with that.

We know LIV Golf signed with players like Thomas Detry and Elvis Smylie for the 2026 season, but we don’t know when these players signed with their respective teams. Did the team pay a transfer fee? Was there a bidding war? These constraints are invisible in LIV Golf.

Another example: Koepka left the league with one year remaining on his reported $100 million contract. It was one of the most discussed topics in the last few weeks. And what LIV offers? 

The official statement from LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil characterized the split as amicable and mutually agreed upon.

While this language is designed to project stability and minimize conflict, it inadvertently devalues the league’s contracts and hides the actual consequences of that decision.

In NFL, if a player like Patrick Mahomes wanted to leave with years left on his contract, the discussion would center on ‘dead money,’ ‘signing bonus recoupment,’ and ‘holdout penalties.’ These financial consequences create stakes. By describing Koepka’s exit as ‘amicable’ and offering no details on buyouts or penalties, LIV implies that its contracts are fluid and non-binding.

Consequences?

Akshay Bhatia reportedly turned down a lucrative LIV offer and stayed on the PGA Tour. Si Woo Kim publicly denied moves and rebuffed rumored deals. Reports also suggested an eight-figure approach to Max Greyserman fell through. Those collective refusals form data, not gossip.

And LIV Golf used to be the number one golf story before this season. Now, it has slipped to the fifth.

Rex Hoggard says the league is just background noise for many. The novelty has worn off, and people are looking at other things. No LIV player won a major trophy during the 2025 season. This lack of success makes the league feel like an even smaller exhibition.

LIV is now signing players like Victor Perez and Laurie Canter instead. These are good pros, but they do not move the needle like their glorious past signings, such as Brooks Koepka, John Rahm, or Dustin Johnson.

LIV must fix these problems to stay alive in the US market. The upcoming contract for Bryson DeChambeau will be a massive test. If he leaves, too, the league might face a total collapse.

But before that, the LIV Golf has three other fires to put out.

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3 urgent fixes LIV Golf needs to make to avoid further exits

World ranking access matters more than novelty for many pros. LIV’s switch to 72 holes aimed to fix that problem, but structural doubts remain.

Scott O’Neil promised a fix by the end of this month. But the promise isn’t enough; the league must publish clear steps to secure consistent OWGR points and show how players can qualify for majors through LIV results. Without that guarantee, expect more players to choose legacy pathways instead.

Viewership for the Rebel Tour is still lower than the PGA.

The PGA Tour gets over two million viewers on a normal weekend. LIV peaks at much lower numbers, even with its big team events. Brooks Koepka even voiced that fans skip LIV because it is boring. New TV deals in the UK and Germany might help a little. But the league still struggles to find American eyes for its product. Lack of ‘eyeballs’ means a lack of real sponsors.

Players joined LIV for more family time, but its 2026 calendar requires extreme travel compared to a typical PGA Tour season.

Reports show the LIV 2026 schedule includes trips to Australia, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, and the U.K. Players will spend over 200 hours in the air to cover 102,105 miles. On the other hand, PGA layers have spent only 90 hours across 37,000 miles, even when they participate in more grinding 20-25 events in a year. That strain runs counter to the family-time argument many players used to justify joining.

While not all the fixes are possible in a single season, and LIV cannot reveal every number, it can provide ranges, roster rules, and cap structure. That simple transparency would transform the offseason into a story engine.