LIV Golf is hemorrhaging money. Last year, the league ran a 14-event global individual and team golf schedule with massive prize purses. However, after the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund pulled its backing in April, the breakaway league lost its footing. The financial fallout has followed the league’s players and officials to every stop since. Contractors have gone unpaid, lawsuits have piled up, and prize purses aren’t lucrative anymore. But CEO Scott O’Neil remains as steady as a rock.
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At a media conference ahead of LIV Golf Indianapolis, he was asked how he explains the crisis to players, GMs, and staff who read the same headlines as everyone else. O’Neil answered the question without flinching.
“Fortunately, we are in this one together. This group has been under enormous pressure. We don’t often control our destiny, and we are trying to do and be the best kind and type of people and partners that we built our careers on, our reputations on, our character on.
“That’s part of the reason I show up today, because we don’t run and we don’t hide. We just do what we can with what we have, and we are going to do the best we can with that.”
O’Neil’s answer was straightforward and honest — typical of his approach to crisis management. He has stayed positive throughout the crisis all year. In June, he told CNBC he trusted PIF “at their word” and called the league “full steam” ahead, even as the funding cliff neared. Weeks later, PIF was gone, but he kept describing investor meetings as positive while touring private equity firms and family offices for cash. Calm reassurance has perhaps become his default response, whatever the headline may be.
But the 2026 season tells a starkly different story. The situation is grimmer than last year. The 2025 season ran a full 14-event schedule with $20 million individual purses most weeks and a $50 million team championship in Michigan. A record of 61 players competed in the events. That version of LIV closed with Jon Rahm sweeping the individual title for a third straight year.
On April 30, 2026, PIF announced it would not fund LIV after recurring losses, and chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan stepped down from the board. PIF has invested more than $5 billion in the league since 2022, with estimates running as high as $8 billion. But with the financial backing pulling out, the strain was visible. As of this year, the league faces three financial lawsuits.
Mobii Systems sued it for $1.1 million in unpaid licensing fees. Fresh Tape Media followed it with a $1.23 million claim over unpaid production work. A third suit from World Golf Group and Premier Golf League seeks up to $630 million, alleging LIV infringed on their league model. Charles Howell III confirmed this month that players still have not been paid for LIV New York, even two weeks after the event ended.
The damage is visible on the schedule. New Orleans was cancelled. The $40 million Michigan Team Championship was also cut. That, as a ripple effect, has directly affected the players. Yet, in the press conference, Scott O’Neil addresses that the league aims to be “player-owned, commercially disciplined, globally relevant, built to last.”
What comes next? O’Neil was clear that the team had spent 10 days writing a new plan to earn profits and shrink costs. Whether that discipline arrives in time is still an open question.