LIV Golf shows money can buy stars – but not fans

NEW YORK – LIV Golf’s existence has always depended on one thing: Saudi Arabia’s willingness to pay for it. Since 2021, the league has operated as if it had a blank cheque, buying up stars to play at lavish global events.

Total spending has exceeded US$5 billion (S$6.38 billion).

That largesse is now in question. Last week, there were reports that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund was reconsidering the investment.

LIV’s CEO, Scott O’Neil, told TNT Sports that the league is funded only to the end of the 2026 season, revealing the precarious situation. Previously, he told players it was funded at least till 2032.

The key question is whether LIV will have money to continue. A more important question is why US$5 billion has not been enough to transform the league into something more than a spectacle.

One answer is that LIV has been trying to buy the wrong thing. The real currency of sports is attachment to rivalries and histories. LIV bought attention and naturally expected attachment to follow. So far, it hasn’t.

Consider the competition. The PGA Tour was formed in 1968, but many of its events date back decades before that. Over time, as players return to compete in hallowed tournaments, they aren’t simply playing each other.

In the eyes of fans, they’re joining a standard and a legacy. The same events, the same courses, played year after year, teach spectators what matters and why.

LIV’s founders can be excused for thinking that the PGA Tour’s slow-burn fandom could be disrupted. By the late 2010s, even some of the top PGA players were publicly voicing frustration with the state of the game.

Rory McIlroy complained about the slow pace of play and Bubba Watson said it was “stale”.

LIV debuted in 2022 with a faster format designed to make golf more palatable to the age of short-form video attention spans.

But, above all, LIV bet on star power. Money was no object.

During its first season, the league offered record prizes, including a US$50 million team championship purse. It also poached PGA Tour players with massive guaranteed contracts. In 2023, former world No. 1 Jon Rahm received a deal reportedly worth over US$300 million.

The business logic was straightforward: In today’s highlight-driven sports culture, fans follow stars. So if LIV wanted to become relevant (and stay that way), it needed enough stars to draw attention.

It worked – briefly. Each player poached from the PGA Tour generated headlines (and outrage). But LIV and its backers failed to understand that watching a group of stars isn’t the same as caring about what happens to them.

For many fans, the most pressing question around Rahm wasn’t whether he could uphold the standard of play he’d established on the PGA Tour. It was whether he’d sold his soul for a league that few golf fans were watching.

Viewership numbers tell the story well. In February, LIV’s 2026 Riyadh opener averaged 23,000 US viewers across four days. That same weekend, the PGA Tour’s Phoenix Open averaged 3.1 million.

LIV’s missteps aren’t unique to golf. China decided to spend heavily on becoming a global football superpower in the 2010s.

During the 2017 winter transfer window, clubs in the Chinese Super League collectively outspent Premier League clubs, and Shanghai SIPG even signed Brazilian star Oscar away from Chelsea.

The strategy drew global attention, but China’s football clubs had shallow roots in their communities, and the money did little to build real loyalty.

When the real estate bubble fuelling much of the spending burst, so did China’s football boom. Many clubs, including former champions, went bust.

In the aftermath, Chinese officials have shifted to a slower, more sustainable model focused on domestic players and long-term development. Fandom, they’ve learnt the hard way, can’t be rushed.

For governments that don’t want to slowly build something from the ground up, there is another option.

In 2008, Abu Dhabi United Group, an investment group connected to Abu Dhabi’s royal family, purchased Manchester City.

The company didn’t try to create fandom from nothing. Instead, they invested in an existing fan base and a league that’s followed globally. The money bought success and enduring attention because the rivalries and the stakes were already there.

LIV never had that luxury. And now it seems likely that Saudi Arabia will soon stop funding the league.

What will be left behind if it does? Without a dedicated fan base, the league may have little to show beyond receipts for its spending. It’s an expensive lesson.