There’s a version of the LIV Golf story that focuses only on the losses. Billions of Saudi dollars spent, questions around long-term sustainability, players trading legacy for guaranteed money, and a league many critics claimed people didn’t care enough to watch. That narrative has been told repeatedly. But it only captures part of the picture and arguably the easiest part to write.
The more interesting version starts with a thesis. The USA is the largest television sports market on earth and the largest sponsorship market in any sport, full stop. Roughly $220 billion of annual sports media and marketing flows through 340 million Americans. Every credible American property, from the NFL to the PGA Tour, is built around capturing as much of that pie as possible. LIV Golf, from day one, decided to bet the other way. The pitch internally was simple. Would you rather build a business for 340 million people or for the 7.5 billion who do not live in the United States. LIV chose the 7.5 billion.
The second idea behind LIV was one Greg Norman pushed for years and Scott O’Neil has continued in a more measured way. Traditional golf, structurally, has long felt like a country club product - formal, slow, older, and often difficult for new fans to follow. LIV’s belief was that the sport could be reimagined for a wider audience. Shotgun starts kept action happening across the course at the same time. Music, team formats, and post-round concerts created a more entertainment-driven atmosphere. Tickets were priced to feel accessible rather than exclusive. Internally, the concept was simple: make golf louder. More broadly, the ambition was bigger - turn professional golf into something easier to understand, easier to follow, and more appealing to people who had never committed to watching four hours of a traditional Sunday round.
Both ideas have a reasonable case behind them, even if neither has fully delivered yet. LIV has not clearly succeeded in commercial terms, but it is also too early to call the entire project a failure. The bigger question for the future of professional golf is not whether LIV worked or didn’t. It is understanding which parts of the model were fundamentally right, which strategic decisions missed the mark, and what the league could realistically become once Saudi funding is no longer part of the equation after 2026.
LIV bet on 7.5 billion people instead of 340 million. The bet has not paid yet. That does not make it the wrong bet. It makes it the harder one.
What follows is a closer look at the numbers behind LIV Golf - where the money went, what has come back, and how the league is actually performing in 2025 and 2026 covering viewership, sponsorships, broadcast reach, and the markets where LIV has gained traction versus where it still struggles. It also explores both sides of the argument: whether LIV has helped golf or disrupted it, and what structural changes will decide its future.
The world is bigger than the United States.
The US remains the most valuable sports market in the world, which is why the PGA Tour doubled down on America through media deals worth roughly $700 million annually. LIV looked at the same landscape differently. It saw underserved golf markets across Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Africa, and Europe, regions that lacked a truly global professional golf product.
LIV’s belief was that building for international fans first could create greater long-term value than relying on one dominant market. It is a strategy that mirrors how sports properties like the Formula One, the Premier League, and the National Basketball Association expanded globally. Whether LIV has had the patience, structure, and time to make that vision work is a question, to which th answer so far has been, No. But the global-first idea itself remains one of the strongest arguments behind the entire project.
Golf, but for everyone.
The second LIV bet was cultural rather than purely commercial. Traditional golf can be difficult for casual fans to follow - long broadcasts, complex leaderboards, and a format that often assumes viewers already understand the sport. That has contributed to golf having one of the oldest audiences in American sport and weaker reach in newer markets.
LIV tried to simplify and modernize the experience. Shotgun starts kept action happening across the course at once. Shorter formats, team identities, music, fan zones, and family-friendly pricing made events feel closer to entertainment experiences than traditional tournaments. Events like Adelaide showed that approach could resonate in markets not historically seen as major golf audiences.
The key question is whether that audience can turn into a sustainable business over time. But LIV identified a real accessibility gap in golf and built a product aimed directly at solving it. The league was not designed for traditionalists, it was built to attract people who had never felt golf was for them.
Keep both ideas in mind throughout the rest of this report. LIV’s biggest criticisms - its spending, format, political ties, and audience challenges make more sense when judged against what the league was actually trying to build, rather than the version many critics assumed it was chasing.