Sports
LIV Golf Relaunch Plan Collapses After Failing to Attract Enough Players
The professional golf circuit will now seek to liquidate its remaining assets following the withdrawal of its primary financial backer and a mass exodus of talent.
By Headlinne · Compiled from reporting by Sportsnet.ca, TSN and BBC
LIV Golf is set to wind down its operations after BC Partners Credit abandoned plans to finance a successor league due to insufficient player commitments for the 2027 season.
The private capital firm had pledged as much as $300 million to support the venture, known as LIV 2.0, but failed to secure the necessary roster to move forward.
The collapse of the relaunch effort follows the league's bankruptcy filing in September and the decision by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to cease funding after the 2026 season.
The failure marks a significant turning point for the circuit, which spent over $5 billion since its 2022 launch to challenge the established professional golf ecosystem.
“But we also have to protect the tour against an entity who spent, so we are told, over $7 billion, with one of their aims being to ‘destroy the DP World Tour,’” said Guy Kinnings, the European tour CEO.
The league faced a deadline last Sunday to demonstrate it could field a viable roster for 2027, but reports indicate it failed to reach the required threshold of player support.
While some reports suggested 30 players were willing to stay, others indicated the firm received only 15 firm commitments, leaving the project without the necessary star power to proceed.
The European tour further complicated the league's efforts by announcing that any player joining the new circuit would be ineligible for membership, effectively barring them from the Ryder Cup.
High-profile departures have already depleted the league's ranks, with players including Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, and Tyrrell Hatton confirming they would not remain with the organization.
“There hasn't been anything presented to me that is agreeable for LIV 2.0,” said Lee Westwood, one of the first major players to join the circuit in 2022.
LIV Golf is expected to inform a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge during a hearing on Thursday that the proposal for the new league is no longer viable.
The hearing will now shift focus toward the liquidation of the company's remaining assets, according to reports citing the shift in the court's agenda.
Reporting from
- Sportsnet.ca
Report: LIV's financial backer dropping plan for new league in 2027
- TSN
BC Partners Credit abandons LIV Golf relaunch
- BBC NewsNot politically framed
LIV Golf to wind down after backers withdraw support
How this article was made: Headlinne wrote it with AI from the 3 reports listed above. Direct quotes are checked word for word against those reports, every number appears in at least one of them, and no other sentence is copied from one. Photos are from those reports and credited to them. Each report’s page on Headlinne links to the outlet’s original.