For four years and over $5 billion, Saudi Arabia’s PIF tried to buy the game of golf. Now, with the money spigot reportedly running dry, one PGA Tour pro is explaining why the hostile takeover was doomed from the start.
Michael Kim recently addressed the video of LIV CEO Scott O’Neil’s funding comments with a short but sharp response: “If there was that much money to be had internationally, the DP World Tour would have it and in a much better spot financially.”
Watching these people learn why almost all of the big events are in the US is going to be a very funny offshoot of all of this. https://t.co/HVbmDKsEeo
— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) April 17, 2026
His tweet gained traction because the logic is hard to argue with. The DP World Tour has run events across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe for decades. They are the exact markets LIV claimed to be unlocking and exploring. Yet it has still struggled to profit without outside support.
Still, O’Neil showed confidence and tried to restore stability in his staff with a memo. “I want to be crystal clear, our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” he wrote. However, the memo does not directly address whether the league would continue beyond this season. But how did LIV land here, especially after all the big promises?
LIV’s billions spent, with little to show for it in the U.S.
Regardless of whether LIV’s CEO wants to believe it, the numbers tell a brutal story. The tour’s UK entity has been hemorrhaging money, losing a staggering $590 million in 2024 on top of nearly $650 million in losses from the two years prior. This brings the total international deficit to $1.4 billion—a figure that doesn’t even account for U.S. operations or the total PIF investment, which has already crossed $5.3 billion.
The league has spent that money on a very specific bet: that star power could drive their audience. They signed contracts reportedly worth nine figures with players like Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Phil Mickelson to get them to leave the PGA Tour. The results? Well, they seem to be a little disappointing for LIV.
Across 17 Fox telecasts, LIV averaged just 338,000 viewers in 2025. In contrast, PGA Tour final round viewership over the same period averaged 2.6 million across 26 events on NBC and CBS, and that is a gap of roughly a 7:1 ratio. On weeks when both tours aired simultaneously, the difference was nearly 18:1, with the PGA Tour averaging 3.1 million viewers to LIV’s 175,000.
Events in Australia and South Africa also drew over 100,000 fans each, but the tour remained heavily reliant on PIF money amid mounting deficits. Attendance abroad was real, but the revenue was not. LIV failed to receive substantial media rights or ticketing revenues during its four years of existence.
And perhaps Kim is pointing at this exact gap. The DP World Tour is running on thin ice across those same international markets, relying on the Ryder Cup, which brings in roughly $110 million in revenue, and an annual investment from the PGA Tour to stay afloat.
While LIV’s future beyond 2026—whether through new investors, a restructuring, or a complete shutdown—is uncertain, one reality is now clear: the global golf market has been far harder to crack than advertised.
