Profitability isn’t easy, even in a sport as lucrative as golf; the only one, along with soccer, that can be considered an industry in Spain. The Spanish Open lost its main sponsor, Acciona, this year, and the offers on the table to replace it haven’t convinced Gerard Tsobanian, the CEO of the company that organizes both the Open and the Madrid Masters tennis tournament. “Nothing is free,” Tsobanian summarizes, referring to the complexity of balancing the books while simultaneously attracting stars like Jon Rahm each year.
Not even a bottomless pit like LIV, the Saudi league, can escape the balance sheets. In its case, it is precisely wasteful spending on contracts and prizes that has condemned the breakaway circuit, a challenger to the hegemony of the PGA Tour, to the red. According to The Athletic, LIV Golf Ltd., the UK company that manages the league’s tournaments outside the United States, lost $615 million in 2024. The hole is widening compared to $527 million in 2023 and $324 million in 2022, bringing the Saudi competition’s deficit to over $1.46 billion since its inception.
The huge checks written out to several big stars (Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio García, Joaquín Niemann, Cameron Smith, Rahm…) to switch sides and the hefty prize money awarded for each tournament of the season have not been offset. For example, in the television contracts, which last season barely contributed $3.2 million to LIV outside the United States, a pittance compared to what the American circuit earns annually in its home market: $700 million. The audiences for a competition with no historical background are not pulling their weight either.
After its fourth season, and with a new manager at the helm in Scott O’Neil, who has experience managing in the NBA, hockey, and the NFL, LIV seems determined to turn off the tap, or at least stem the flow. The PIF, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, is no longer emptying its pockets with blockbuster deals like the one Rahm landed, but instead is turning its attention to younger golfers to tempt.
Seven LIV players are competing this week in the Spanish Open, and all seven made the cut: Rahm, García, David Puig, Josele Ballester, Patrick Reed, Niemann, and Tom McKibbin. The national championship awards $3.25 million in prize money, a far cry from the $20 million each Saudi tournament offers. This, along with its extremely expensive contracts, is causing a financially ruinous business to bleed dry.
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