Dem
47
GOP
53
Some people do not like LIV Golf, the rival to the PGA Tour, because it is funded by blood money from the Saudis. Others do not like LIV Golf because it's been embraced warmly by Donald Trump, whose golf courses have played host to a sizable percentage of the tour's American events. Still others say: "Why do I have to choose? I hate LIV Golf for both reasons."
The LIV Golf anti-fans, of which there are many, got some good news in the last week or so. It turns out that the wheels are coming off the tour, which is hemorrhaging money. Although it developed a moderate fanbase in some places (South Africa, Australia, South Korea), it never caught on in the United States. And it also never managed to land a TV contract with any meaningful value. And so, the Saudis have announced they're pulling their money at the end of this season. LIV might possibly survive as some sort of boutique tour—maybe it could be the official golf tour of the boutique social media site Truth Social. But its days as a David trying to slay the PGA Goliath are over.
Even back when LIV golf started—and we wrote about it at the time—it was hard to understand what "success" would look like, or how it could ever be in reach. The star golfers the tour recruited, like Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, were being paid absolutely exorbitant salaries, in line with an NFL quarterback, not a player in an upstart golf league. There just aren't enough golf fans out there to support that.
What that meant was that the difference between "what the league takes in" and "what the league costs" was being covered by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. That made LIV an exercise in PR—or, to use a more instructive term, sportswashing. But we never really understood how that was supposed to work, either. How was a niche golf tour supposed to change a substantial number of hearts and minds in the U.S. and elsewhere? And, if so, to what end? Frankly, a much cheaper PR move would have been to NOT kill Jamal Khashoggi in brutal fashion. Once that ship had sailed, well, it seems pretty clear that the Saudis figured out the $2 billion they gave to First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner to manage, while paying him a grossly above-market rate for his "services," was a way better investment than the $5 billion they blew through on their golf scheme.
As a bonus, the star players that LIV recruited are, by and large, world-class a**holes. The PGA offered a small handful of LIV stars the opportunity to return, but with significant penalties. Koepka took the deal, the others did not. And now, the PGA will be the only game in town, and will have all the cards. So, DeChambeau, Rahm, et al., are gonna have to dance if they want to return.
Meanwhile, it's yet another entry for the lengthy list entitled "Everything Donald Trump touches turns to ash." (Z)