LIV Golf opens 2025 season with no significant additions to player roster; new CEO, FOX TV deal

Posted by author January 31, 2025 Golf

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LIV Golf was in a position of power one year ago as it prepared for another season.

Fresh off the signing of the PGA Tour’s Jon Rahm and fellow European star Tyrrell Hatton, the league backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had the tour scrambling once again wondering when the poaching would stop.

Now, as LIV prepares for its fourth season, perhaps it’s symbolic that its first tournament, which starts Thursday, will be under the lights at night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Because while the league made changes off the course, replacing Greg Norman with a new CEO and signing a television deal with Fox Sports that may or may not add significant money to the more than $900 billion in the PIF’s war chest, the exodus of PGA Tour stars has gone dark.

Other than insignificant changes at the bottom of its 54-man full-time roster, LIV Golf starts 2025 with no additions. This for the league that has struggled for viewership and credibility.

Thus, the move at the top with longtime sports executive Scott O’Neil replacing Norman, the Palm Beach Gardens resident who launched the rival league to the PGA Tour in 2022. Now, Norman is stepping aside as LIV continues its attempt to become more relevant in the golf ecosystem.

Greg Norman lured Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka

Norman helped launch LIV by luring big names such as Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Jupiter’s Brooks Koepka, Jupiter’s Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Rahm, who could not refuse the PIF offering more than $100 million.

And even if the actual golf has not moved the needle, LIV certain got the attention of the PGA Tour, which responded by increasing prize money and points available to its players through signature events and the Player Impact Program.

The 2025 season, though, is the beginning of a new era for LIV that will be defined by O’Neil.

“I think having an outsider … could be a very good thing when it comes to him sitting down at the table with the other governing bodies,” Rahm said. “I think an outside perspective, and maybe a less threatening image, might help that, as well.”

LIV was gaining momentum through the second half of 2023 after PIF leader Yasir Al-Rumayyan and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan made the stunning announcement of a framework agreement to combine commercial businesses and rights into a new for-profit company, and dropping all lawsuits.

Then came the Rahm signing six months later, giving LIV more juice as the initial Dec. 31, 2023, deadline to close a deal passed without an agreement.

Now, as we reach 20 months without a deal, reports still persist that an agreement is coming. But many remain skeptical, even with O’Neil aboard.

Rory McIlroy, LIV’s biggest antagonist among tour players, softened his criticism after the original agreement and at times has expressed optimism about the two sides uniting. But McIlroy recently expressed his disappointment with reports that fellow Northern Irelander, 22-year-old Tom McKibbin, would be joining LIV. McKibbin was raised at the same golf club as McIlroy and was being called “the next Rory McIlroy.”

McIlroy, who lives in Jupiter, told McKibbin, “if I were in your shoes, I would make a different choice than the one you’re thinking of making.”

McKibbin made it official Wednesday, joining Rahm’s LIV team.

Eugenio Chacarra: LIV only about money

The biggest issue when it comes to LIV’s reputation is its inability to secure Official World Golf Ranking points, which hinders its players’ ability to qualify for major championships.

LIV’s 54-hole, no-cut format does not meet the OWGR’s criteria to quality for world ranking points.

Eugenio Chacarra, who won his fifth LIV start after leaving Oklahoma State in 2022, now is leaving LIV. The 24-year-old Spaniard had one top-10 finish in 2023 and 2024 and earned more than $12.6 million in three years, not including a contract reported to be around $16 million.

But he’s disappointed by the broken promises and he realized money isn’t everything, especially when your career is taking a hit.

“I see what it’s like to win on the PGA Tour and how your life changes. How you get major access and ranking points,” Chacarra told “Flushing It” golf podcast. “On LIV, nothing changes, there is only money. It doesn’t matter if you finish 30th or first. Only money. I’m not a guy who wants more money. What will change my life is … qualifying for the majors, qualifying for the Masters, the Ryder Cup.

“When I joined LIV, they promised OWGR and majors. But it didn’t happen. I trusted them. But OWGR and majors still hasn’t happened.”

LIV is making a lot of guys very rich, including young unproven golfers, those way past their prime and especially those who are in the sweet spot of their careers like DeChambeau, Rahm, Koepka, Hatton, Smith, North Palm Beach’s Joaquin Niemann and others.

But that’s come with a cost to their reputations and legacies.

McIlroy: TGL doing better job than LIV with team golf

TGL, the indoor golf league created by McIlroy and Tiger Woods, has gotten off to a successful start inside its Palm Beach Gardens-based arena. Although the tech-infused league is unique and cannot be compared to anything played in fresh air and on thick, green grass, it does share the same team concept as LIV Golf.

And McIlroy believes TGL is beating LIV at its own game.

“I think that’s what TGL has done maybe a little bit better to connect with certain fan bases than, say, LIV, for example,” McIlroy said about TGL’s team concept.

TGL launched with everything LIV had hoped for when it comes to the business model:

Billionaires investing $50 million or more for one of six franchises with expansion expected in Year 2. LIV originally was throwing around $100 million tags to own one of its franchises and to date has not announced one sale. Instead, team captains have an ownership stake and run each franchise.

A legitimate major television agreement in Year 1 like TGL has with ESPN.

A deep pool of world-class golfers that includes seven of the top 10 in the current world rankings and half of the top 30.

A list of popular brands as sponsors and licensing partners.

LIV got none of that, although it took the necessary step of moving on from the CW network and signing a multiyear rights agreement with Fox Sports starting this season.

“LIV Golf is getting bigger and bolder, and this relationship signals the next phase of growth as our league joins the company of the nation’s premier sports leagues and conferences,” O’Neil said in a statement when the deal with Fox was announced.

O’Neil’s statement that “LIV Golf is drawing a younger, more active and tech-savvy fan base,” is where TGL is thriving one month into its existence.

TGL, playing its matches on Monday and Tuesday nights, is averaging 874,000 viewers through its first four weeks. LIV Golf’s 2024 individual championship, held Sept. 13-15 in Dallas and won by Rahm, drew 89,000 viewers on Sunday when it was up against the NFL, and 134,000 on Saturday when it was opposite college football.

LIV season starts Feb. 6 in Saudi Arabia under the lights

Looking to get a boost from its first Fox telecast, LIV’s opening week at Riyadh Golf Club will be at night. The shotgun start is at 10:15 a.m. EST, 6:15 p.m. in Riyadh.

The 2025 season opens with four international events – Saudi Arabia, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore – before its first U.S. tournament at Trump National Doral April 4-6, the week before the Masters.

This is the fourth straight year LIV will hold an event at Donald Trump’s course just outside Miami, the first while he is the sitting president.

The season includes eight international and six domestic events concluding with the Aug. 22-24 team championship in Plymouth, Michigan.

“To be able to watch LIV Golf on a channel that for the better part should be pretty much (on) every TV in the country, it’s very good,” Rahm said. “Looking forward to hopefully improving (ratings) some years. A lot of improvement this year.”

Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

Feb. 6-8: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh Golf Club

Feb 14-16:: Adelaide, Australia, The Grange Golf Club

March 7-9: Hong Kong, Hong Kong Golf Club

March 14-16: Singapore, Sentosa Golf Club

April 4-6: Miami, Trump National Doral

April 25-27: Naucalpan, Mexico, Club de Golf Chapultepec

May 2-4: Incheon, South Korea, Jack Nicklaus Golf Course

June 6-8: Washington, Robert Trent Jones Golf Club

June 27-29: Dallas, Maridoe Golf Club

July 11-13: Andalucía, Spain, Real Club Valderrama

July 25-27: Rochester, England, JCB Golf & Country Club