LIV Golf's new CEO excited for potential PIF investment with PGA Tour, sees momentum for league

LIV Golf’s new CEO excited for potential PIF investment with PGA Tour, sees momentum for league

Posted by author February 12, 2025 Golf

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It’s a big week for LIV Golf.

The league is in Adelaide at The Grange Golf Club for its second event of the year, but more importantly, LIV Golf Adelaide has become the Saudi-backed tour’s largest and most popular event, one that it hopes can springboard it to success after a lackluster season debut in Riyadh last week.

Only 31,000 people tuned into the final round broadcast on FS2 to watch Adrian Meronk win, a number that won’t come close to the amount of Aussie’s on the ground in Adelaide this week.

The start of 2025 had by far the least amount of interest from fans for what’s going on in LIV Golf, which started its third league season last year and fourth overall. This comes on the heels of the league not making any significant signings in the offseason for the first time, instead making more behind-the-scenes moves to prepare for the future.

One of those moves was replacing Greg Norman as CEO and hiring Scott O’Neil, a sports industry veteran with plenty of experience running successful operations in almost every venture he touched, but golf isn’t one of those.

His first few weeks on the job have been busy. He helped negotiate the new TV contract with Fox, assisted in LIV Golf opening under the lights in Riyadh and more. He also joins the professional golf landscape in the midst of the PGA Tour and Public Investment Fund negotiations.

When asked about it on Wednesday at a press conference in Adelaide, O’Neil sees opportunity for LIV Golf because of the potential investment from PIF, which funds LIV Golf, in the PGA Tour.

“For us at LIV, we are hoping that that unlocks opportunity,” O’Neil said. “That may unlock opportunity with markets, with courses, with marketing partners, with television networks, with growing the game, with competition opportunities, with new formats.

“I grew up in New York, if you haven’t been able to tell so far by my funny accent, and the state motto is “Excelsior,” which means kind of onwards and upwards effectively, and we’re very excited about the potential investment with PIF and PGA Tour Enterprises.”

While specific details of the framework agreement between PGA Tour Enterprises and the PIF haven’t been announced, many have speculated on what it means for the future of LIV Golf.

O’Neil doesn’t see the league going away anytime soon. It’s part of the reason he decided to join, to help strengthen the league and grow it to have sustainable future around the globe.

“I always think about how do you look at other sports as models, and I think the Australian Open here is a good example with tennis. It’s a world-class event, and for a moment, the tennis world starts and stops here, and golf seems to be very centered on the United States,” O’Neil said. “Yet when you look at the golf world and you look at Australia and the UK and Hong Kong and Singapore and all the incredible cities where we’re blessed to go play, Riyadh last week, we’re taking the game to the world where golf fans around the world want to see the greatest players on the biggest stages.

“We feel like that is an opportunity. It’s a privilege and a bit of an obligation.”

O’Neil also spoke about LIV Golf’s TV deal and how the league will now be broadcast in 100 countries and territories in 2025, saying LIV Golf’s interest is continuing to grow across the world.

While that may be the case, the U.S. market remains one LIV Golf needs to be viable in to have long-term success and sustainability. So far in 2025, interest is as low as it has been since the league held its first event in 2022.

A positive for LIV Golf is the USGA and R&A announcing in recent weeks direct pathways into the majors for LIV Golf players, but even those aren’t guaranteed.

Yet from O’Neil’s standpoint, with everything going on in the professional world of golf, he sees LIV Golf in a place to succeed now and even more in the future.

“I see momentum. You don’t have to look too far from here to feel like we’re going to have the largest event in the history of LIV Golf here, right here in Adelaide,” O’Neil said. “From my perspective, we have incredible interest with television broadcast networks, which has been a bit of an achilles heel for us, sponsors, marketing partners as we call them, seems to be interest like the group has never seen before, attendance seems to be something that’s going in this trajectory.

“I’m excited about the (PGA Tour-PIF) agreement. I think that right now we are going to the moon and back, and I hope that’ll help as an accelerant, but I’m very confident in where we are in this business and the interest we have currently.”