August 6, 2026

Golf LIV-es to Fight Another Day

The league will remain on Fox after securing an unnamed lead investor

August 6, 2026

BEDMINSTER, N.J. — LIV Golf is staying on Fox Sports after the league secured a new investor to carry it into 2027 and beyond, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil told The Big Swing in a conversation after Tuesday’s press conference in Bedminster.

It’s a simple answer to one of many questions following O’Neil’s announcement that a lead investor has signed a term sheet — already approved by LIV’s board — “which will carry and fund LIV going forward.” Of everything left unresolved about LIV’s future — who the investor is, how much they’re putting in, and whether the Team Championship will take place in Detroit in a few weeks — the media rights deal is one asset outsiders can see and measure.

Fox Sports declined to comment when reached by The Big Swing.

An investor of weight

The topline news from Bedminster was the term sheet itself, which O’Neil called “very good news.” In a statement accompanying the announcement, he framed the lead investor as the anchor of a broader syndicate, not the whole solution: "We're also seeing strong interest from more than a dozen additional parties to potentially serve as minority investors, creating a multi-partner model built for long-term stability and growth."

Beyond that, he gave reporters almost nothing. When asked directly about the investor's identity and the size of the commitment, he said the league is "keeping the details of the deal, the investor, and much of what you might want to know in this second phase out of the media,” while also describing the party as an “investor of weight.”  Asked when a definitive agreement would be signed, O’Neil confirmed only that a timeframe has been agreed internally without naming it. In a statement following his comments, O’Neil said the league intends to enter a transaction in September, likely tied to the roughly $300 million LIV has been seeking since the Saudi Public Investment Fund confirmed in April it would stop funding the league after this season.

When asked point-blank whether a finalized deal means a 2027 season, O’Neil responded: “And ‘28 and ‘29 and ‘30,” the clearest runway LIV has offered publicly since the PIF news broke.

O’Neil was similarly candid about what the new capital buys the league structurally: LIV will become majority player-owned, which he described as unprecedented “in the history of sports.” Players are being walked through equity and vesting for the first time, and the league is returning some NIL rights to them as part of the arrangement. That framing does deserve a caveat: Professional Bull Riders was founded in 1992 by 20 riders who each put up $1,000 to build an athlete-owned tour. It stayed fully rider-owned before Spire Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in 2007, and what was then WME-IMG bought the tour outright in 2015.

The more precise version of O’Neil’s claim: an outside investor granting majority equity to players already competing in an established league, through a recapitalization rather than a founding round — a mechanism PBR’s riders never needed, since they built their tour themselves.

The Fox problem

LIV’s Fox Sports deal, signed in January 2025, hasn’t been a ratings juggernaut for the media company. The league averaged 338,000 viewers across 17 Fox telecasts in its first season on the broadcast network, with cable windows on FS1 and FS2 mostly drawing under 100,000 viewers. 

This year’s Riyadh opener drew an average of 23,000 viewers over four days on the two cable networks and Fox Business, barely above the 19,000 it drew over three days the year before. For comparison, the final round of the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage on CBS drew 4.36 million viewers — roughly 190 times the 2026 Riyadh average, and roughly 13 times LIV’s season-long average across all 17 Fox broadcasts. Fox’s rights fee to LIV has been described in reporting as “modest,” with the actual dollar figure never disclosed.

Fox’s own promotional materials reflect that seemingly low priority. The company’s PressPass properties page, which lists every league and event Fox actively markets to press and advertisers, includes college basketball, college football, the World Cup, IndyCar, MLB, NASCAR, the NFL, NYRA horse racing, soccer and the UFL. LIV Golf isn't publicized on the page, even though the deal is active and, according to O'Neil, isn't going anywhere.

Given that track record, a new investor group could have had every reason to treat the Fox deal as a renegotiation point, or even as an exit ramp toward a cheaper streaming-first model (the kind of move a lot of struggling media properties make when ratings don’t justify the linear-TV overhead). 

The new money appears aimed at stabilizing what’s already built — media rights deal included — while the more urgent work like closing the investment, sorting out the Michigan event, and retaining stars like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm plays out elsewhere.

The bigger picture

None of this resolves a major underlying issue for LIV: a media deal with weak ratings and an undisclosed, likely modest rights fee that was never going to be the mechanism that closes a roughly $250-to-$350 million funding gap — the amount LIV has reportedly been seeking since the PIF, which had put an estimated $5 to $6 billion into the league since 2022, confirmed it would stop funding LIV after this season. 

Staying on Fox won't meaningfully move LIV's revenue line either way, but it likely signals to players, partners and its own new investor that at least one part of the business is staying put.

[Editor's note: LIV's comments to The Big Swing on its Fox Sports deal were made in a pull-aside conversation following Tuesday's press conference and are paraphrased, not a direct quote.]

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BEDMINSTER, N.J. — LIV Golf is staying on Fox Sports after the league secured a new investor to carry it into 2027 and beyond, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil told The Big Swing in a conversation after Tuesday’s press conference in Bedminster.

It’s a simple answer to one of many questions following O’Neil’s announcement that a lead investor has signed a term sheet — already approved by LIV’s board — “which will carry and fund LIV going forward.” Of everything left unresolved about LIV’s future — who the investor is, how much they’re putting in, and whether the Team Championship will take place in Detroit in a few weeks — the media rights deal is one asset outsiders can see and measure.

Fox Sports declined to comment when reached by The Big Swing.

An investor of weight

The topline news from Bedminster was the term sheet itself, which O’Neil called “very good news.” In a statement accompanying the announcement, he framed the lead investor as the anchor of a broader syndicate, not the whole solution: "We're also seeing strong interest from more than a dozen additional parties to potentially serve as minority investors, creating a multi-partner model built for long-term stability and growth."

Beyond that, he gave reporters almost nothing. When asked directly about the investor's identity and the size of the commitment, he said the league is "keeping the details of the deal, the investor, and much of what you might want to know in this second phase out of the media,” while also describing the party as an “investor of weight.”  Asked when a definitive agreement would be signed, O’Neil confirmed only that a timeframe has been agreed internally without naming it. In a statement following his comments, O’Neil said the league intends to enter a transaction in September, likely tied to the roughly $300 million LIV has been seeking since the Saudi Public Investment Fund confirmed in April it would stop funding the league after this season.

When asked point-blank whether a finalized deal means a 2027 season, O’Neil responded: “And ‘28 and ‘29 and ‘30,” the clearest runway LIV has offered publicly since the PIF news broke.

O’Neil was similarly candid about what the new capital buys the league structurally: LIV will become majority player-owned, which he described as unprecedented “in the history of sports.” Players are being walked through equity and vesting for the first time, and the league is returning some NIL rights to them as part of the arrangement. That framing does deserve a caveat: Professional Bull Riders was founded in 1992 by 20 riders who each put up $1,000 to build an athlete-owned tour. It stayed fully rider-owned before Spire Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in 2007, and what was then WME-IMG bought the tour outright in 2015.

The more precise version of O’Neil’s claim: an outside investor granting majority equity to players already competing in an established league, through a recapitalization rather than a founding round — a mechanism PBR’s riders never needed, since they built their tour themselves.

The Fox problem

LIV’s Fox Sports deal, signed in January 2025, hasn’t been a ratings juggernaut for the media company. The league averaged 338,000 viewers across 17 Fox telecasts in its first season on the broadcast network, with cable windows on FS1 and FS2 mostly drawing under 100,000 viewers. 

This year’s Riyadh opener drew an average of 23,000 viewers over four days on the two cable networks and Fox Business, barely above the 19,000 it drew over three days the year before. For comparison, the final round of the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage on CBS drew 4.36 million viewers — roughly 190 times the 2026 Riyadh average, and roughly 13 times LIV’s season-long average across all 17 Fox broadcasts. Fox’s rights fee to LIV has been described in reporting as “modest,” with the actual dollar figure never disclosed.

Fox’s own promotional materials reflect that seemingly low priority. The company’s PressPass properties page, which lists every league and event Fox actively markets to press and advertisers, includes college basketball, college football, the World Cup, IndyCar, MLB, NASCAR, the NFL, NYRA horse racing, soccer and the UFL. LIV Golf isn't publicized on the page, even though the deal is active and, according to O'Neil, isn't going anywhere.

Given that track record, a new investor group could have had every reason to treat the Fox deal as a renegotiation point, or even as an exit ramp toward a cheaper streaming-first model (the kind of move a lot of struggling media properties make when ratings don’t justify the linear-TV overhead). 

The new money appears aimed at stabilizing what’s already built — media rights deal included — while the more urgent work like closing the investment, sorting out the Michigan event, and retaining stars like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm plays out elsewhere.

The bigger picture

None of this resolves a major underlying issue for LIV: a media deal with weak ratings and an undisclosed, likely modest rights fee that was never going to be the mechanism that closes a roughly $250-to-$350 million funding gap — the amount LIV has reportedly been seeking since the PIF, which had put an estimated $5 to $6 billion into the league since 2022, confirmed it would stop funding LIV after this season. 

Staying on Fox won't meaningfully move LIV's revenue line either way, but it likely signals to players, partners and its own new investor that at least one part of the business is staying put.

[Editor's note: LIV's comments to The Big Swing on its Fox Sports deal were made in a pull-aside conversation following Tuesday's press conference and are paraphrased, not a direct quote.]

Never Too Late

The road to success – at any age – is paved with hard work and belief.

I know I’m inviting disaster by saying this, but I’m playing the best golf of my life. Over the last few years I’ve steadily gotten better. I guess it makes sense: I’ve taken the game a little bit more seriously in recent years, and I’ve also taken it as an article of faith that my best days are ahead.

But let’s be real here: Even though I think of myself as young – which I suppose I am in relation to some others – the (sad) fact is I know fewer and fewer of the words to popular songs these days, and I couldn’t even imagine playing golf without popping a few Advil.

The dark realization that I may have been deluding myself about what lies ahead for me in the game was very depressing – until I considered my friend David Novak and his life in golf.

In July, he became the oldest person ever to win the club championship at Shinnecock, taking down a two-time champion in the final who was 22 years his junior. A couple of weeks later, he finished birdie-eagle across the street at National to shoot his age – 69.

"I had 10 days of Walter Mitty golf," he says.

Well, yes and no. David is a 1.2 Index, and it’s not exactly shocking for people with that type of credential to win a club championship. But as the great broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say: Now – the rest of the story.

Novak, the son of a government surveyor, lived in 23 different states by the time he was in seventh grade and didn’t really take up the game seriously until he was 40. He had just moved to Wilton, Conn., to run sales and marketing for PepsiCo and joined Silver Spring Country Club.

"I was only allowed to play once a month," he says, "so I spent all my time on the range. That first summer I couldn’t get the ball off the ground. It was terrible."

Although he slowly improved, Novak’s handicap still languished between 10 and 12 for a few years. "I practiced so much," he says, "I thought I should have been better."

When he became CEO of YUM Brands, he found himself traveling more and practicing less: not exactly a prescription for improvement.

"I went out to play in the AT&T one year at Pebble Beach," he says, "and I bet I shot 120 – or at least it felt like that. I wanted to quit the game."

The Pivot Point

The pivot point came when he started working a few years ago with Jason Goldsmith – not a golf professional, but a performance coach who helped him with his "process." Among other things, he helped him to stop being “outcome focused.”

"I was thinking about what I wanted to happen instead of thinking about what I needed to do to make it happen."

Splitting his life into three parts – family, work, and golf – he committed to the third element with the same kind of passion he had for the first two, and seemingly always with an instructor by his side. "I’m a golf professional’s dream," he says. "I hate hitting balls alone."

The Shinnecock championship was a fairy tale. When his grandchildren (how many club champions are old enough to even have grandchildren?) asked if they should “go watch Ogo” – that’s what they call him – his wife Wendy, who’d been battling health issues, sent them off to the July 4th parade.

"You guys go," she told the kids. "I’m gonna go watch my man."

"When I won, everyone was crying," Novak says. "My wife, my daughter, I even think Silas (Anthony, his opponent) was crying."

So how did a guy who grew up playing baseball and was the 13th seed in the tournament get “paint on the board” at one of the most famous golf clubs in the world?

"It’s about the questions you ask yourself," says Novak, who these days is a celebrated author and podcaster and has made a second career out of examining leadership. "It’s not about: am I ever going to reach my potential? It’s gotta be about: how am I going to reach my potential? Then you have to work hard – really hard – and put your ego aside. You can’t worry about what other people think."

In the end, it’s simpler than you might think:

“You become what you think you are.”

To me, David’s journey is fascinating – because it’s remarkable, but also because of something much more important.

It gives all of us hope.

Essay originally published in The Met Golfer, November/December 2022.  Special thanks to the Metropolitan Golf Association.

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