Update [4/15/2026, 1:36 p.m. ET]: The Financial Times is now reporting Saudi Arabia’s PIF is “on the verge of cutting its support for LIV Golf.” An announcement on the tour’s future is expected as soon as Thursday.
The Saudi-funded LIV Golf league could be on its last legs.
That’s the rumor frenetically circulating the golf world right now, and we’re starting to see some real smoke. According to a report by James Corrigan in The Telegraph on Wednesday, “LIV Golf executives have been called to a meeting in New York as speculation mounts over a ‘seismic’ announcement being made by the Saudi-funded circuit.”
Rumors of a LIV shutdown caught fire on Tuesday after Ryan French, proprietor of the popular Monday Q Info account on X, suggested that “a bombshell announcement” on LIV’s future was imminent, and later said during an X Spaces livestream that he was near-certain the rogue tour would be shutting down.
Adding fuel to the fire, the LIV Golf media center was closed on Tuesday ahead of its planned event in Mexico City. It’s the first time in the tour’s four-year history that the media center had been closed in the lead-up to a tournament, per Corrigan, though “claims later surfaced of a power board not working.”
The Telegraph further reports that “not a single” LIV Golf executive was present on-site at its event on Tuesday because they were “all summoned to what was described as ‘an emergency summit’ in Manhattan.” However, the reason for the meeting “remains unclear.”
One LIV player contacted by The Telegraph expressed hope for a merger, either with the PGA Tour or DP World Tour, suggesting that these talks could be the result of meetings between tour officials last week at the Masters. However, there has been little prospect for a deal with the PGA Tour since it took on a multi-billion dollar investment from the Strategic Sports Group in 2024. And while a merger with the European-based DP World Tour has been rumored more recently, The Telegraph reports the Manhattan meeting has nothing to do with that.
That leaves few options for what such a hastily arranged meeting could possibly involve.
Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal astutely pointed out a story published Wednesday that Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the direct funding vehicle for LIV Golf, formally approved its strategy for 2026-2030. While the report does not directly discuss the future of LIV Golf, it does mention that PIF’s investments will focus on “ensur[ing] sustainable returns,” something that LIV has failed to do since its inception.
Operating losses in LIV Golf’s UK division alone totaled nearly $400 million in 2023. All the while, the tour has failed to catch hold from a viewership standpoint in the United States, regularly getting trounced by its PGA Tour competition in the ratings.
While the future of LIV Golf is firmly up in the air, the league continues to promote its scheduled event in Mexico City this weekend as normal.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.