MIAMI — 5-time main champion Brooks Koepka admits he hoped the LIV Golf League could be additional alongside in its fourth season because it prepares to play its first match within the U.S. beginning Friday at Trump Nationwide Doral.
The breakaway circuit funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund [PIF] is present process a little bit of a reset with former Merlin Entertainments CEO Scott O’Neil changing Greg Norman, along with different management adjustments, in addition to a new broadcast deal with Fox within the U.S.
“I feel all of us hoped it might have been just a little bit additional alongside, and that is no secret,” Koepka mentioned Tuesday. “Regardless of the place you are at, you all the time hope the whole lot is additional alongside. However they’re making progress, and it appears to be moving into the suitable route.”
The league, which has staff and particular person competitions being performed concurrently, shotgun begins and 54-hole tournaments, did not see a bump in TV scores within the U.S. in its first 4 occasions in 2025, which had been performed in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
O’Neil, who replaced Norman as LIV Golf’s CEO on Jan. 15, is overseeing the league’s strategic imaginative and prescient, enterprise operations and world progress. Certainly one of his first duties in his first three months on the job was altering LIV Golf’s slogan from “Golf However Louder” to “Lengthy LIV Golf.”
O’Neil, 54, was beforehand the president of Madison Sq. Backyard Sports activities and oversaw operations of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers. He later managed the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils as CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports activities & Leisure earlier than taking on Merlin Entertainments, which operates theme parks and accommodations around the globe.
“There’s a spot for LIV Golf on the earth,” O’Neil informed ESPN on Tuesday. “That is one factor I’ve 100% dedicated to. I feel the notion of being the F1 of golf is actual. It is 100% actual. Auto racing is a very fascinating analogy as a result of within the U.S. you have obtained NASCAR and you have the [IndyCar] Collection, and then you definitely’ve obtained F1, they usually all work fairly nicely collectively.”
LIV Golf and the PGA Tour have not labored collectively since Norman disrupted the game by poaching a number of of the tour’s high stars, together with Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and others, with assured contracts reportedly price greater than $100 million.
The PGA Tour and the PIF sued one another in federal court docket, however the lawsuits had been dropped once they signed a framework settlement on June 6, 2023 to type an alliance that might reunify the game. That deal expired on the finish of 2023, however the sides have continued to attempt to hammer out a deal the previous two years.
PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumyyan met with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and participant administrators Tiger Woods and Adam Scott for greater than 4 hours at the White House on Feb. 20.
U.S. President Donald Trump additionally met with Monahan and Scott in Washington on Feb. 4. Trump owns the golf course the place LIV Golf is competing this week.
O’Neil is not part of the negotiations between the PIF and PGA Tour, however receives common updates from Al-Rumayyan. Sources have informed ESPN that staff golf’s place within the sport, and whether or not the LIV Golf League would proceed to be performed in its present type, are huge obstacles within the negotiations.
“The fact of the way in which I see the world is I see the LIV Golf League with quite a lot of hope and quite a lot of future,” O’Neil mentioned. “I hope that we discover a method to get extra alternatives to have the most effective gamers on the earth enjoying collectively. It won’t be in a pleasant, neat bow, or it is likely to be. We’ll see.”
O’Neil has been welcomed a bit greater than Norman was by golf’s institution. O’Neil will attend subsequent week’s Masters, the primary main of the season, after being invited by Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership. Norman, a three-time Masters runner-up, needed to buy tickets to attend the 2024 match. A dozen LIV Golfers are within the Masters area, together with 5 previous champions.
O’Neil declined to say whether or not LIV Golf has prolonged contracts for golfers who joined the circuit in its early days. O’Neil did level out that LIV Golf extended its contract with the South Australian state government to host a tournament at The Grange Golf Club in Adelaide through 2031. An estimated 100,000 followers attended the Australian match in every of the previous two seasons.
Bringing that pleasure to the U.S. is the following step. In keeping with printed stories, about 34,000 viewers watched the ultimate spherical of Joaquin Niemann‘s victory in Singapore on March 16 on FS1.
A median of about 3.6 million viewers (with a peak of 6.2 million) watched the ultimate spherical of the Gamers Championship on the identical day, and about 1.5 million tuned in to see Rory McIlroy defeat J.J. Spaun in a playoff at TPC Sawgrass the following day.
O’Neil referred to as the U.S. a “fairly saturated market,” and mentioned the league is doing nicely by way of viewership around the globe. He mentioned 2.5 million watched LIV Golf’s season opener in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 6-8.
“It is not that the details aren’t correct,” O’Neil mentioned. “It is simply we’re enjoying a special sport. Test our scores within the Center East. Test our scores in Europe after we’re enjoying there.
“I like the place we’re, like our positioning. I like being a world sports activities league. I feel that is completely different. I am comfortable to be held accountable for scores on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I am comfortable to take a beating, fairly frankly, if they are not excessive sufficient. No one can presumably be any extra crucial of us than us.”
