I guess, someone has all the money in the world

General Discussion
#1

Former LIV Golf president and COO Atul Khosla told ESPN in October that the Public Investment Fund spent about $784 million bankrolling the circuit’s first season in 2022, including employee salaries, build-outs at tournaments and production costs for broadcasting LIV events on social media and its official website.

This statement did not include the future installment to the golfers promised in their contracts. Those golfers did not get all the bonus in one lump sum when they joined the LIV.
I hope they could collect the promised sum in full before the stage is shut down for the show.

2023 will be the do or die year for the new tour, not that the bankers will run out of funds but it will definitely be hurt if no revenue starts to roll in.

Zero revenue generated. This must have been the biggest party given to the invited guests on earth.

#2

As I understand it they make so much money that spending $800MM is not a big deal. Also many successful companies can take a while to be profitable. Not saying LIV Golf is the next Amazon, but everyone was trashing them for about 5 years before they started making money.

#3

One can have all the marbles in the world but, no one could sustain zero return on investment for the long haul.
I understand the message was, the backers committed 2 billions for the initial launch of the Tour. I suspect the cost of keeping it alive is over the halfway mark by now. The bleeding of $784 millions was at the point of October 2022. I wonder when they will start a review of the direction they’ll be taking before the initial funding runs out.
Yes, any new business take time to get footing and the larger the scale the more time it’ll need.
Amazon took billions in the drain and a decade before it finally come close to break even. And now it will face the crisis of increased shipping cost and compatibility of the products and services it carries.
Obviously, the LIV is on a much higher operation cost and sunk cost than the Amazon. The question will be, how long will the financier’s patience last?
The mistake the LIV had was to entrust someone whose style of industrialism does not fit into the modern age. Why do you think so many of the top management personnel left the LIV after just about one year?
Amazon had opened a new door for the way we consume. In the process ruined countless existing small to medium sized businesses.
It will not be dominating the future online business if it fails to evolve.
LIV will not have the continued support without any promising of a breakeven point at sometime in the near future.
I have no idea if someone is dumb enough to continue dumping money into a bottomless black hole.
It could have worked, it should have open the door for it and the existing Tours if they could approach it differently.
One has the dough, and one has the platform and a joint venture should benefit both sides.
LIV lack of fan support. which is the key of generating revenue in this industry, not just recruiting partial list of the top golfers. Failure to recognize the shape of the industry certainly made things rough.
No fan support, no revenue. This is not an industry which one could come in and tear down some old statues and rename streets.

#4

I agree it’s too bad they couldn’t have approached this in a better way. With a different plan and someone other than Norman at the helm, it’s quite possible they could have started something without starting a war with the PGA Tour.

I don’t care to watch, but I didn’t watch the XFL or other things like that either. I may not watch the Tiger, Rory thing that’s coming. I only have so much time in the day. But I am glad LIV was started. It forced the PGA Tour to make some changes and showed to those that hadn’t already noticed that the Tour is more dictatorial monopoly than charitable non-profit foundation.

2 Likes
#5

It depend on your point of view.
I would not call a parent trying to protect the family as dictatorship. Only the rebellious teens will think that way. We’d all been through that stage and amazingly most of us turned out to be okay.
Norman is a different case. IU have no idea if his up bringing had anything to do with his attitude toward being around the other. I did hear about his kindness to the needy in the past. That did not take away his mentality of take no prisoners method of negotiating.
He did not learn form the world golf tour back in 1994? He still want to wipe the tradition and the old system off the face of the earth. This time he thinks he carries a bigger sticks to convince the none believers.
Which is the majority of the golf fan.