LIV Golf Scrambles to Change Leadership as Yasir Al-Rumayyan Departs

The league has set up an independent board of directors in an attempt to find more investors as it strives to continue playing past this year.

LIV Golf has set up an independent board of directors. | Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

Amid considerable uncertainty and the acknowledged loss of its financial benefactor, the LIV Golf League is quickly attempting to pivot and forge ahead on its own.

League officials announced Thursday that they have set up an independent board of directors with official word expected from the Public Investment Fund that the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund will no longer support the golf endeavor beyond this year.

Sports Business Journal reported Wednesday that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF and the chairman of LIV Golf, is stepping down from his role.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday what it and other outlets disclosed two weeks ago while the league was in Mexico City—the PIF was set to drop its funding, believed to be in excess of $5 billion to this point, after this season, putting the league’s future in peril.

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil acknowledged at the time the league would have to find its own funding and investment sources beyond this year to continue past a fifth season that is scheduled to go on next week at LIV Golf Virginia but has already seen the circuit lose an event over money squabbles that was to be played in late June in New Orleans.

Eugene Davis and Jon Zinman were named to LIV’s board on Thursday in an attempt to find more investment.

Davis is the chairman and chief executive officer of PIRINATE Consulting Group, which LIV said is a privately held consulting firm “specializing in turnaround management, merger and acquisition consulting, restructuring, and strategic advisory services for public and private business entities.”

Zinman is the founder and managing member of JZ Advisors LLC, an independent strategic advisory firm that LIV said serves “companies across industry and life cycle, typically engaging at a time of transformation with a focus on maximizing the company’s go-forward growth potential.”

The task ahead is daunting. LIV Golf, with its $30 million tournament purses, is said to spend in excess of $40 million per event without the backing of a significant television media rights deal and title sponsorship.

It boasts bringing on sponsors such as HSBC, Qualcomm, Under Armour, Rolex and others while increasing year-over-year revenue, and has found success in international markets such as Australia and South Africa. But it has failed to gain widespread traction and is likely looking at restructuring, including the possibility of reducing tournaments.

LIV Golf appears committed to its team format and its 13-team franchises are still viewed as a potential lucrative revenue source as the expectation all along has been to sell them, reap the revenue from those teams, and let them operate on their own as franchises.

Although there have been inquiries among players and their representatives about pathways back to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour—Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed left LIV Golf prior to this season—those remaining, including Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, are expected to express their support for the league and its future.

LIV Golf’s seventh event of the year is scheduled to take place next week at Trump National D.C. followed by a tournament at the end of May in South Korea and then a week later in Spain.