My working title for this one was “the LIV is dead, long live LIV.” The first half is, on the reporting I found, accurate. The second half is where I got stuck, and I’ll get to it. First, the plain version of what happened to the most expensive breakaway league in golf history. Everything below is from news coverage through about November 5, 2026, so check the “what happens next” dates before you rely on them.
This is not betting or investment advice. I am describing what was reported. Where I give an opinion, I say so.
The Short Answer
- LIV ran on money from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF): more than $5 billion since 2022, and reportedly about $100 million a month in 2024-25 (reported, not audited).
- On April 30, 2026, the PIF said it would fund LIV only through the 2026 season. It called the long-term spend “no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF’s investment strategy.”
- LIV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 8, 2026.
- A rescue of up to $300 million from BC Partners Credit, built around a smaller, player-owned “LIV 2.0,” fell through. BC Partners withdrew on November 4.
- On November 5, LIV’s lawyer told a federal judge in New Jersey that the league would wind down. Headlines called it a liquidation.
LIV in Dates
- Jan 27, 2020: PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sends a memo warning of a Saudi-backed “Premier Golf League.”
- Oct 29, 2021: Greg Norman is named CEO.
- Mar 16, 2022: An 8-event, $255 million series is announced.
- Jun 9, 2022: First event at Centurion, England: 54 holes, a $20 million purse. The PGA Tour suspends 17 of its members who play.
- June 2022: Phil Mickelson (Jun 6), Bryson DeChambeau (Jun 10) and Brooks Koepka (Jun 21) join. Koepka’s signing bonus was reported as “nine figures.”
- Aug 3, 2022: Eleven players sue the PGA Tour on antitrust grounds.
- Aug 30, 2022: Cameron Smith and five others join.
- Oct 21, 2022: The Tour sues the PIF and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
- Jan 2023: First U.S. TV deal, with the CW.
- Jun 6, 2023: The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF announce a “framework agreement.” It was never completed.
- Oct 10, 2023: The Official World Golf Ranking rejects LIV’s application for ranking points.
- Dec 7, 2023: Jon Rahm signs. One source reported more than $300 million; I could not verify that.
- Jan 31, 2024: Strategic Sports Group puts $1.5 billion (potentially $3 billion) into the PGA Tour.
- Jan 15-16, 2025: Scott O’Neil replaces Norman as CEO, and LIV signs a U.S. TV deal with Fox.
- Feb 20, 2025: A White House meeting with Tiger Woods, Monahan and Al-Rumayyan. Talks stall over team golf.
- Jun 17, 2025: Brian Rolapp is hired as CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises.
- Nov 4, 2025: LIV announces it will move to 72 holes for 2026.
- Jan 12, 2026: Koepka returns to the PGA Tour through its Returning Member Program.
- Feb 3, 2026: The ranking gives points to LIV’s top 10 finishers only.
- Apr 30, 2026: The PIF says it will fund LIV only through 2026.
- Jul 20-22, 2026: The Asian Tour leaves LIV for an alliance with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour (from a snippet I could not verify).
- Sep 8, 2026: Chapter 11.
- Oct 6-12, 2026: BC Partners commits an initial $4 million. Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter say they are leaving. DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings says LIV 2.0 signees would get no DP World Tour membership (Oct 12).
- Nov 4-5, 2026: BC Partners withdraws; LIV announces the wind-down.
Source: Yahoo Sports timeline (opened by my research pass). Source: ESPN (opened). Source: CNBC, Golf.com and Sports Illustrated for the April 30 PIF statement (headlines and snippets). Direct article links are not added to this draft yet; the outlet names are listed so you can find the stories.
The 2026 Bankruptcy: Who Is Owed What
- Where: U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey, before Judge Michael Kaplan.
- Size: assets of $100 million to $500 million, liabilities of $500 million to $1 billion, and at least 1,000 creditors.
- The PIF is a secured creditor and was providing $49.6 million in financing, subject to court approval.
- Players’ past-due claims (top 30 unsecured claims, per the filing as reported): Rahm $7.5 million, DeChambeau $5.7 million, Dustin Johnson $5.5 million, Cameron Smith $4.8 million, Hatton $3.4 million, Koepka $1.7 million.
- Others: Louisiana is owed $1.2 million, and vendors have sued.
- Contracts: a judge approved rejecting DeChambeau’s contract and 18 others.
Retention pay, and why people are angry about it:
- About $15.5 to $15.6 million in retention payments went to seven executives.
- CEO Scott O’Neil: $6.375 million on June 24, plus about $2.7 million on February 13. More than $13.6 million in total from September 2025 to August 2026.
- CFO David Phillips: about $3.37 million. Chief legal officer John Ruzich: about $2.6 million.
- Greg Norman received more than $9.4 million when he left in September 2025.
- Clawbacks are legally possible (payments to outsiders within 90 days, up to a year for insiders), but whether anyone will try is an open question.
- Fair note: retention payments are common in distressed companies and are usually defended as keeping key staff in place. These are different kinds of money from the players’ unpaid contract claims, and the chart compares them only to show scale. Whether the payments were reasonable is a judgment for the court and the creditors.
The BC Partners rescue:
- BC Partners offered up to $300 million and funded $4 million. It said “mutually acceptable terms could not be reached.”
- The deal depended on a critical mass of players signing. About 30 had committed according to ESPN and Sportico (source-based reports), with about 10 more stalled over money.
- The November 5 hearing lasted under 10 minutes. LIV’s lawyer, Matthew Williams, said a new plan would be filed “Monday.” I infer that means November 9, but that date is my inference.
- The liquidation plan still needs court approval. I found no reported approval date.
Source: ESPN (opened). Source: Yahoo Sports (opened). Source: Sportico (headline and snippet only; its figures are unverified by me).
What Happens to the Players and the Tours
- Koepka came back in January through the Returning Member Program: a $5 million charitable donation, five years out of the Tour’s equity program, and no FedEx Cup payouts in year one. The Tour estimated the cost at $50 to $85 million. That program is closed, and Rolapp has mentioned “scar tissue” and said it will not return (CBS, Yahoo).
- Rahm reached an exit deal that reportedly waives up to $150 million in claims (from an ESPN snippet I could not verify). He plans to play the DP World Tour unless the PGA Tour makes an offer, and told CNBC there were “too many unknowns” about LIV 2.0.
- DeChambeau passed on LIV 2.0, as did Johnson, Smith and Niemann (Sports Business Journal via Yahoo). The DP World Tour reportedly offered him a route back (Telegraph via Yahoo). He plays the Nedbank Challenge in December.
- Garcia and Hatton plan the DP World Tour. Patrick Reed served a one-year suspension and expects 2027 PGA Tour status (CBS).
- DP World Tour: former members can return, but Kinnings’s line is play on it or LIV, not both. The membership application deadline is November 16. Kinnings also said LIV spent more than $7 billion, higher than the PIF’s own figure of $5 billion. I don’t know how that gap is counted.
- Asian Tour: reportedly ended its International Series partnership and cancelled its 2027 Q-School, calling 2027 a “rebuilding year” (snippet only, unverified).
- PGA Tour: Rolapp said, “LIV did the professional golf world a favor,” and, “we’re interested in having the best players who can help our tour” (CBS). A PGA Tour-PIF deal: I found only snippets (Adam Scott called talks stagnant; Rolapp said he is not in PIF talks). No confirmed deal.
- Rory McIlroy said LIV “turned professional golf into an arms race,” created a “false economy,” and was “half a good idea, executed poorly.” He backed a “reset” (ESPN, Yahoo).
- I found no statements on the shutdown from Woods, Mickelson, Johnson, Smith, Niemann or Koepka.
Source: CBS Sports, CNBC, Yahoo Sports (including Sports Business Journal and Telegraph reports it carried), ESPN. Snippet-only items are marked above.
“LIV 2.0”: A Reality Check
- It was real but it never launched.
- The plan: player-owned (one report says 52.5% equity), 10 events (five in the U.S.), 75-man fields with a cut and Monday qualifiers, reduced purses. O’Neil’s slogan was “complete, not compete.”
- The money: up to $300 million from BC Partners, conditional on restructuring and on signing about half the players owed money.
- Players publicly named as committing: Richard Bland, Cameron Tringale, Brendan Steele and Ben Campbell (Golf Digest via CNBC; snippet only). Some outlets add Victor Perez.
- The head count is disputed. The Financial Times reportedly said 15 were tentative; ESPN and Sportico said about 30.
- “Long Live LIV”: I found nothing with that name. The idea I did find is LIV 2.0, above. If you know of something called Long Live LIV, a fan group, a revival plan or a rumor, please email me. I’d like to know.
What It Means: Lessons, and Both Sides
- The audience never showed up. Fox numbers for 2025 (via Awful Announcing, snippet only, so approximate): a record 484,000 for Miami, 249,000 for Adelaide, and about 175,000 on average, against about 3.1 million for the PGA Tour on Sundays when both played.
- Ranking points came late and were partial: rejected in October 2023, then points for the top 10 finishers only starting February 2026.
- The losses: reported at $244 million in 2022 and $394 million in 2023 (secondary sources, unverified). Yahoo reports about $3 billion in net operating losses.
The PIF’s side:
- The fund says sports is still a priority; it is deploying capital elsewhere, including a Premier League club, boxing, Formula 1, tennis and cricket (Sports Illustrated).
- Fiscal pressure and the Iran war have been hinted at as reasons. Only CBS states the war as a PIF reason, and I could not confirm it, so treat that as unverified.
- Critics also called LIV “sportswashing,” meaning using sport to improve a country’s image. That is a criticism made by others, and I did not research it for this post.
The PGA Tour’s side:
- McIlroy and the Tour credit LIV with pushing purses up, helping create the signature events and bringing in outside capital. Strategic Sports Group’s $1.5 billion investment in the Tour (January 2024) also came after LIV arrived.
- Tour defenders saw LIV as a threat to the game’s culture, which is how Kinnings put it.
- Both can be true. The league forced change and the league did not work as a business.
My opinion, not reporting:
- The USFL, XFL, AFL, NASL, WHA and soccer’s Super League all tried to break a dominant league. They mostly ran short of money or fans.
- LIV is the odd one out because it had effectively unlimited cash and still failed. To me that suggests money alone could not buy an audience.
- It also was not a brand-new idea. The Premier Golf League concept (2019-20) came first.
For golf on this site, see Story #007 on the Masters shot tracker and Story #070 on the U.S. Open tracker. Both are about following the sport LIV was trying to split.
Source: Awful Announcing (snippet only). Source: Sports Illustrated and CBS (PIF reasoning). Source: Yahoo Sports (loss figures). My analogies are unsourced.
What Happens Next
- Nov 9 (my inference): LIV’s lawyer said a new plan would be filed “Monday.”
- Nov 16: DP World Tour membership application deadline.
- Nov 20: creditors committee meeting (Sportico, snippet only).
- Nov 24: next court hearing (Sportico, snippet only).
- December: DeChambeau plays the Nedbank Challenge.
- No date yet: court approval of the liquidation plan, and any sale of LIV assets. LIV says it is open to a buyer.
This post is dated November 8, so some of these dates will already have passed by the time you read it. I wrote it from coverage through about November 5 and will check them before it publishes.
What I Still Don’t Know
- What the November 9 plan actually says, and whether the November 20 and 24 dates held.
- Whether anyone claws back the retention payments.
- Whether a third party buys any LIV assets, such as team brands, media rights or the league’s name.
- Where DeChambeau, Johnson, Smith and Niemann end up.
- Whether the antitrust lawsuit is still alive. Wikipedia says the litigation ended with the 2023 framework, a February 2026 discovery ruling suggests it was still active, and CBS says DeChambeau’s part was dropped.
- Ryder Cup effects. The PGA of America never banned LIV players, and DeChambeau played the 2025 Ryder Cup.
- Majors eligibility beyond past-champion exemptions.
- Whether a PGA Tour-PIF deal is coming back.
- Whether anything called “Long Live LIV” exists.
Sources I Opened, and the Ones I Couldn’t
- Opened and read in my research pass: ESPN (the Chapter 11 filing and the November 5 wind-down), the Yahoo Sports timeline, and CBS Sports, with the Yahoo-carried Sports Business Journal and Telegraph reports.
- Headline or search snippet only, so unverified: Sportico (creditor figures, November 20 and 24 dates), the Awful Announcing ratings, the Rahm waiver of up to $150 million, the Asian Tour exit, Golf Digest via CNBC on the named LIV 2.0 players, the Golf Channel and Bloomberg liquidation headlines, the 2022 and 2023 loss figures, and the PGA Tour-PIF talk comments.
- Direct links to individual articles are not in this draft because no article URLs were saved with the research. The outlet and subject are named so you can search for them.
- Not researched, so not claimed: the sportswashing debate beyond the one line above, and any North Carolina angle.
- Nothing here is betting or investment advice.