Opinion

LIV Golf’s Bankruptcy Exposes the Rotten Bargain Behind Saudi Sportswashing

The players who accepted LIV Golf’s riches made a calculated choice. If they now want to return to the PGA Tour, financial collapse should not erase the consequences.

LIV Golf promised to revolutionize professional golf. Instead, less than five years after its launch, the Saudi-financed league has landed in Chapter 11 bankruptcy court with hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities, unfinished player contracts and a long list of creditors wondering how much—if anything—they will collect.

The bankruptcy should not be dismissed as an ordinary business failure. It is the collapse of an extraordinarily expensive influence campaign that attempted to purchase credibility, reshape professional golf and improve Saudi Arabia’s international image through sports.

It also confirms what LIV’s critics argued from the beginning: The league never demonstrated that it could support its enormous contracts through television revenue, ticket sales, sponsorships or genuine consumer demand. Its business model depended largely on the willingness of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to continue absorbing staggering losses.

Once that backing began to disappear, so did LIV Golf’s appearance of financial strength.

LIV Golf Owes More Than It Can Currently Pay

LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey on Sept. 8. Court documents reportedly place the league’s assets between $100 million and $500 million and its liabilities between $500 million and $1 billion. The Saudi Public Investment Fund, which owns LIV, invested more than $5 billion in the enterprise before deciding to end its continuing financial support. Reuters

Several prominent golfers appear among LIV’s largest unsecured creditors. Reported claims include approximately $7.5 million owed to Jon Rahm, $5.7 million to Bryson DeChambeau and $5.5 million to Dustin Johnson. Rick Shiels Media, operated by one of golf’s most influential online personalities, reportedly holds a $1.4 million unsecured claim. Business Insider

Being listed as a creditor, however, does not guarantee full payment.

Chapter 11 allows a financially distressed business to continue operating while it reorganizes its debts. LIV will have an opportunity to propose a plan that could repay some creditors in cash, reduce what they are owed, extend payments over time or exchange portions of their claims for ownership in a reorganized company.

Creditors whose rights would be changed can vote on that plan. The bankruptcy court must eventually decide whether the proposal satisfies the Bankruptcy Code and is financially feasible. A confirmed plan can replace the company’s previous contractual obligations with new ones. United States Courts

That means a contract saying a golfer is owed $7 million does not necessarily mean the golfer will receive $7 million.

Will LIV Golf’s Creditors Ever Get Paid?

Some probably will. Whether they receive everything they are owed is another question entirely.

The answer will depend on several factors:

• Whether a creditor holds a secured, priority or ordinary unsecured claim.
• How much cash LIV can generate or attract from new investors.
• Which assets are available to repay pre-bankruptcy debts.
• Whether the court permits LIV to reject expensive contracts.
• What repayment terms appear in the eventual reorganization plan.
• Whether the case succeeds as a reorganization or deteriorates into liquidation.

The reported player and media-company debts appear to be unsecured claims. Unsecured creditors generally stand behind secured lenders and certain priority claims when money is distributed. They have legal rights—including filing proofs of claim, reviewing financial disclosures, objecting to proposals and voting when eligible—but those protections do not create money that the debtor does not possess.

Not all debts are the same

LIV is reportedly seeking approximately $49.6 million in debtor-in-possession financing from the PIF to support the bankruptcy process. That may keep the organization operating, but such financing should not be confused with a promise that every old creditor will be paid in full. Bankruptcy financing often receives court-approved protections and priority because lenders would otherwise refuse to finance a distressed company.

LIV is also pursuing a proposed investment from BC Partners and a smaller 2027 relaunch. New capital could improve creditor recoveries, but potential investment is not the same thing as money already available for distribution.

For the golfers and contractors awaiting payment, the uncomfortable reality is simple: They may receive the full value of their claims, a fraction of that value, stock in a riskier successor organization or some combination of those options. Until the court approves a plan, nobody should assume that the amounts listed in the bankruptcy documents will be paid dollar for dollar.

Creditors with substantial claims should have bankruptcy counsel protecting their interests. Smaller contractors and vendors may be especially vulnerable because they have fewer resources to spend on a prolonged legal process.

LIV Was a Bad Business Idea From the Beginning

LIV Golf did not fail because professional golf lacked talent. It failed because unlimited spending was mistaken for a sustainable business.

The league offered enormous guarantees and prize funds to persuade established players to abandon the PGA Tour. But LIV never built a comparably valuable audience or commercial foundation underneath those obligations.

A genuine sports business must eventually persuade viewers, broadcasters, advertisers and ticket buyers to support it. LIV largely attempted to reverse that process: Spend extraordinary amounts first, assemble famous golfers and assume public demand would follow.

That strategy produced headlines, but attention and loyalty are not the same thing.

LIV disrupted golf. It divided players, damaged relationships, created confusion over eligibility and forced the PGA Tour to rethink portions of its business. But disruption alone does not prove that the disruptor possesses a viable product.

The bankruptcy figures now provide a brutal accounting. An organization backed by billions of dollars could purchase golfers, tournaments and publicity. It could not purchase a self-sustaining audience.

The Sportswashing Cannot Be Separated From the Golf

LIV’s failure must also be examined beyond balance sheets and television ratings.

The Saudi government has faced extensive criticism over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, restrictions on free expression, treatment of dissidents and women, and other alleged or documented human-rights abuses. LIV’s financing through the country’s sovereign wealth fund led human-rights advocates and other critics to describe the league as an exercise in sportswashing.

Sportswashing uses the popularity and emotional appeal of athletics to soften the reputation of a government, institution or corporation. The objective is not necessarily to make people explicitly approve of the sponsor’s conduct. It can be enough to change the conversation.

Instead of discussing political prisoners, murdered critics or restrictions on civil liberties, audiences discuss birdies, team names and championship purses. Famous athletes become ambassadors—formally or functionally—for a more attractive national image.

The golfers who joined LIV were entitled to make their own financial decisions. But they were not entitled to demand that the public ignore the moral context surrounding those decisions.

Many players insisted they were golfers, not politicians. That defense was never convincing. Accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from a state-backed project with an obvious international-image component is itself a consequential choice. Remaining silent about the source and purpose of the money does not make the relationship apolitical.

The players were not responsible for Saudi Arabia’s conduct. They were responsible for deciding whether they were willing to lend their fame and credibility to a project widely accused of helping obscure that conduct.

They decided the money was worth it.

Returning Players Should Face a Long—but Possible—Road Back

LIV’s bankruptcy may allow the organization to ask the court for permission to reject or renegotiate expensive player contracts. That could free some golfers to seek reinstatement elsewhere.

The PGA Tour should resist the temptation to welcome every returning star immediately simply because recognizable names generate ratings.

A fair return policy should be available, but it should contain meaningful consequences. Depending on the player’s circumstances, those consequences could include:

• A substantial period of ineligibility.
• Loss of access to equity or bonus programs funded by players who remained loyal.
• Repayment of outstanding fines or other tour obligations.
• A limited path through sponsor exemptions, qualifying tournaments or lower-priority status.
• Full disclosure of continuing financial or ownership interests in LIV Golf or its successor.
• Equal treatment under a published policy rather than secret, player-by-player deals.

The purpose should not be revenge. It should be institutional credibility.

Golfers who remained with the PGA Tour turned down potentially life-changing amounts of money. They competed while LIV used Saudi financing to inflate the market, fracture the sport and weaken the organization they supported. Allowing defectors to walk back into identical positions the moment the rival checks stop clearing would punish loyalty and reward opportunism.

At the same time, a permanent ban would be excessive in most cases. People can reconsider bad decisions, accept penalties and earn another opportunity. The key word is earn.

Bankruptcy should not become a moral and professional reset button.

There Are More Sympathetic Creditors Than the Golfers

It is difficult to view multimillionaire players as the principal victims of LIV’s collapse. Many received enormous signing payments before the bankruptcy and willingly accepted the risks surrounding a new league supported by a single benefactor.

The more sympathetic creditors may be employees, production companies, tournament vendors, transportation providers, independent contractors and smaller businesses that performed legitimate work expecting ordinary payment.

They did not necessarily receive nine-figure guarantees. They may have payrolls, equipment costs and operating loans of their own. For them, recovering only a portion of an unpaid invoice could create serious hardship.

Those creditors deserve close attention as the bankruptcy proceeds. A reorganization that preserves value for investors or offers golfers ownership in “LIV 2.0” while leaving smaller vendors with severe losses would compound the league’s ethical failure.

The Money Was Real, but the Foundation Was Not

LIV Golf proved that enormous wealth can disrupt an established sport. It did not prove that money alone can build an enduring league.

Its collapse leaves creditors navigating a complicated bankruptcy, golfers facing uncertain contracts and the broader sport attempting to repair damage that never needed to occur.

The players who joined LIV chose immediate wealth over institutional loyalty and, in many cases, over serious ethical warnings. They should not be prohibited forever from returning to traditional tours. But neither should they be rescued from every consequence of their choice.

LIV Golf was presented as the future of professional golf. Its bankruptcy reveals something much less revolutionary: a lavishly financed project whose spending obscured its weak commercial foundation—and whose spectacle attempted to obscure something larger still.

The golfers were paid to help sell that spectacle.

Now, some of them may discover that even the promised money was not guaranteed.

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