Want more from Front Office Sports
in your search results?
LIV Golf is attempting to cancel players’ existing contracts. Meanwhile, the Saudi PIF spent $495 million funding the remainder of the league’s 2026 season after announcing its impending exit in April. And LIV’s proposed new investor, BC Partners, could buy an expansion team for $1.
Those details are among the key revelations in the 128-page document submitted by LIV on Wednesday after the league filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New Jersey on Tuesday.
LIV has just 41 full-time employees remaining after mass layoffs and has $15 million in cash on hand, according to the filing, but is now armed with $49.6 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from the PIF to operate in the interim. LIV is targeting a January 2027 emergence from the bankruptcy process with a goal to conduct a sixth season and first under its new “2.0” structure next year.
In the meantime, detailed bankruptcy filings reveal key information about LIV’s past operations that had not been previously available to the public, as well as new information about the league’s future plans.
Player Contracts Voided?
Many LIV players are still under contract, some with multiple years remaining “generally extending through the 2028 league season,” according to Wednesday’s filing. But those contracts “do not reflect the contemplated compensation structure under LIV 2.0,” per the filing, as the league looks to reduce operational costs. So LIV is asking the bankruptcy court for permission to “reject certain executory contracts,” mostly with players, but also some proprietary leases and agreements with vendors.
“The strategy that I see they’re implementing is something that’s typically used in bankruptcy where essentially you’ll threaten to reject the contracts in the hopes you’ll put leverage on the other side to negotiate more economical terms,” Joe Bain, co-chair of law firm Jones Walker’s bankruptcy and restructuring team in Houston, tells Front Office Sports.
LIV could try to negotiate settlement agreements with some players, but recent reports indicate the PIF hasn’t shown a willingness to pay more than a small portion of remaining players’ contracts. If players don’t intend to recoup any money they’re owed, they are now free to exit the league without any further contractual obligations.
While 14 players were listed among LIV’s 30 creditors with the largest unsecured claims in Tuesday’s Chapter 11 filing, that money is only from payments that are past due and doesn’t include what some could be owed from years remaining on their contracts, which is not specified in the bankruptcy filing.
Jon Rahm tops that list—he’s owed $7.47 million from this year per the filing but is reportedly still owed more than $100 million in future guarantees from the nine-figure contract he signed ahead of LIV’s 2024 season. Some players could be approached by the United States Trustee Program, which oversees bankruptcy cases, as it puts together an official committee of unsecured creditors, which will “play an important role in the case,” Bain says.
PIF Big Spending—and Cost Cutting
The PIF’s total investment in LIV since the league’s inception in 2021 (and first season in 2022) is approximately $5 billion, according to the bankruptcy filing. The Saudi firm announced in April it would stop funding LIV after the 2026 season.
But it wasn’t until June that the PIF informed LIV it would provide a secured loan for the rest of the year’s operations. That came in the form of a secured facility agreement that as of Sept. 8 had an outstanding balance of approximately $495 million, according to Wednesday’s filing. However, it’s unlikely the PIF expects to be repaid for that, according to industry sources, given LIV’s overall financial limitations.
That unique set-up further complicated LIV’s final season as the league’s future was in flux. “We found over the last several months, as we have had a credit agreement in place with PIF, that it hasn’t always been the easiest to get money,” Keith R. Martorana, a partner at LIV’s legal counsel Gibson & Dunn, said Wednesday during an initial virtual bankruptcy hearing. “There’s a lot of mechanics that go into obtaining funds from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
LIV ended up canceling two events on the 2026 schedule, in Louisiana and Michigan, resulting in more than $60 million of lost prize money that was originally earmarked for players. Many vendors and contractors were not paid for their services this season; some have filed lawsuits and are among LIV’s largest unsecured creditors.
LIV has run at a deficit for its entire existence, with net operating losses totaling approximately $5 billion as of the end of 2025, per the bankruptcy documents.
LIV’s BC Partners Era
LIV’s bankruptcy filing marked the first time the league publicly acknowledged its talks with BC Partners Credit, the firm set to back LIV’s operations in 2027 and beyond should LIV emerge from the Chapter 11 process as planned.
The full term sheet of the proposed LIV-BC deal is included in the bankruptcy filing, with key details about what the next iteration of the league could look like. BC Partners is prepared to provide up to $300 million in total financing.
BC Partners would own 45% of the re-organized LIV Golf, players would be the majority equity holders with a combined 52.5% ownership stake, and league management would own 2.5%. A new seven-person board of directors would include three members designated by BC Partners, two members designated by players and management, LIV’s CEO (currently Scott O’Neil), and one independent member.
As part of the deal, BC Partners would have the exclusive right to purchase one expansion team of LIV 2.0 for $1 at any time following the introduction of two expansion teams after the league emerges from bankruptcy.
LIV ended the 2026 season with 13 four-player teams, but it’s unclear whether all 13 teams would be revived in 2027, when the league plans to expand to 75 players per event (up from 57 this year) and include players who qualify the week of tournaments. If and when LIV were to achieve profitability, BC Partners would receive 2% of league revenue for seven years.
