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LIV Golf returns to court this week for the second hearing in the league’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in New Jersey.
Among the agenda items for Wednesday’s 11:30 a.m. ET hearing in Trenton will be LIV’s motion requesting to “reject or assume executory contracts and unexpired leases,” which includes contracts with star players like Jon Rahm that make up a large chunk of its estimated liabilities between $500 million and $1 billion. LIV estimates its assets are worth between $100 million and $500 million.
LIV had $15 million in cash on hand coming into the bankruptcy process, and at its first bankruptcy hearing on Sept. 9 Judge Michael Kaplan approved the league to access an initial $14 million of a nearly $50 million loan from the Saudi PIF to help facilitate the expedited Chapter 11 process. The PIF spent more than $5 billion on LIV since the league launched in 2022 but stopped funding LIV after its 2026 season, which ended in August.
BC Partners—the private equity and credit firm ready to provide $300 million of new financing for LIV post-bankruptcy—is reportedly considering giving LIV a separate $10 million loan to aid with the bankruptcy process amid concerns from the PIF about the proposed LIV-BC deal, according to the Financial Times.
Some bankruptcy experts are skeptical that LIV ultimately emerges from bankruptcy at all. “I think there’s a significant risk that it doesn’t come out of Chapter 11,” Houston-based attorney John J. Sparacino, a principal at McKool Smith, tells Front Office Sports. That would mean LIV folding altogether and winding down all operations.
“If they don’t get certain arrangements organized, this bankruptcy can quickly convert to Chapter 7 liquidation,” Brian A. Marks, a professor at the University New Haven’s Pompea College of Business, tells FOS.
Last week, Kooyonga Golf Club in Adelaide, Australia, filed a motion in LIV’s bankruptcy case seeking clarity about whether the event LIV had originally committed to playing there in March 2027 would take place as planned. The club said it’s set to spend more than $200,000 through the end of this year in preparations for the tournament, but LIV has not released a 2027 schedule and won’t do so until after its bankruptcy process concludes.
LIV’s Court Schedule
After Wednesday’s hearing, there are several more key dates in LIV’s bankruptcy case.
BC Partners has set an Oct. 13 deadline for a “requisite number of players” to agree to new contracts with LIV, or else the firm could walk away from its $300 million funding deal. It’s unclear how many players would be required to satisfy BC’s terms.
LIV’s unsecured creditors committee—which includes just one player, Michael La Sasso, who won the league’s final event in Indianapolis—will meet on Oct. 15. The committee is tasked with consulting with and investigating LIV and its business operations and helping to develop a reorganization plan. However, given LIV’s lack of substantial cash, Sparacino cautioned that any claims from unsecured creditors are “worthless.”
One LIV creditor, GSE Worldwide (the sports agency that represents Bryson DeChambeau), told FOS that it’s actually not owed any money. GSE was listed as one of the 30 largest unsecured creditors in LIV’s initial bankruptcy filing, owed $1,287,500. Most other creditors reached by FOS declined to comment.
Additional court hearings are scheduled for Oct. 22 and Nov. 5.
