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LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil addressed the growing number of vendors and contractors claiming the league has not paid them after working together this year.
“What I would say to them is we’re doing everything we can to make sure we can do right by them and the work they committed, and I hope we can,” O’Neil said Wednesday at a pre-tournament press conference ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Indianapolis event.
O’Neil was asked specifically about a lawsuit filed by Fresh Tape Media, which is seeking $1.23 million in missed payments and interest related to its production of LIV’s preseason media days event back in January. The lawsuit, first reported by Front Office Sports on Tuesday, came after numerous other vendors and contractors told FOS they are also unpaid and after a similar lawsuit from another former LIV vendor last month.
“For the next generation, it will certainly be a different business with a different process,” O’Neil said, referring to the “LIV 2.0” model the league has been pitching with funding from the Saudi Public Investment Fund ending after this season. This week’s tournament in Indianapolis is serving as LIV’s 2026 season finale after the league canceled next week’s LIV Golf Michigan event, which was supposed to host a $40 million team championship. It marked the second event cancellation this year, following the removal of June’s LIV Golf Louisiana tournament.
“This group has been under enormous pressure,” O’Neil said. “We don’t often control our destiny, and we are trying to do and be the best kind and type of people and partners that we built our careers on, our reputations on and our character on. That’s part of the reason I showed up today, because we don’t run, we don’t hide. We just do what we can with what we have, and we’re doing the best we can with that.”
LIV’s Next Financial Backer
After announcing LIV had secured a new lead investor on Aug. 5—but that no deal had been finalized—O’Neil said Wednesday the league is “well on our way to a transaction.” London-based BC Partners Credit is exploring a funding deal with LIV, and its top executive Ted Goldthorpe was in Indianapolis on Tuesday to meet with players.
“It was everything I hoped it would be,” O’Neil said. “You have a visionary, charismatic, driven, well-connected leader, investor, businessman who answered questions with grace, shared his vision, and I think was able to convey a lot of the things that players and GMs and my colleagues wanted to hear.”
Terms of the potential BC Partners–LIV deal remain scarce and likely are contingent on which and how many of LIV’s current players commit to the league for 2027. Asked about LIV considering bankruptcy, O’Neil said, “I don’t think we would rule out any option,” but that “all our focus” is on completing the BC Partners transaction.
O’Neil said there is a deadline to get the new investment deal done, but declined to say when that is. “Ultimately, it’s about building LIV into a sustainable sports business for the longer term,” he said. “I think the pieces are coming together right now exactly the way we’d hope. We have an ambitious lead investor with real resources, relationships and the belief and power of golf to think long-term.”
