LIV’s Super Bowl Weekend Plans Are Straight from the PGA Tour Playbook

Super Bowl LVIII isn’t the only major sporting event about to make its Sin City debut. 

After LIV Golf completes its season-opening tournament in Mexico this weekend, the league will head to Las Vegas Country Club, just off the Strip, joining thousands of Chiefs, 49ers, and other NFL die-hard fans flocking to town for next Sunday’s game.

If a professional golf tournament on the same weekend—and in the same town—as the Super Bowl sounds familiar, that’s because it is straight out of the PGA Tour’s playbook: The WM Phoenix Open has coincided with Super Bowl weekend every year since 1973. In fact, the event that features the “Loudest Hole in Golf”—the par-3 16th hole surrounded by a 17,000-seat ministadium—has been contested in the exact same city as the title game three previous times (in 1996, 2008, and ’15).

LIV’s Super Bowl takeover attempt is a shift in strategy for the league as its financial backers at the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia continue to negotiate with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour on a definitive agreement to unify pro golf. This week, the PGA Tour secured an initial $1.5 billion investment from Strategic Sports Group—a consortium of U.S.-based team owners from other major sports—which includes a future pathway for the PIF to invest as well.

“The formation of PGA Tour Enterprises is consistent with PIF’s longstanding passion to grow the game,” PIF Governor and LIV Golf Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan wrote in an email to players obtained by Front Office Sports. “PIF continues to discuss and evaluate the possibility of a future investment that benefits the greater game of golf. PIF remains committed to investing in and supporting LIV and the team golf format that has brought new energy and so many new fans to the game around the world.”

Last year, Scottie Scheffler closed out his two-shot victory hours before the Chiefs beat the Eagles 38–35 in Super Bowl LVII at State Farm Stadium. The rowdiest event on the schedule fully embraced the football energy and welcomed former superstars like Larry Fitzgerald and Emmitt Smith to the pretournament pro-am at TPC Scottsdale.

LIV, in only its third year and with no guarantee of a merger, will emulate the PGA Tour’s Super Bowl hook to make some noise and get in front of eyeballs. “I think it’s us trying to create a spectacle for the United States to see,” Bryson DeChambeau, the captain of LIV Golf’s four-man Crushers GC team, told a group of reporters this week. “I think that we haven’t been highlighted enough here in the States.”

Well, if there was ever a time to make a mark, Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas might just be it.

The Best Form of Flattery

It’s not just the location and timing. LIV is bringing back its “party hole”—which mirrors what transpires annually at No. 16 in Phoenix—and which found success last year during tournaments in Chicago and Adelaide, Australia. At LVCC’s par-3 No. 8, 3,000 fans will be able to pack into seats and hospitality offerings on the tee box and around the green.

Tim Flaherty, a partner at event management company Par 5 Group, who is serving as LIV’s Las Vegas tournament director, tells FOS that the league isn’t shy about the imitation game. “We see a good idea out there, we try to replicate it,” he says. “But I think the goal of LIV is to bring a lot of new ideas to golf.”

DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open champion who played in the Phoenix Open twice, is expecting a familiar, boisterous scene: “I think it’s going to be quite similar.” 

Even before the Super Bowl matchup was set, LIV senior vice president of ticketing and hospitality Troy Tutt says, demand was already ramping up “directly from folks tied to the NFL, just for their own personal, business, or corporate needs.” Wednesday’s pro-am will feature plenty of NFL personalities, and the tournament celebrity and influencer list is the longest LIV has ever seen, according to Tutt, who wouldn’t say how many fans LIV is expecting throughout the week.

But while the spotlight is partially on Vegas this year, the desert—especially a pair of them—is still big enough for two pro golf tournaments. The event that kick-started the idea of parlaying golf with Super Bowl weekend is carrying on business as usual.

Despite the Phoenix Open dealing with direct competition just 300 miles away, organizers are still expecting a potential NFL bump. “The Super Bowl’s a 30-minute, 40-minute flight over to Vegas,” tournament chairman George Thimsen explains. “So, we’re anticipating there’s going to be a lot of folks coming back [and] some checking out our tournament for the first time, then heading back to Vegas.”

Official attendance at the Phoenix Open is no longer released, but in 2022 the event drew more than 700,000 fans. (And this year’s tournament is expanding to feature more than 1 million square feet of hospitality across the course.) 

LIV encroaching on territory associated with the Phoenix Open—and PGA Tour—might not bother them. “We’re focused on our tournament,” Thimsen says. “I have a feeling we’re going to be just fine.” But nothing is off-limits.

Last season, LIV scheduled most of its events during the PGA Tour’s “smaller” tournaments, like the Valspar Championship and John Deere Classic. But in Year 3 already, LIV’s season-opener is being held alongside the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which this year is one of eight signature events with a $20 million purse and therefore a stronger field of players. (Signature events debuted last year as a direct response to LIV Golf.)

After the Vegas-Phoenix clash, LIV’s schedule will feature three more tournaments head-to-head with PGA Tour signature events—most notably the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March and the Memorial Tournament, hosted by Jack Nicklaus, in June.

An Annual Tradition?

With Super Bowl locations locked in for the next three years, the earliest return to Arizona would be 2028. So, theoretically, LIV—if it exists long term—could follow the game from city to city, if it wanted to. That would set up the potential for a yearly golf mega weekend with LIV near the Super Bowl and the PGA Tour keeping its raucous party alive in Phoenix.

However, things may not be all so simple. “Scheduling golf tournaments is not an easy thing to do,” Flaherty notes. Vegas officials have welcomed LIV, he says, but the city is unique in that it makes its mark as an event town.

That echoes what industry sources tell FOS, pointing out that Las Vegas Country Club’s proximity to the Strip makes a golf tournament during the NFL’s biggest weekend an easier sell than, say, New Orleans, where it may be more difficult to find a tournament-worthy course to complement the Super Bowl crowd. The PGA Tour plays an annual event at TPC Louisiana, which is about 20 minutes away from Caesars Superdome, on the other side of the Mississippi River. (It should be noted that in Arizona, the Phoenix Open is played about 30 miles away from State Farm Stadium, and has no trouble capitalizing on the Super Bowl when it’s in town.)

So, Flaherty isn’t ruling anything out for LIV in the future. “I think we’re going to have a really successful event [in Vegas],” he says. “It’ll be something to think about.” 

For now, Vegas can sit back and get ready for some football—and golf, of course.