LIV's Unpaid Tab Grows

Morning Edition

August 27, 2026

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LIV Golf’s season is over, and its future is murky. The league, already reeling from multiple lawsuits from vendors alleging breach of contract, announced layoffs Wednesday. It’s also been hit with another lawsuit—this one from sports technology service provider Deltatre, which says the league left an invoice for nearly $860,000 unpaid.

—David Rumsey

First Up

The NFL and its players agreed to scrap the Pro Bowl game after years of trying to find a format that was competitive and appealing to fans.
Roger Goodell’s contract expires in March 2027, but NFL owners remain confident they’ll reach an extension agreement with the commissioner.
NFL owners officially approved the sale of the Seahawks for a record $9.612 billion to a group led by the family of venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
Jed York, the principal owner of the 49ers, skipped an NFL owners’ meeting after his arrest last weekend in a prostitution-related case.

Another LIV Vendor Ramps Up Legal Fight As Layoffs Hit League

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Another former LIV Golf vendor is waging a legal fight with the league over missed payments, as LIV’s future is in limbo.

Deltatre, a sports technology service provider that began working with LIV during its 2025 season, requested a motion for summary judgment in the Supreme Court of the State of New York earlier this month—effectively asking for a judge to rule in its favor without needing further court proceedings. The company filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against LIV with the court on May 22, which had not been previously reported. Deltatre said at the time that LIV owed it $858,548.15. With additional costs from interest and attorneys’ fees, that total has risen to approximately $935,000, a source with knowledge of the legal proceedings told Front Office Sports.

“LIV does not deny the contracts, the services, its acceptance of those services, or its receipt of the invoices or its failure to object to them,” Deltatre wrote in its latest filing on Aug. 13. “It admits each of those facts. That leaves a straightforward question for this motion: whether a customer that accepted the contracted-for services, retained the resulting invoices without objection, approved the invoices for payment, and nevertheless left $858,548.15 unpaid as of the date of the filing of this action may avoid judgment through generalized affirmative defenses unsupported by the factual record. It may not.”

Deltatre is not the only vendor to sue LIV. Fresh Tape Media, which produced LIV’s preseason media days event in January, is suing the league for more than $1.23 million in missed payments and interest. Mobii Systems Group Limited, a former technology partner of LIV, has also sued the league for more than $1.1 million for breach of contract, unpaid invoices, and interest. Other vendors and contractors have told FOS they are also owed money by the league.

LIV CEO Scott O’Neil was asked about the status of unpaid vendors last week ahead of LIV’s season finale in Indianapolis. “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,” O’Neil said. “And I hope we can.”

Layoffs Coming to LIV

LIV’s financial issues go beyond unpaid invoices.

LIV announced Wednesday that it is laying off staff and scaling back its operations now that the Saudi PIF is no longer funding the league. The league is in talks with BC Partners Credit over a new funding deal.

“The funding commitment announced by PIF earlier this year will reach its conclusion,” a LIV spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday to FOS. “As a result, we are scaling back operations as we transition to the next chapter of LIV Golf and work toward making LIV 2.0 a reality. This week, we informed many of our colleagues that their employment under LIV 1.0 will end in the first week of September. We are grateful to our employees for their hard work and dedication in building LIV Golf, and we remain committed to supporting those affected through this transition.”

The layoffs were not unexpected given LIV’s uncertain future, and employees could have additional opportunities with LIV if the league lives on.

While there is no public deadline for LIV to finalize a deal with BC Partners, Sept. 1 has been floating among golf industry sources as a working deadline—one that may be necessary to meet to plan a 2027 schedule.

Mental Strength, Meet Game Day

From kickoff to the final whistle, pressure shows up fast—and it doesn’t wait for you to feel ready. Whether you’re stepping into a new season or new expectations, your mental health determines how you respond when the intensity ramps up. The people who hold steady are the ones who’ve built their mental defenses before pressure hits.

That kind of preparation doesn’t happen overnight. As the season gets underway, athletes and leaders are realizing that mental strength—like physical conditioning—benefits from intentional practice and expert guidance. With insights from sports psychiatrist Michael Young, Sheppard Pratt is sharing how people can shore up their mental defenses before the pressure peaks. See how to get your head in the game and what helps performance when it matters most.

EXCLUSIVE

ESPN Removing BottomLine Ticker on College Football Games

ESPN

ESPN is getting rid of its BottomLine ticker during college football games. The network already did away with it for the College Football Playoff games and other big events like NBA and NHL postseason contests. ESPN won’t feature the ticker for regular-season games that air on ABC, ACC Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, and SEC Network.

DAILY SPORTS TRIVIA

Can you rank the five youngest quarterbacks to ever start in the Super Bowl?

ONE BIG FIG

Sky-High Viewership

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3.31 million

That’s the number of viewers for Sunday’s Indiana Fever–Chicago Sky game on NBC and Peacock, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. It’s the largest audience for a regular-season WNBA game since the league’s inaugural season in 1997. It’s also more than double the average audience for last season’s WNBA Finals, which averaged 1.5 million viewers on ESPN.

While the Fever-Sky rivalry has consistently delivered strong television ratings for the league, Sunday’s game was perhaps more notable for the removal of former NBA veteran Enes Kanter Freedom during the third quarter after a verbal altercation with Sky guard Natasha Cloud. Freedom has trolled the league by saying he identifies as a woman and will enter the WNBA draft. The league has since said he’s ineligible.