Nearly 18 months have passed since the PGA Tour and Saudi-backed rival LIV Golf announced a “framework agreement” to “reunify” men’s golf.
British tabloids reported Saturday that the two sides have a deal at last. But multiple industry sources say the reports are premature.
One of the few things you can say with absolute certainty about the PGA Tour–LIV deal is that everyone working on it is bogged down in the details—details that will allow them to quell antitrust concerns, prevent players who turned down the rebel tour from mutiny, and keep golf fans happy.
That is quite the needle to thread, and the lack of publicly available details speaks to the sensitivities and difficulties of piecing everything together to finalize a deal.
There has been heavy internal pressure, sources tell Front Office Sports, to ink a peace treaty before the end of the year to avoid making future scheduling more complicated than it already will be. The PGA Tour has already released its 2025 schedule, while LIV has released only four international tournament dates.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan was in Saudi Arabia last week, and reportedly met with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who is the governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. The two leaders also played golf together at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship last month.
In August, FOS reported LIV had been working with CAA—the same sports agency that reps the PGA Tour on multiple fronts—to represent LIV for media rights and corporate sponsorship deals. LIV has still yet to sign a new media-rights deal for 2025, as its previous contract with The CW has expired.
Moving forward, LIV is expected to continue with its team format, partly to assuage antitrust concerns, but also partly so that its creators can fairly claim they have helped bring the sport into its next era.
The Sun, in a story that screamed “golf’s civil war is over,” claims an agreement has been reached that would fold LIV under the umbrella of the newly formed for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises and hand the PIF an 11% stake in return for $1.3 billion.
Those numbers match internal valuations that were discussed much earlier in the process and would hand PIF two board seats, including the role of chairman.
In January, the Strategic Sports Group (a consortium of U.S.-based professional sports franchise owners) struck a deal to invest an initial $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, with the potential for the investment to grow to $3 billion.
Whether you believe pros wearing shorts and tournaments with no cuts is truly a radical development, players who defected to the team-based competition are largely happy with their decision based on reduced workloads, equity in the franchises they represent, and a novelty that is yet to wear off. The majority would, however, like the opportunity to play in majors as well as see an end to the fractured landscape.
Negotiations are being handled with extreme discretion by those at the very top of both organizations, which has left even very senior executives at LIV and the PGA Tour relying on internal whispers or media reports.
