The future of LIV Golf remains secure, and the teams are operating under a "business as usual" approach. That is according to Ripper GC general manager Nick Adams, who has dispelled myths surrounding the future of the Saudi-backed golf league.
Doubts over LIV Golf's future — fueled by suggestions that the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) could withdraw funding at the end of the year — intensified when the league confirmed the postponement of its inaugural New Orleans event later this year.
Adams, who leads the quartet of Australians making up Ripper GC, stated that the postponement of New Orleans was a deliberate and strategic decision unrelated to the league's longevity.
"There are a couple of things going on there. This has been an ongoing conversation for the last three months," Adams told 7NEWS.com.au. "The governor of Louisiana and the home office of economic development were concerned about a few things: the course not being ready, and the fact that it is going to be record heat at that time of year — June in New Orleans is like 40 degrees Celsius. They were concerned about fan participation, the playing group, and the course not being ready."
"They are 100 per cent committed, and we are 100 per cent committed to them, but the decision was made to deliver the highest quality experience for players, partners, stakeholders, and fans, to avoid the peak summer heat and humidity, and also there is an overlap with the FIFA World Cup schedule as well. So I think, and I don't know this to be true, that they were probably worried that the city could not handle it. And since we were already discussing moving it, they just made the decision to move it to later in the year, probably in September or October."
Reports have emerged that some LIV players have started considering contingency plans if the league were to disband at the end of the year, as speculated by some cynics. These reports suggest players have held talks with the DP World Tour about playing in Europe, given they would not be allowed back into the PGA Tour, at least for a period, if LIV collapsed.
But any suggestion of "panic," as The Telegraph reported, is far from the truth, according to Adams.
"I can only speak to what I know is true: we are being told by our leadership to continue as usual, which we have, and it has been business as usual for us," Adams said. "A lot of this catastrophising and conjecture is coming out of the US. Our investor, the PIF, has not made a public statement regarding the future of LIV. There has not been a statement from them saying, 'Hey, we are not supporting LIV anymore' or 'We are not supporting golf anymore.' So, listen, I think there are a lot of sectors across all businesses that are concerned about anything happening in the Middle East right now. The Iranian crisis is going on a lot longer than people expected, so I think people are drawing parallels with what is happening in the region with LIV Golf and other sports that the Saudis are involved in through the PIF fund. We are not immune to that. But there has certainly been nothing on our end which has suggested it is not business as usual. We are continuing on as we always have, and that is the only information I have at this stage."
LIV Golf events in Adelaide and South Africa in recent weeks have shattered attendance records, as the league enjoys a $100 million revenue growth year-on-year to this point of the season.
"It was a record golf attendance for a golf tournament in Australia this year," Adams said of LIV Golf Adelaide, which has won the world's best golf event for the past three years in a row. "South Africa did the same thing three weeks later; there were 100,000 plus attending the South Africa LIV event. That was a significant not only golf tournament but event within South Africa. They had never seen anything like it. We have events in Korea coming up, Spain, and our JCB tournament in the UK is huge. LIV is doing exactly what it set out to do, which is to grow the game of golf globally. We are staying on mission with that. At this stage, there are no changes to the schedule for 2027 where we have the Adelaide tournament. It is a huge part of the Australian golf landscape now — that and the Australian Open are the two pinnacle events in Australia, and I think that it is going to continue to grow."
The question then arises: why does doubt persist about the breakaway league, which launched its inaugural tournament season in June 2022?
"Well, we have always been a disruptor. And so, when you disrupt a sector in any business sector, if you think about the behavioral science and the human element, you are putting people's jobs at risk," Adams said. "So, if you have been traditionally working in the golf ecosystem how it has been before LIV, your job is pretty safe. Now there is a new player in the ecosystem which is making waves and is essentially creating job risks for a lot of people who have been in the traditional system for a long time. When people feel like their job is at risk, they become vocal and they become viscerally upset, and they are going to try and say whatever they can to discredit the rival league. That just happens in every sport and every business and every sector around the world. I think a lot of the anti-LIV sentiment is driven by people whose way of life is having pressure put on it. There are also a lot of key stakeholders involved on the other side at other golf tournaments or other golf leagues around the world, and it is not necessarily in their best interests for LIV to be successful. At the end of the day, people are driven predominantly by self-interest, and I think a lot of the negative sentiment that comes in and around LIV is from key stakeholders in other leagues. It is not necessarily from the players because the players have seen the significance of growing the game of golf which, ultimately, helps people on all tours because they are playing for more prize money, they are getting more sponsors, and they are getting more eyeballs, which is fans, on the game of golf."
