Retaining key LIV players an 'achievable hurdle' for new investors

LONDON, Oct 7 : LIV Golf faces a challenge to retain key players as the professional men's league restructures under Chapter 11 protection but it is a 'very achievable hurdle in a short period of time", the head of new investors BC Partners Credit said on Wednesday.

With financial backing from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) drying up, LIV last month started a court-supervised restructuring process that it hopes to complete in early 2027.

BC Partners Credit announced on Monday an initial committed investment and said it planned to provide up to $300 million in financing.

Ted Goldthorpe, partner and head of BC Partners Credit, told the Leaders Week London sports business conference that he saw LIV as a great opportunity.

"Every layer of the onion that we peel back on this thing, the more excited we are about the investment," he said.

"The thing that's really fun about this one is in all of our other leagues, the players are on the other side of the table. In this situation, the players are our partners. The players own the teams with us... you're 100 per cent aligned with the talent. That is really rare in sports."

LIV Golf launched in 2022 and lured leading players from the PGA Tour with lucrative contracts. The next phase envisages players becoming equity owners of both the league and its teams.

Several of those stars, including Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith, are listed in the Chapter 11 filing as creditors still owed millions in unsecured claims.

"If we can show people that this is a sustainable business and league, those teams have tonnes of value. My guess is, over time, this will begin to look a lot more like Formula One or other leagues that are analogous to what we're trying to do," said Goldthorpe.

LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil likened it to "a rocket ship, waiting to take off", with LIV playing on five continents last year and aiming for five or six next year.

He said relationships with television partners remained strong, with Fox "holding windows for us".  

Goldthorpe said every CEO in the world and major sponsors wanted to be involved with golf, and sounded bullish about the future.

"When we emerge from bankruptcy, you'll be surprised at the calibre and quality of people who invest alongside of us. It's all sports owners, billionaires, people who understand what we're trying to do," he said.

He said BC Partners would "lean on Scott and his team to run the league, and our job is to help with strategy, media and also we have this holding company that we're going to build assets around. So, we can use LIV to help monetise other things... media brands, consumer products.

"There's a lot of cross-selling sponsors. So, really, what I'm going to be focused on is more like the holding company and creating value for our players and ourselves."