Update on LIV Golf financials

LIV Golf's UK arm files 2023 accounts

LIV Golf’s UK arm filed its 2023 financials this week. This company manages all of LIV’s operations outside of the US. Here are some highlights which Money in Sport picked out for your delectation….

Note: Thailand dropped off the LIV rota after 2022.

Revenues picked up in 2023, with Australia providing 45% of the annual total due to the outstanding support of the LIV Adelaide tournament. If the rest of the tournaments on LIV’s schedule were as popular as Adelaide, the LIV tour would surely be in a better place. It begs the question why LIV haven’t added a second tournament in Australia.

The last chart shows the sources of LIV’s revenue with tournament hosting fees making up 37% of revenues, the largest category of income. ROW broadcast rights income amounted to only $3 million (8% of total revenue).

The losses being incurred by LIV are piling up at a staggering rate, necessitating regular injections of new capital by the Saudi PIF. The total capital injected to LIV Golf UK topped $1.0 billion after a recent issue of new capital in December 2024. The level of new share issues in 2024 of over $400 million implies no improvement in LIV’s 2024 financial performance (ex-USA) which won’t be filed for another 12 months:

The accounts don’t provide much detail on the costs and expenses being incurred by LIV Golf (UK). Here are a few charts:

Performance54 is the organisation which stages all of LIV’s tournaments, including marketing, event management and sponsorships. 6 tournaments were staged in 2022 and 14 in 2023, explaining the sharp increase year-on-year. The per-tournament cost works out at almost $10 million in 2022, falling to $7.3 million in 2023.

The largest line item is legal and professional expenses. In 2023 LIV UK’s legal fees were almost as high as PGA TOUR’s legal expenses. We don’t have information on the legal fees LIV is incurring in US which would go through LIV Golf, Inc. It’s reasonable to conclude that LIV’s total legal fees are significantly higher than the fees incurred by PGA TOUR.

LIV’s “Player indemnification” expenses are described in classic gobbledygook:

“Under these agreements the Parent Company and Group may be liable to make certain payments to the indemnified players on the occurrence of certain indemnified events, should those players request payment.”

This expense most likely relates to the penalties being handed out by the DP World Tour to members and former members who play on the LIV tour and continue to play occasional events on the European Tour. The 2022 P&L charge of $6.9 million was paid out in 2023 which must have been a welcome upside in the European Tour’s books that year.

Summary

Unfortunately we don’t have similar financial reporting from LIV Golf Inc on LIV’s US operations. We know from the statutory reporting by the Jersey holding companies that the total capital approved by PIF is now at $3.9 billion, $1.0 billion of which relates to LIV Golf UK and the balance to LIV Golf Inc in US. Clearly the US financials must be considerably worse than the rest of the world performance reported by LIV Golf in UK. PIF’s investment in LIV Golf could approach $5 billion by the end of this year, with further big bills on the horizon if they want to retain the top golfers as their contracts expire.