As with everything live golf, there's a lot of subterfuge. There's a lot of cloak and

dagger. No one knows anything to quote William Goldman talking about Hollywood. It's they have an

investor. Investor. They They wouldn't wouldn't say who it was. News broke that it's BC Partners.

They are aligned with this this sports management agency called GSE Worldwide just funneled a bunch

of top players to live golf, including Bryce and DeChambeau. So there's this makes sense, but

the the framework of the deal is obscured. You know, they're they have a term sheet.

They have it shared. This is always how it goes to live golf. You never get

the full picture. So we're all waiting to to find out. The question is they will

get a cash infusion here. How much and how long will it sustain the tour? Because

the business model is not working right now. They've it's it's just a startup that has

been incinerating cash for four and a half years now. So they're gonna slash the purses.

They're gonna they're gonna terminate the the payouts that they owe the players. But can they

even even at that point, can they make enough revenue just to keep the circus going?

Like, that is the unknown right now.

I'm gonna read from that statement and and all of its vagaries here. Live Golf has

an agreement in place with a lead investor, signed by the investor, approved by the board

to anchor the transaction, play a key role in supporting the path forward for the league's

next era driven by and for the players. We anticipate finalizing terms in the coming weeks

with the goal of entering a transaction in September. Could you just explain the predicament that

Live Golf finds itself in? So still a a fairly new league here. You mentioned the

the cash burn that we've seen play out here since its inception. How badly is it

doing?

So the the predicament for LIV is that the business model needs big stars, but the

big stars want guaranteed money. They don't have the money to give. So can they keep

the stars? And can can the tour exist without the stars if there's no guaranteed money?

It's this this circular problem. There's there's no doubt there at this point, it seems likely

that there will be a live golf in 2027. It's gonna the the era of decadence

is over. Like, these guys are no longer gonna be living like Louis the fourteenth. It's

gonna be a nice little golf tour with smallest purses, with a very small footprint, playing

10 events as a as a game changing disruptive force, like those days are over. So

Live two point o appears that it'll have some foothold in the golf world, but how

how relevant it's going to be will depend on if they can hold on to their

biggest stars, which is really John Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. And they're offering them equity in

this new league to stay, but, you know, cash is king. And whether these guys wanna,

in the primes of their careers, wanna pledge themselves to a b list circuit where there's

no guaranteed payout, that is a big ask of of players who have, you know, a

finite amount of time to to make their hay as as professional athletes. So there there's

so many questions that I think we can say that there will be a live golf

in 2027, but what it's gonna look like, who's gonna play it, and if anyone's gonna

pay attention, those are the big questions.

And, like, who is watching it? Because I will admit I'm not the biggest golf fan.

You're not. Shush. I will confirm. Shush. Confirm that.

But it just didn't seem like there was really a need for this to be disrupted.

Like, no one was asking for this. No one was, like, clamoring for this. And when

you look at the ratings, I mean, the PGA Tour's audience on an average day is,

like, 17.78 times larger than Liv's final round when it comes to TV audiences. What was

the goal here?

Well, it was an exercise in soft power by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Liv was

never really about golf. It it was about sports washing. It was about a a regime

that wanted to launder its reputation and wanted a foothold in the Western world, and golf

was a useful vehicle for that. And that is the starting and the ending point of

what Live Golf has been. Everything else is just noise. Now with the Saudi public investment

fund divesting, now Live has to stand on own just as a pure competition. And that's

where, as as you know, they've struggled. When when Live has played international tournaments, they've done

pretty well. When they go to Australia or South Africa or Korea, they've they've been cagey

about picking markets that have not had big time golf. And when they take the show

on the road, they have created some energy in those markets, and they have had good

turnouts from the fans, and they they've created some positive buzz. But they're looking at playing

five international events and five domestic next year. The the tournaments in The US have been

utter disasters because as as you say, the the sports fans in The United States were

not clamoring for another golf league. They they barely support the PGA Tour, which is a

proud American institution that's been around since more or less the nineteen twenties. And so for

Liv to try and play half its schedule in The US to me seems like a

miss. They they should go completely international, and then they have a chance to succeed. But,

you know, the BC Partners is based in The US, and and so the people are

putting the money in. They they wanna have some tournaments here. So the it's just a

struggle for live golf. Even when they had some of the best players in the world,

they couldn't attract an an audience here. Now they've lost Brooks Koepka. They've lost Patrick Reed.

They're already coming home to the PGA Tour. There's a good chance to lose more players

next year. So that that is the ultimate question. Can for Liv to succeed as a

standalone entity without the endless cash infusions of the public investment fund, it has to generate

interest among fans, and that that's been an uphill battle from day one.

Alan, let me linger lastly here on on that, this kind of schism that we've seen

in golf. And you mentioned that Live two point o is gonna be this kind of

dressed down smaller league compared to what its aspirations were and what it was for for

a time. I I imagine the PGA Tour is feeling pretty good about this, and then

I'm wondering just in terms of competition here,

where there is any whatsoever. I mean, the the case before was, as you mentioned, players

could go to live and make a lot more money. If this is a slimmed down

version of what they'd aspire to be or were, how do they make that case to

to players? Is it just inevitably gonna lead to more defections, do you think?

Yeah. There is room for for Live Golf. I mean, three years four years ago before

Live Golf arrived, there are only four events on the PGA Tour where the purse was

bigger than $10,000,000. Like, $10,000,000 used to be an incredible purse, and that's kind of what

Live is targeting for next year. So it it could be a the second or third

best tour in golf potentially. But the the problem is because of this this battle for

the soul of the sport and and live is has been somewhat radioactive, there are not

pathways of movement. In in professional golf, there's it's much like baseball. There's a big leagues.

There's triple a. There's double a. And so you play in Asia, then you play in

Europe, then you come to the PGA Tour. That's the dream if you're a young aspiring

player. And Liv is frozen out of that system now. So you can go and play

these tournaments, but you're not going to have the ability to upgrade and to to move

freely, and that's really its problem.