It’s the breakaway golf circuit which has dominated the sport since arriving in 2022. But what exactly is LIV Golf and what is the latest LIV Golf news? We answer all the important questions about the league backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
LIV Golf news 2025
March 14, 2025: LIV Golf announced a multi-year, free-to-air broadcast deal with DAZN – one of the leading sports entertainment platforms in the world.
DAZN has also secured exclusive broadcast rights for LIV Golf in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal and Switzerland. In the future, DAZN will develop a paid subscription service for LIV Golf content.
February 7, 2025: LIV Golf fans in the UK can now watch the action for free on ITVX, the on-demand platform for the ITV.
The deal started with the second round of the first event of the 2025 season in Riyadh and will cover all LIV events until the season-ending championship in Michigan.
January 16, 2025: LIV Golf made two huge changes at the start of 2025, the first of which was replacing Greg Norman with Scott O’Neil as the new CEO.
Norman will remain involved with LIV but O’Neil, the previous chief executive of Merlin Entertainments and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE), will control day-to-day operations.
The LIV Golf League had been Norman’s baby, the physical form of his dream new golf league which stemmed from his attempt to make a World Golf Tour in 1994 which didn’t come off.
“The opportunity to lead a global sports league is a dream come true. I am grateful and humbly thank the members of the LIV Golf Board of Directors and its Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan for believing in my strategic vision, growth plan, and passion for this league,” O’Neil said.
Secondly, January saw LIV Golf secure an incredibly significant multi-year media rights deal with Fox Sports, a platform that will now deliver live coverage at every event.
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The action will be live on Fox or FS1, as well as FS2, Fox Business Network and the Fox Sports App. Fans can also watch the LIV Golf League on the LIV Golf+ App.
“We are thrilled to partner with FOX Sports, one of the preeminent broadcast networks in the world,” O’Neil said. “LIV Golf is getting bigger and bolder, and this relationship signals the next phase of growth as our League joins the company of the nation’s premier sports leagues and conferences.
“I want to thank the FOX Sports team who share our vision for the future of golf, a new model that is redefining how the sport is experienced. LIV Golf is drawing a younger, more active and tech-savvy fan base, and as our players and teams prepare for LIV Golf’s biggest season yet, this agreement will take our broadcast to new heights.”
LIV will retain the services of their broadcast team made of Arlo White, David Feherty, Jerry Foltz, Dom Boulet and Su-Ann Heng.
While we await more from the LIV Golf news mill, continue below to our comprehensive guide to ‘What is LIV Golf?’
How did LIV Golf start?
During the 12 months or so before LIV Golf was born in June 2022, there had been talk of a Saudi Golf League forming, but we all waited with anticipation as to which players could join and how it would manifest itself.
In the days when Greg Norman was one of the very best in the world during the 1990s, he was at loggerheads with the PGA Tour because he didn’t believe the game’s biggest names were compensated enough for what they brought to the sport.
In 1994, the Australian proposed a World Golf Tour which ultimately failed. Three decades later, Norman led the formation of the LIV Golf League and secured the monstrous backing of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
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The first event was hosted by Centurion in Hemel Hempstead near London and the first stars to sign up were Dustin Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen, Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer.
More followed in the coming weeks and years. It was Phil Mickelson‘s involvement in the tour that almost brought it down, but also kickstarted it. Subject of an alleged $200 million sign-up fee, Mickelson made headlines as his comments about the Saudi Kingdom and their treatment of homosexuals made to Alan Shipnuck became public, later appearing in his biography written by Shipnuck.
Who are the LIV Golf players?
Now onto the fun part.
During its debut season, LIV Golf chopped and changed its roster like a one-year-long transfer window.
The biggest names to first sign up included major winners Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Sergio Garcia, as well as Ryder Cup stars Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell.
As more money was thrown into the pot and rumours intensified, the field then strengthened throughout the 2022 season, with major winners Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, and, perhaps most controversially – given it cost him his Ryder Cup captaincy – Henrik Stenson signing up.
Norman then got a huge coup when he landed Cameron Smith just two months after winning The Open at St Andrews. The likes of Paul Casey, Kevin Na, and Abraham Ancer have also made the move.
Ahead of LIV Golf’s third season, the circuit made the mammoth signing of Jon Rahm. His fellow Europeans Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk followed him, as did Australian Lucas Herbert.
The names of the 13 four-man LIV teams are as follows: 4Aces, Stingers, Smash, Majesticks, Rippers, Cleeks, Crushers, Iron Heads, Hy Flyers, Legion XIII, Fireballs, Torque and RangeGoats.
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ALSO: Take a look at every player in every LIV Golf team HERE
What does LIV Golf stand for?
It’s simple really. LIV in Roman numerals is 54. Keep reading and more will become clear…
What is LIV Golf?
Billed as ‘Golf, but louder’, LIV has promised to “modernise and supercharge the game of professional golf through expanded opportunities for both players and fans alike.”
But in terms of what the league looks like – in 2024, the league expanded to 13 teams of four players, plus two wildcards that play each week. In 2025, the same 13 teams will compete at each event for individual and team honours, culminating in the team championships at the end of the season.
How does LIV Golf work?
LIV Golf features 54 players competing in an individual tournament for a lot of money (we’ll get to that). Those 54 players are also split into 13 teams of four who also compete for even more money (we’ll get to that, too).
The spare two players who are not in teams can score points in the individual standings across the season, but they aren’t part of a team unless they are signed by a team during the various trade windows that LIV holds during the year (like Anthony Kim).
There are 14 events at a range of locations around the world and there are two titles at stake: the individual championship and the team championship. If you finish in the top 24 at an event, you earn points towards your end-of-season total. If you earn the most points based on how well you finish, you will win the individual title.
At each event, the top eight teams of the 13 on the leaderboard will earn points in the team standings. In the first three years of the LIV Golf League, in the first two days of the three-day events, three of the four players’ stroke play scores count towards the team total. On day three, every score counts. Now in 2025, all four scores count on all three days of the tournament in what was a significant format shake-up.
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Breaking from the conventional formats seen on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, LIV Golf events are played over 54 holes, with shotgun starts and no cuts.
The purse at each event is $25 million. The winning individual earns $4 million and the winning team earns $5 million which gets invested back into the team.
ALSO: Show me the money! How much has each LIV player made since signing up?
ALSO: Report: Saudis to own chunk of PGA Tour in huge £1 billion deal
ALSO: How far have the LIV golfers fallen in the world rankings?
What is the schedule?
In 2022, LIV Golf held eight events around the world. This was made up of seven ‘Invitational Series’ events which featured two competitions – individual and team – starting at Centurion Club in June and ending in Bangkok and Jeddah in October, with five stops in the United States in between.
The eighth and final event of the season – the LIV Golf Team Championship at Donald Trump’s Doral – was then a team-only event which consisted of match play and stroke play.
Moving into 2023, LIV Golf upped the ante and staged 14 tournaments around the world. Changing its name to the LIV Golf League, the 12 teams and 48-man field was set for the entire season, with the season running from February through to October.
In 2024 and now 2025, there are 13 teams and two wildcards at each event. There are 14 tournaments with the aforementioned team championships to play for at the end of the season.
ALSO: HERE is the LIV Golf 2025 Schedule
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Who owns LIV Golf?
The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is reportedly worth $930 billion. It is the sole investor in the LIV Golf League, which means the Saudi sovereign wealth fund is the one writing the cheques for the events, players and everything else.
Greg Norman might have been the architect behind the design of LIV Golf, but it is the PIF that is responsible for its financial existence. It is the PIF’s seemingly endless pot of money that has funded the sign-up fees for Mickelson, Johnson, Rahm, DeChambeau, Koepka and Smith – all of which were reportedly paid nine-figure sums.
What are the LIV Golf payouts?
The first seven tournaments of LIV Golf’s existence each carried a prize pot of $25 million – $20 million for the individual competition and $5 million for the team side of things. And this structure has remained consistent into 2025.
The maximum you can win at an event is $4.75 million – $4 million for winning the individual competition, and $750,000 for the winning team’s share per player – as Schwartzel did in the first event at Centurion. That works out to more than $23,000 per shot. Not bad for three days’ work.
If you win the individual championship at the end of the season, you will also bank an eight-figure sum. Rahm, Johnson and Talor Gooch have respectively won the individual titles and reached banked $18 million.
How do LIV Golf contracts work?
This is an interesting one. It would seem that LIV Golf contracts work in a case-by-case basis. Dustin Johnson committed to a four-year contract with LIV Golf, so his last year would be 2025.
Johnson, and presumably the biggest stars like Koepka, Rahm, DeChambeau etc., will have been prioritised with multi-year deals to confirm their participation for a sustained period before concepts such as relegation come into play.
However, for as long as Johnson finishes high on the season-long LIV leaderboard and in the zone where his deal is automatically extended, then he can keep playing in the LIV Golf League.
Even if a player finishes in the relegation zone or the Open Zone, where they essentially become free agents, their team can resign them. Brande Grace and Bubba Watson were relegated in 2024, but respectively resigned by the Stingers and the RangeGoats. Graeme McDowell was also offered another year with Smash despite finishing in the Open Zone.
How to watch LIV Golf
LIV Golf has signed a deal with FOX Sports in the USA, so US fans will be able to watch the action across all FOX channels from 2025. LIV Golf+ App subscribers in the UK will still be able to watch the action and they can now watch the action on ITVX.
In Spain, you can watch LIV Golf on Movistar Plus+. On March 14, 2025, DAZN was announced to show LIV Golf action in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal and Switzerland.
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Done with this LIV Golf news piece? Did the most recent LIV Golf news surprise you? Are you expecting any more big LIV Golf news soon? Tell us on X!