Forever? That’s a funny kind of word.

 

I put my name to a piece called LIV Forever. That company now no longer exists.

The expected line in these cases is always that “mistakes are great learning moments, you glean more from adversity, a blessing to keep your ego in check, an experience that ultimately makes you stronger”. People write solemn self-improvement books on all this stuff. The necessity of failure for growth.

Fuck all that!

High-profile errors sting like a bitch, and I don’t enjoy writing today’s Sunday Column one bit.

Getting something wrong is an embarrassment at best, a major career set-back at worst. Either way it hurts pride so much that it’s a lasting incentive to always ask why you messed up. Like the greatest investor of his generation, Stan Drunkenmiller, losing his shirt in 2001 when going against his better instincts and chasing tech stocks just before the dotcom bust.

But this below was put on paper a year ago, and music now needs to be faced.

As very recent Columns have highlighted, great investing and risk management is about calculating the likelihood that key investors will continue to finance endemic losses. That there will always be someone on the bid.

In golf, events have now shown that the Saudis weren’t in fact up for the long haul, wouldn’t throw good money after bad, and that “forever” was an illusion. 

Whenever you use that word you are never leaving yourself any wiggle room, and that’s foolish.

Forever? That’s a funny kind of word.

Winona Ryder

 

Never Say Never.

In 1971, Sean Connery was persuaded to again play James Bond in the appalling “Diamonds Are Forever”. So bad was the experience, the movie, that he declared publicly “never again”.

Definitive.

Twelve years later, covered in gold, he returned to MI6 with “Never Say Never Again”, the title a humorous nod to the stupidity of any certainty in life. Peak Kim Bassinger may have also played a part in his decision, but in the end no one gave Sean too much heat.

Because “never” and “forever” are indeed funny words.

Ask Johnny Depp.

 

Better a wino than being reminded of her every day.

Someone said you had your tattoo removed
Saw you downtown singing the blues
It’s time to face the music
I’m no longer your muse

Katy Perry, The One That Got away

In the full flush of young love and global fame, Mr. Depp had the genius idea to deploy that same funny word in tattoo ink, declaring his undying commitment to the quirky little girl he was dating.

A tattoo so famous as to later enter a courtroom in evidence.

 

I mean, who can blame him? It wasn’t any girl. She was for very many the beauty of her generation, and this was a proper love story, like Heathcliffe and Cathy, Burton and Taylor, Johnny Cash and June. 

There was to be no happy ending to what was then the dominant popular-culture meme of the early 90s. Today’s youngsters, including those kids in “Stranger Things”, have no idea of the enormity of what Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder was. The last generation of true Old Hollywood glamour. Their story was everywhere… till it wasn’t.

I felt weird to be around him, like he wasn’t acting like Johnny anymore… It’s almost like Winona took Johnny’s soul, Johnny’s love.
Tim Burton

This is glorious and tragic pathos. Genuine box-office. Not like the star couples of today, almost all of whom are fake, publicist fodder for PR and exposure.

Depp later would alter the tattoo to “Wino Forever”, but as Ms Heard suspected, and Tim Burton absolutely knew, he never really got over her. To quote Johnny, when asked about removing the “n” and the “a”.

Just because it didn’t last, doesn’t diminish its truth in the moment.

A wonderful line. And that’s exactly what we should remember about LIV golf. Exactly that! 

What? 😊😉

You thought I was just going to go quietly today with a clean mea culpa? Just roll over and take the fat L?

A mistake is a mistake, but the nuance of this story is the real juice. And I just don’t like losing.

 

Not a normal failure.

Everyone now has opined on the demise of this challenger league, often with undignified glee. And always without a full and honest assessment of the lessons to learn, and where this now leaves the industry of professional golf. They ignore Johnny’s “truth in the moment”. 

Understandable. If I was on the other side, I’d be having a rare old time myself this month. Sledging is a healthy part of competitive sport and is always good value. (Include your own favourite politically-incorrect example here. Mine, about fat tail-enders, wives, and biscuits, didn’t make it past the editor 😳). 

LIV ultimately has no hiding place from its undignified and inelegant mess. No ifs or buts. No room for a witty rebuttal. The list of unpaid bills left with hapless creditors, the “always impossible” business model inevitably unravelling, the hubris of Greg and Yasir, the juvenile bravado of the cartoon caricature Bryson.

But honestly that isn’t the truth of this story, because this isn’t a normal failure. It’s not just another pitch deck that didn’t deliver, where an LP investor can dismiss it all with a pragmatic shrug of the shoulders.

This was era-defining for our sector of sport, yes; but also for the global ambitions and branding of Saudi Arabia. Because, so much of what LIV set out to do bumped up against the fault line that sits below and hinders all of sports.

Governing bodies run by the tyranny of the majority, acting with monopoly arrogance, leveraging unaccountable governance and faux democracy for personal agendas, using the power of tradition as an excuse to reject all attempts at innovation. In the unforgiving context of a radically-changing product/market fit for the offering, which sports’ leaders prefer just goes away, or doesn’t kick-in until they have retired. 

This is killing our industry.

LIV took it all head-on, with a certain panache, so their story cannot be dismissed with a smug smirk, and some casual hypocrisy about sports-washing. What LIV questioned, albeit clumsily, is exactly the same kind of dilemma facing tennis, rugby, cricket, horse-racing and even Association Football. 

Challenger leagues can only exist when existing sports leadership is significantly lacking, dishonest and complacent. Make no mistake, LIV would have never got out of the womb if the governance of golf had been in any way decent, or had had the humility to see that change was needed.
– LIV Forever

Golf was being managed dreadfully before LIV. And all of those same problems still exist, after LIV.

As our mate Connery points out, the situation hasn’t improved.

 

Napster also died, but changed the world.

If attitudes in sports’ governing bodies now modernise, post-LIV, that will have been $6bn well spent, and it wasn’t even our money.

Failure isn’t always a proxy for being stupid or wrong. Sometimes it is just the price for being bold. The first guy through the wall always gets bloodied.

Can’t get clearer than that.

Threatening their livelihoods.

People laughing at LIV today are missing this bigger picture, and they won’t be ready for what is inevitably still to come. In so many ways, LIV has succeeded in changing the crusty, insular, curmudgeon world of golf and its governors. The PGA has “evolved” more since LIV arrived than it ever did in the decades preceding the challenge. Ironically, that change has almost always been a carbon copy of the core axioms of the Saudis.

The PGA has finally got the memo, and is now itself introducing something called “Signature Events”. If you enjoy irony, have a read at this article. The Player Impact Program also likely only exists thanks to pressure from LIV.
– LIV Forever

The haters stubbornly insist to not see that last paragraph, because it requires admitting their own failings, something they don’t have the confidence or gravitas to do. Only a person with true self-belief can admit an error. 

In reality, LIV, like the European Superleague in football, like R360 in rugby, has shone a very bright light on the key issues of our industry, and none of this should be plastered over in the carnage of Chapter 11 filings.

The knowledge that they almost certainly will be is more than frustrating. It makes you angry.

 

Rage or be complicit.

The demise of LIV hasn’t changed or solved any of the big limitations of our “asset class”:

*
A sport industry dramatically polarising into box office and commodity offerings, where our broadcaster clients ain’t anymore gonna pay for commodity.

**
Governing body CEOs that try to deny sport’s K-economy by throwing more and more product into the calendar, under their brand, to selfishly hit their own revenue targets. Massively over-saturating the market, forcing star athletes to adapt. 

***
Box-office stars now want to play less, and focus more on the big competitions and Majors. They are not accepting the “over-saturation” game, and are marketable enough to be able to demand a better quality of life, and frankly more time to look after their bodies. (LIV has shown tennis its imminent destiny if it can’t bite the bullet on this stuff and get to a Premier Tour. Their players are falling like 9-pins, and taking their little breaks during the year.).

****
The long-tail still dominates sport’s governance and does nothing but prevent serious debate on sport’s product-market fit for 2026. (Horse-racing in the UK is the perfect case study here).

*****
A vastly less profitable media sector is now unable to offer sport the safe monies up front, upon which it has been spoilt-rotten, and on which the governing-body castles of sand have all been built. Serie A the next taxi off the rank on this one.

******
Many sports are still not set up as sustainable, and are utterly dependant on a new credit card behind the bar every year. Football in Europe the prime example, but it’s everywhere. (The self-inflicted insolvency of the WTA, following insane equal-pay dogma, is another biting example). They all need to wake-up, drink some espresso, and drop the delusion that there will always be a sugar daddy to subsidise them.

Colleagues are free to disagree with all or any of this, and many will, but none of these issues can be ignored whilst toasting the demise of the Saudis and LIV. That’s just superficial.

These things aren’t ever spoken about in the polite company of the cheer-leading sports conferences and award shows at this time of year, but they should be, especially when one listens to Ari.

Rage to make them hear you. Rage to keep them honest. Rage or else you’re no different from them. Rage or be complicit.
Ari Emanuel

God bless the raw talent and balls of Mr Gold. He didn’t rise to the top by being polite. But through blunt honest clarity, and the understanding of negotiating leverage.

Hats off to the en-passant commentary on what would today be named NBA Europe. That is a Column for another day. 

What eulogy would Ari deliver today, in front of the LIV funeral pyre?

Not sure, but here’s mine.

 

I come to bury LIV, not to praise it.

And Jay Monahan is an honourable man.

LIV exits stage-right as a biblical cock-up, burning barrowloads of petrodollars, and the complete opposite of the brand aspirations of the Kingdom. All you hear now in the industry is:

Be careful, the Saudis have always been bad payers, and that is now more than evident.

This can’t have been the plan. Was there a plan? 

It is still difficult to articulate the original investment thesis of LIV once their hopes to partner with golf’s governing bodies had been rebuffed. Remember they didn’t want to go rogue with golf, and in fact never do. (Note the difference in how Surj has invested in the ATP and PTO).

The anger of rejection, perceived disrespect, bruised pride, revenge (Greg Norman), are all obvious emotional drivers which, when linked to very deep pockets, can make important men act imprudently. Our history books are filled with such ego and testosterone.

But a full professional business plan did exist, and there were very good people around. 

It was just wrong.

Over these three years, the LIV vision and forecasting has been shown to be well off the mark, and anyone who doesn’t want to face into that error is equally as stubborn as the other side. In terms of a business plan, they massively overestimated the media distribution and rights fees they could achieve. At the time, 2020, they took all the blue-chip advice money can buy, from the great and the good of sport media experts, (you all know who you are), but these folks just didn’t see the start of Sports’ Perfect Storm, didn’t look at the unwinding of the cable bundle, and the new dynamics of Big Media. If LIV hadn’t been backed by a committed owner with very deep pockets, they may already be just a failed start-up.
– LIV Forever

LIV wasn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last, to massively misread the growth prospect of sports media rights. You see the same nonsense every day in all those fancy investment bank brochures, where what you are forced to read is nothing short of fraud negligence, borne out of both greed and naivety.

So LIV got the media rights line wrong. What else?

In a market where investors were/are desperate to get into the “asset class” of sport, they didn’t sell any team franchises, like The Hundred or SailGP. Why not? 

They also didn’t diversify the model to invest in the 85% of the golf industry not represented by pro tournament golf. Why didn’t they try and get into equipment and the likes. Buy Taylor Made? Vertically integrate to really “own” the sport, if that was the idea? 

But mainly they failed because they didn’t ever find a product that “fit” with the “market”. It is clear now, also thanks to them, that sport events without tradition and purpose have a hard time finding space in the battle for the leisure dollar. Fans will willingly spend on something they are passionate about, on big events that have a clear place in the history books, and where they can contextualise the moment around storied teams, strips and cups. But if you expect them to turn up to watch “sport” that has been manufactured, you are going to be disappointed. LIV ultimately didn’t manage to communicate why we should care about their competition and teams. And of course we didn’t.

The uniqueness of sport is in its meaning. Without that, it’s just another option to spend whatever disposable income and free time you still have left in these hard years. LIV maybe made for a very nice family day out, but that’s a different market entirely. There you are competing with a Harry Potter theme park, a cinema and pizza afterwards, a nice shopping afternoon, a boat trip on the lake with fizzy drinks and ice cream. And pap sport will always lose that battle badly, something women’s football is realising very quickly now.

But despite all of this, the reality of the defeat is even more profound.

LIV got the yips, and choked when it had the match at its mercy.

 

You have to be a killer.

With the adversary on the floor, the Saudis put down their big stick to make peace, and that is totally unexplainable to me. Always was. 

A peace was attempted a year ago, when LIV in reality had the PGA staggering on the ropes. The cartel and abusive monopoly behaviour of Jay Monahan had been so bad, with a damning audit trail, that the Saudis had taken them to Court. They would have comfortably won that, demanded $3bn, and absolutely bankrupted the PGA. They dropped the case, as an olive branch to get people back around a table to find a peace and a partnership. An understanding was reached. On the back of this news, John Henry and his billionaire buddies felt secure enough to invest into this new PGA/LIV detente, as this piece reminds us.
– LIV Forever

From that moment Saudi had lost. They got played by a guy who called them “9/11 family insulters”.

Dropping the threat, for no more than a non-binding MOU, cost them all their momentum, and one wonders who advised them to do that. It certainly wasn’t a killer. 

From then, it was a journey of ever-decreasing circles down the plug. With absolutely the wrong CEO.

LIV however has a new CEO with a real pedigree in delivering big rights deals. This suggests that they are still hoping on broadcast values helping them break-even. That personally doesn’t fill me full of confidence, especially if you are building up very expensive company infrastructure in New York to deliver it. I think that those days are gone for LIV, and for all non-premium sports.
– LIV Forever

Those media deals from Scott O’ Neil obviously didn’t come, but the huge increase in costs he layered into the business utterly undermined the confidence of the Saudis. It’s one thing to be still funding cash-burn, that’s early-stage investing, but an investor needs to see improvements in the direction of travel. The cost base was massively increased at exactly the wrong time, because even billionaires and nation states switch-off when they can’t see progress of some kind.

Scott also played his cards very badly on the issue of world ranking points. He accepted a token concession that meant nothing to his players, or the prestige of his brand. 

Scott O’ Neil is not a killer.

 

The winners write the history books.

These are high times for all of the golfing community that vociferously despised LIV. The grandstanding now from famous players, CEOs and journalists is normal. To the victor the spoils.

They should nevertheless move quickly past the Schadenfruede, because all great generals are already assessing the next battles on the horizon. And there are many:

*
The DP World Tour still looks rudderless, in strategic limbo, neither fish not foul. They seem to the outsider to be no more than the subsidised feeder-league for PGA Tour (PGAT). The top players leave for America, almost like a quid-pro-quo for the $100m they receive from the PGAT each year. Is that the ambition? A feeder pathway? A golf academy? Fields are weakening, sponsors are withdrawing, the executive seem to be doing anything to shore it all up, selling naming rights to storied events. Operationally it is paying the price for the confusion around its lessor role now, like players not being told if the season will end in UAE or not. Governance is not great either. Boards are filled by ex-players who were old clients of the CEO. Bjorn and Montgomerie may be the most honourable of gentlemen, I don’t know, but they are Kinnings’ mates, and that’s a bad look. I wouldn’t put a brass farthing of investment in the future of this property.

**
The PGAT turned itself inside-out to try and not lose more star players to LIV. It copied them, but now is still to face the fallout of polarising its union membership into “signature” and “also-ran”. Who is now calling the shots on all that? On access, purses, exemptions? Rory? Everything still seems to be messy knee-jerk. Who asked for a match-play FedEx? Who decided? On what democratic process? Is the average age of the fan of the PGA starting to come down? Show me where you are picking up new audiences?

***
Global golf for all this is still a fractured eco-system, with too many governing bodies, tours, and a skewed ranking system. Nothing looks solid apart from the Majors. The coolest and most sophisticated insight of all, for the PGAT victory over LIV, is that it is likely to be pyrrhic.  Definitively so. What they have done, to see off the Saudis, may now have sown the very seeds of their own demise. They have polarised their player body politic, confused their meritocracy of achievements, and increased purses way too high.

And at the same time, the losers in this LIV war have all taken a real beating. History won’t be kind.

****
It couldn’t have been a worse outcome for Saudi, who have lost a fortune as well as meaningful trust and credibility. If LIV was about being a PR makeover, that has patently failed. They have skipped town leaving a wad of debts and unpaid bills. Sport won’t forget that quickly.

*****
Greg Norman’s goblet of revenge is bone dry.

******
Bryson has gone from the new Arnold Palmer to a future as golf’s Mr Beast, in less than a year. A true lesson in how negotiating leverage can turn on a dime.

*******
The other LIV golfers are richer, maybe, but now abandoned pariahs catching nasty side-looks everywhere they go. The older ones may feel no meaningful pain, but those who were still on the upslopes of a career: Rahm, Smith, Koepka, Reed will always now be branded with treason.

********
And me?

 

Mia Grandissima Colpa.

The “mia colpa” from me is in not remembering well enough that the future of everything is always about the flows of capital and geopolitics. Especially with the Orange Man as the leader of the free world. You exist at the pleasure and moods of your provider of capital, something we see every hour now in the AI space. (The forecast IPOs are all in doubt because their losses are huge, and they can’t compete with Chinese open source. They are, in reality, looking for a government bail-out, and Trump knows it. We are in very very choppy waters, picking up dimes in front of a steamroller.)

Saudi is just not in the same diplomatic and economic place it was a year ago, but that could have been predicted better. The Landman article talked extensively about how the price of oil was changing the macro. How AI capex in Saudi was perhaps misplaced and crowding out other things. But I missed that one of those things getting crowded out would be LIV.

You just never know the minute when the thing you say could happen, actually does. That was an error, and it all now seems clear with hindsight.

Middle East money. If LIV, Neom and Newcastle are anything to go by, the direction of travel is in reverse. They are retrenching to domestic, husbanding resources, as missiles rain down, and VOL goes through the roof. Boom times are over.

Dimes in front of a Steamroller

Sure, if the LIV cash burn projections had been more contained, the Kingdom may have thought twice. But Scott gave them no reason to hesitate, especially when their major oil transit routes were being blockaded. 

Events, dear boy, events.

…..

 

LIV(e) Forever.

The image of the original LIV Forever piece featured the Gallagher brothers, on the back of their recently-announced reunion at that time.

The title as a consequence wrote itself, to my deep chagrin now. No caveats, no conditional tense, in a regrettable attempt to be smart, with a cool music link to Oasis. Hubris. 

Today’s Column however willingly closes the circle to mention the film documentary of that very tour a year ago. It received an 8-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film festival, and deservedly so. This is music’s version of “The Last Dance”; it is that good. The younger brother exudes fully the greatness of Jordan, and the emotional impact on the audiences all around the world is caught with wonderful storytelling and cinematography. The whole effort can rightly be called epic. Do not miss this in cinemas, to feel the passion of the theatre, and be transported back to the mid 90s. People were crying.

Especially on a Sunday, this masterpiece deserves one more mention. All through this 2-hour delight is the story of two people with the same blood who didn’t speak to each other for 15 years. It’s a life lesson on the power of forgiveness, of love, and what joy that can bring.

Something for golf to remember… forever. 

What a funny word.