LIV Golf isn’t the only major golf tour to lose millions

The biggest golf news of the past week was economic catnip:

LIV Golf’s international operations suffered nearly $500 million in losses in 2024.

Half a billion! Combined with similar losses in 2023 and launch costs around 2022, LIV’s international arm – around half of its business – has incurred losses north of $1 billion.

The most common question about these staggering numbers: How can the company possibly continue to operate? – is often confronted with: Well, LIV is owned by Saudi PIF, which has total assets of almost $1 trillion. The big picture: This team golf thing is just a rounding error.

Indeed, the financiers of LIV Golf can afford to keep dumping money into the league; they have already proven that. The bigger story, however, is the lack of encouraging signs in those spreadsheets. The new players, tech add-ons and revolving door of host sites that LIV has rolled out have only sunk it deeper into the red. We also already knew at work: running a golf tour is real, Real expensive, and running a global circuit is even more expensive. Just ask any of LIV’s competitors.

LIV’s international financial data is made public through Companies House, the UK government department that requires financial reporting for all registered companies in the UK. The DP World Tour (formerly known as the European Tour) falls into the same category, and documents show it has suffered significant losses of its own.

In 2024, the DPWT’s non-Ryder Cup revenues were as high as ever, event attendance was up, and so were TV ratings for its biggest tournaments (the Rolex Series). Sponsorship revenues increased by 15% and consumer revenues – such as merchandise, ticketing and catering sales – grew by almost 30%.

So how did the DPWT sustain $32 million in losses?

Again, we refer you to the LIV case study: Expanding Progolf to all corners of the world is pricey. And LIV doesn’t have the profit engine that is the Ryder Cup to save it.

It’s hardly a revelation that the DPWT’s partial ownership of the Ryder Cup keeps it afloat, but it’s in those financial documents that we really begin to understand the value of the event. According to the 2024 report, the Ryder Cup is a revenue generator of approximately $110 million if held in Europe every four years; that figure amounts to about one-third of the DPWTs’ revenues whole Annual schedule with 44 events. Profits from its own Ryder Cups have helped offset the costs of organizing tournaments on four different continents. That includes the windfall from the DPWT’s strategic alliance with the PGA Tour.

As part of that deal, the PGA Tour has sent about $25 million (on average) across the pond since 2021, mostly to fund DPWT purses, which have increased to $153 million this year. In return, the PGA Tour received a stake in European Tour Productions that will grow to 40% by 2030. At a time of great challenge – the intersection of Covid and the rise of LIV – the PGA Tour reached out to its friends across the pond. Two years later, the PGA Tour has (more than) doubled its investment, and the DPWT now has a much longer runway to continue to strengthen the professional game internationally.