MEXICO CITY \u2014 Jon Rahm says he had no trouble moving forward inside the ropes amid uncertainty surrounding the future of LIV Golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it didn\u2019t make sense to think about it or waste time thinking about,\u201d Rahm said after opening with seven birdies in his round of 6-under 65 at LIV Golf Mexico, leaving him three shots behind Victor Perez of France at Chapultepec Golf Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince everything happened so suddenly and so quickly, I wasn\u2019t very worried about it because normally, before the rumors start, we already know something \u2014 there\u2019s always someone within the league who knows something,\u201d he said. \u201cIt happened so fast that I really didn\u2019t worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speculation was running rampant that the main source of funding \u2014 Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund \u2014 was on the verge of drying up. The LIV chief executive, Scott O\u2019Neil, sent a memo to staff the 2026 season would proceed without interruption and at \u201cfull throttle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questions remained whether that would last beyond the end of the year.<\/p>\n
There was a power outage at the course on Tuesday, fueling speculation about the league\u2019s future. And then the streaming of the first round went out for about two hours.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neil sat down with LIV\u2019s broadcast team and remained bullish about the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the momentum of this business, we\u2019re really excited about where we are and the position where we are,\u201d O\u2019Neil said.<\/p>\n
He said he met with 50 people at the Masters and rolled out a plan that \u201cmight surprise people.\u201d LIV Golf has said some of its metrics such as ticket sales and team sponsorships have increased, and O\u2019Neil is projecting 10 of the 13 teams and four of the 14 events will be profitable.<\/p>\n
But there is a substantial cost involved with prize funds ($30 million for each tournament) and operations. The newsletter Money in Sport reported in February that LIV Golf already had spent $5.3 billion and was projected to surpass $6 billion by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis notion of bringing teams to market, I had two calls this morning,\u201d O\u2019Neil said on the LIV broadcast. \u201cThis notion of, \u2018Do you have to raise money?\u2019 Probably this is business. But if we keep the trajectory going the way we are and the revenue growth going, this is going to be a really good business for a really long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY \u2014 Jon Rahm says he had no trouble moving forward inside the ropes amid uncertainty surrounding…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":737205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-737204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116427168512305040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}