In the most recent edition of #AskAlan with Alan Shipnuck of the Firepit Collective, the author of “LIV and Let Die” reported that the Saudi PIF will have to pony up the big bucks once again if LIV wants to keep their biggest stars under contract.
Players such as Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson all received massive signing bonuses to join LIV, but those contracts will begin to run out after the 2024 and 2025 season, meaning they’ll need to be re-signed.
“The slow-playing can’t last forever—we will know in the next couple of months whether the framework agreement winds up in the recycling bin or if the PIF will invest a few billion dollars into PGA Tour Enterprises to buy its way into the golf establishment.”
“The time horizon that matters is four years, which is the length of the contracts of LIV’s biggest names. We’re now in year three.
“The future of LIV will come down to the negotiations and machinations between Yasir Al-Rumayyan and the tour’s best players, beginning this coming off-season.”
“LIV has done a remarkable job keeping it in-house but there is plenty of disenchantment among the players at the heavy-handed and often chaotic way the PIF runs the tour, with much of the decision-making filtered through the white-shoe law firm of Gibson Dunn; professional sports is very different from the oil business and courtroom litigation. But money can buy happiness, or at least acquiescence.”
“Someone close to one of LIV’s marquee attractions recently said this to me about the impending contract negotiations: ‘Will he stay? If they offer him the same money as last time around, absof—inglutely. But if Yasir gets stingy, he’s gone.”
Time will tell if Yasir Al-Rumayyan will continue to open the checkbook for some of world’s top professional golfers.
More from the 19th hole
