The PGA Tour’s shock merger with Saudi-backed rival LIV Golf boasts a singular investor in the yet-to-be-named entity — PIF, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.
The fund, established in 1971, is headed by Saudi’s Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman, who was accused of ordering the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Under the prince’s chairmanship, PIF has more than $600 billion in assets and has invested around the globe in companies that include Uber, Blackstone and Japan’s Softbank.
It has also spent heavily on sports franchises, including the $409 million purchase of vaunted English Premier League team Newcastle United in 2021.
Newcastle, which qualified for the Champion League this year for the first time in two decades, is run by PIF’s governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan — who will be chairman of the new LIV-PGA entity, according to a press release Tuesday.
The Kingdom also revealed Monday the transfer of 75% of the ownership of four teams in the Saudi Football Club to PIF — including the Riyadh-based Al-Nassr Football Club, which signed fading Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo to a $200,000 million a year contract though 2025.
As part of LIV and PGA Tour’s “landmark agreement” on Tuesday, “PIF will make a capital investment into the new entity to facilitate its growth and success,” according to the press release.
“PIF will initially be the exclusive investor in the new entity, alongside the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour,” the release added.
The fund’s financial statements aren’t public — as Gulf countries don’t typically publish information about their overall debts and assets.
PIF bankrolled LIV with at least $2 billion, according to The New York Times.
It has a 93% stake in the rebel league, and is responsible for 100% of its costs, though it’s unclear how that will change following its union with the PGA Tour and European DP World Tour.
LIV’s merger with PGA Tour quashes a year-long rivalry between the two professional golf tours, which began when LIV lured some of golf’s finest away from the PGA Tour with nine-figure contracts, equity in the teams they play for and hefty bonuses for winning any of the four men’s majors.
Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau were all reportedly recruited to join LIV Golf with eight- or nine-figure contracts.
The PGA Tour then banned any LIV Golf defectors from competing on the Tour, and the two leagues were embroiled in an antitrust battle.
With the merger, the Tour and LIV agreed to end all litigation between the two sides.
The Post has reached out to PIF for comment.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan touted the completion of the merger as a “historic day for the game we all know and love,” citing an end to “two years of disruption and distraction” in the release.
“We are pleased to move forward, in step with LIV and PIF’s world-class investing experience, and I applaud PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan for his vision and collaborative and forward-thinking approach that is not just a solution to the rift in our game, but also a commitment to taking it to new heights,” Monahan added in the statement.
Both Monahan and Al-Rumayyan will sit on the to-be-named entity’s board of directors — Al-Rumayyan as Chairman and Monahan as CEO — and executive committee.
The rest of the board members will be announced at a later date.
LIV Golf has notoriously struggled to secure broadcast and corporate sponsor deals that rival the Tour’s, which include TV rights with CBS Sports and NBC Sports plus endorsements from Rolex, FedEx and Mastercard, among others.
In May, LIV announced that it was headed back to YouTube for a pay-per-view broadcast option after signing a deal with The CW network.
LIV looked to lure in broadcasters, corporate sponsors and golfers alike with tournaments hosted by Donald Trump’s in 2022 and 2023.
However, the events outraged 9/11 families after declassified documents revealed a long-suspected Saudi role in helping Al-Qaeda hijackers locate in the US to prepare for the terror attacks.
Victims of 9/11 slammed the 2023 event, which Trump hosted in Virginia — 29 miles from the Pentagon, where 184 of nearly 3,000 victims were murdered — as “an insult to the memory of those killed in the attacks.”
This story originally appeared on NYPost
