As the Masters approaches, the rivalry between the PGA Tour and LIV continues to divide the sport

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Golf's biggest buzzword on the eve of its biggest tournament has nothing to do with technology or equipment or any of the superstars converging at Augusta National this week. The topic of the day is sustainability – or rather, the perceived unsustainability of the current landscape, in which the world's best professionals compete on separate tours, their much-anticipated alliance is still in limbo, and one sport is enjoying increasing participation, but there is fear of a decline in fan interest.

“Things need a correction,” Rory McIlroy, one of the faces of the PGA Tour, said last week in Texas, “and things are not sustainable.”

“And it has to happen quickly,” said Bryson DeChambeau, the LIV golf star, in Florida. “It’s not a two-year thing. Just for the good of the sport it has to happen sooner and not later. Too many people are losing interest.”

While more money is flowing into the sport than ever before, the dueling professionals are fighting for relevance. They are tweaking and revamping their business models in the hope of achieving a return on investment, seeking to funnel unprecedented amounts of money to their players while building profitable businesses. Meanwhile, a growing chorus is calling for some form of reconciliation.

This week, 13 LIV players will compete against their PGA Tour counterparts at the Masters. They differ only in the LIV team gear they will wear on golf's most hallowed ground – Sergio García, the Fireball; Bubba Watson, the rangegoat. And for four days, fans will be reminded of what today's game is not – a unified tour with the best players constantly playing against each other – and what they hope it will become again.

The sustainability discussion is two-pronged: Can sport, in its fragmented state, remain relevant and appealing to fans? And is sport economically viable enough to support the current pace of spending?

“I just think people are getting really tired because of the struggles and everything that's happened in the last couple of years and it's putting them off men's professional golf,” McIlroy told reporters last week. “And that’s not good for anyone.”

More than 10 months have passed since the PGA Tour announced plans to partner with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which owns LIV Golf. The two sides have passed the Dec. 31 deadline and are continuing to work out the details, but no agreement is imminent.

LIV Golf continues to invest money in staff on and off the course, even though its product has not yet reached critical mass, particularly in the United States. And the PGA Tour responded to LIV's flurry of activity with a spending spree of its own – with new spending apparently outpacing new revenue streams.

With the game's best players not competing in an individual event since last year's British Open, fans have had to endure lackluster tournament entries and forgettable Sunday results. While LIV's linear TV ratings are not released, LIV officials say their numbers on the CW Network are up 40 percent from last year and they are pleased with early streaming viewership. TV numbers for the PGA Tour, which includes a much larger audience domestically, are down more than 15 percent.

“The ratings fluctuate from year to year,” said Sean McManus, head of CBS Sports. “As we all know, a lot of it depends on who is ranked and how close the tournament is. … But the advertisers seem to be happy, the sponsors seem to be happy, so it's a little early to predict where the ratings are trending.”

Neither circuit has seen its biggest stars shine on a weekly basis – last weekend's winners were 22-year-old Akshay Bhatia on the PGA Tour and South African Dean Burmester on LIV – and the headlines focus on the off-course intrigue and the uncertainty of it Sports future.

“We talk so much about how important it is for players to be in the right place mentally, and I just think there's an epidemic of distraction on the PGA Tour, whether it's greed or trying to solve problems that are almost unsolvable, any way you want to put it,” said Brandel Chamblee, a Golf Channel analyst. “I just think they’re hugely distracted.”

Having shifted its business away from the non-profit model, the Tour now has to pay taxes, reward players who want more money and answer to investors seeking a return – in addition to TV executives and advertisers expecting a product that reliably attracts a large audience.

PGA Tour officials have developed a plan that does not depend entirely on the PIF following through on its early investment plans. The tour required a $1.5 billion investment from a group of U.S. sports owners called Strategic Sports Group; the amount could double. That money helped the Tour create PGA Tour Enterprises, which will oversee all commercial ventures.

“Before we created the PGA Tour Enterprises structure and took on outside investment, in our previous structure we always had this natural conflict between an organizational goal of maximizing player revenue and growth investments,” said Jay Madara, chief financial officer of the Tour. “I liken it to hitting payroll this month [or] this quarter and there is, if you will, nothing left for investment. … If there were strategically sensible things that would bring long-term returns, there wasn’t enough patient capital to do that.”

According to its most recent tax filings, the tour brought in $1.9 billion in revenue in 2022, compared to $1.87 billion in expenses — and both numbers have steadily increased over the years. The tour comes with big commitments — $4 billion from sponsors by 2035 and $5 billion in media rights by 2030 — but has also taken on new expenses.

With an ambitious plan to offer golfers an equity stake in the tour and tournament funds that have more than doubled in the last decade, tour officials have sought to create new revenue streams and expand existing ones. While broadcast rights deals run through 2030, the organization plans to open its own 70,000-square-foot production studio next year, which will allow the tour to create and distribute more of its own content.

The tour also wants to generate more revenue from its weekly tournaments and has overhauled its event funding formula. The tour relies on local organizations to run most of its tournaments, but makes money by running six events alone — and could have more on its way. The tour recently acquired a golf cart company and logistics company, which will make hosting tournaments easier and more cost-effective.

In one of its boldest attempts to balance the books: The tour informed organizers this week that they will soon have to pay a host fee — $250,000 for full-field events and $500,000 for next year's signature events, so there's that Double amounts starting in 2026. The tour also expects organizers to cut a percentage of hospitality revenue — 1 percent next year and increasing to 2.5 percent in 2027.

Tours traditionally include a philanthropic component, and although the new initiative has raised concerns that these fees will eat into charitable donations, tour officials are confident donations will not suffer.

“It is something that is important to our tradition, honor and heritage. This is something we will also need to balance as we move forward with our new structure,” Madara said.

LIV does not appear to be facing the same economic pressures thanks to its wealthy Saudi patrons, with officials saying they are ahead of schedule financially.

“The key driver for us is creating new value through all of this,” said Jed Moore, a senior LIV adviser. “People misunderstood investing in players. They misunderstood the investment in the Asian tour. They misunderstood why golf needed to find a way to create this new value. Sustainable economics in sport – it has come into focus because it is now an asset class.”

LIV officials see their product similar to Formula 1 – fewer events, with top athletes traveling around the world between major cities. And a key cornerstone: a team-based format that LIV hopes will inspire fan loyalty and drive value.

While LIV owns a 75 percent stake in each of its 13 teams, they operate as independent entities and generate revenue as they see fit. Moore said some are already profitable. None are close to being mature as assets, he said, but they could one day accept investors or be sold outright.

“Can you imagine what the Golden Bears would have been worth if Jack? [Nicklaus] played in some form of LIV in its heyday? “Arnie’s Army, the Big Easys, the Great Whites?” he said. “Imagine these teams.”

While the LIV product has been slow to catch on with golf fans in the United States, officials have been pleased with the interest they have seen in countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.

LIV's season debut in Mexico marked its highest TV numbers ever – 432,000 watched the finals on CW and more than 3.5 million streamed part of the three-day event on YouTube or LIV's app. While the direct-to-consumer streaming options aren't as lucrative for advertisers, they're a valuable benchmark for LIV executives, who say they appeal to a younger audience. (Last year's final round of the Masters, won by Jon Rahm, averaged more than 12 million viewers.)

And while many thought LIV's days were numbered when the PIF agreed to partner with the PGA Tour last June, LIV has only continued to build. Signing Rahm before this season was a major coup, and this week LIV is hiring four senior executives and working on its 2025 schedule.

Even LIV's biggest critics (see: McIlroy, Rory) are reluctant to accept its place in the golf ecosystem. LIV launched 2022 without corporate signage at its events, but has already announced more than 20 global partnerships this year, including with Panini and Google Cloud. His teams have separately signed deals with more than a dozen corporate sponsors.

LIV officials say the plan was never to replace the PGA Tour, just as Formula 1 isn't trying to replace U.S.-based auto racing tracks. They believe the tours can coexist – different leagues coming together for a major championship, similar to the Super Bowl or World Series.

Unsaid: As LIV looks to expand and the PGA Tour adopts a new business plan, what will become of a tired fan base? Participation in the sport has never been higher – about 45 million Americans swung a club last year, according to the National Golf Foundation – and while professional players have never been richer, fans have wanted more.

“Right now we're in the disruption phase,” Phil Mickelson, one of the first to commit to LIV, said last week, “so we're in the middle of the process.” And when it's all said and done, things will get a lot brighter be. But as we go through it, it is challenging. But we will do it.”