The Saudi-backed league is bleeding cash, but they’re not blinking.

New financial filings from LIV Golf Ltd. just dropped, and the numbers are staggering. The UK-based entity that runs LIV’s operations outside America lost $590 million in 2024 alone. That brings their total losses since launching in summer 2022 to $1.4 billion. And here’s the kicker—that’s just one piece of the operation. The parent company, LIV Golf Investments, has pumped nearly $4 billion into this thing through the end of last year, with another $983 million in shares issued since then.

Where the Money’s Going

The math is brutal. LIV has spent $1.34 billion on what they call “cost of sales”—which is fancy accounting speak for player compensation and tournament operations. That’s eleven times their revenue over the same period. Jon Rahm alone has pocketed $75 million in prize money across two seasons, on top of his reported $300 million signing bonus. Ninety-five players total have split nearly $1.4 billion in purses since the league fired up.

The TV Problem

While the PGA Tour rakes in $700 million annually from its American broadcast partners through 2030, LIV scraped together just $3.2 million in UK television rights for 2024. That’s not a typo. The gap between what traditional golf tours command and what LIV can negotiate tells you everything about where the leverage sits in sports media right now.

The Saudi Reality Check

Here’s what matters: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund isn’t measuring success in quarterly earnings, and they have shown zero indication they’re bothered by the red ink. They’ve got deeper pockets than anyone in golf, and patience that makes traditional business models look quaint.

What Happens Next

The real question isn’t whether LIV can afford to keep losing money—clearly they can. It’s whether they can build something that eventually matters beyond being a very expensive middle finger to the PGA Tour. They’ve got the players. They’ve got the infrastructure. What they don’t have is relevance…yet.