The rebel league’s easy money was gone after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced earlier this year that it would no longer fund LIV Golf after the current season. Since then, CEO Scott O’Neil has been scrambling to lock in between $250 and $350 million in funding to keep the league afloat beyond 2026. But all that the search has produced so far is disappointment. O’Neil’s latest move is another investor pitch, which he made on Sportico.

“Golf is the most important sport in the world. The leader of the free world plays golf and has a huge golf empire. Most of those running countries around the world play golf. 90% of Fortune 500 company CEOs play golf. There’s nothing quite like the business development opportunities in golf. So number two, it’s global,” Scott O’Neil said (credits: Sportico’s X handle).

“Third thing is, is you’ve had a neighboring country of Sportico Sovereign Wealth invest billions of dollars building this foundation. And you can come in with a multi-billion dollar brand already built for you. The fourth reason might be we have net operating losses that are very substantial in the billions. So if you do business in the United States and you do business in the UK, you have an unbelievable tax opportunity.”

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After news of the funding broke, the first step LIV Golf took was to reshuffle the board. It first created a committee of independent directors to evaluate strategic alternatives and later made some major management changes. Richard Marsh became O’Neil’s advisor. Ollie Banks became the senior authority on player recruitment. All these changes were collectively labeled as an ambitious “Liv 2.0” project.

Besides that, LIV Golf hired Ducera Partners. The aim was to get help in pursuing the capital raise. Reportedly, it had plans to reduce the schedule and prize money. More recently, it has been letting go of some staff to minimize operational costs.

Amid all these changes, one thing that O’Neil always kept at the center and in the limelight was the league’s players. He emphasized the same in the reasons he gave to Sportico.

“The sixth [fifth] reason I would say is we have some of the biggest stars in the world, not only in golf, but in the world, like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson and Cam [Cameron] Smith. And they’re partners, and they have their equity holders. And so, as equity holders, it’s different from a traditional sport and athlete relationship. They’re my business partners, and they’ll be yours. And then the seventh [sixth] and maybe the most important reason is franchise values. There’s an insatiable appetite and demand, and franchise values keep going up. And we have the only currency in golf, and that is the team’s.”

While O’Neil has made many attempts, they have all failed until now. As he himself noted in his pitch, LIV Golf has incurred substantial losses. PIF reportedly spent over $5.3 million on the breakaway league, and the total could reach $6 billion by the end of this year. Of that, LIV Golf has already reported losses worth $1.4 billion. Further, there are bankruptcy rumors, and a lawsuit has also been filed against the league for allegedly stealing another brand’s operating model for its launch.

Amid all these struggles and challenges, O’Neil’s pitch sounds like a desperate rescue mission, and the golf world couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

Golf fans roast Scott O’Neil’s investor pitch

One fan sarcastically wrote, “These teams are worth BILLIONZ.” The comment was aimed at the league’s repeated emphasis on franchise values. A few things that make LIV Golf unique from the PGA Tour are that it plays globally and focuses on its teams. While the PGA Tour plays some team events, such as the Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup, most of its regular play focuses on individual play. Scott O’Neil has tried to make the most out of that.

One fan didn’t even use words. A simple “😂😂,” emoji was enough to mock the overall presentation.

Another fan criticized the presentation by quoting O’Neil’s own words. “LOL. ‘An unbelievable tax opportunity’, ‘leader of the free world plays golf’. You can’t make this sort of sales pitch up. 😂😂,” he wrote. Golf is undeniably one of the most played sports in the world, and it is usually the wealthy and powerful who play it. However, fans laughed because O’Neil used it as part of a sales pitch. The pitch sounds less like a sustainable business model and more like everything else.

Some fans focused on comments about the losses. One wrote, “Wait, I should invest because they have net operating losses in the billions?” While the other said, “Multi billion brand but with massive losses. Both can’t be true. What a joke. People laugh at these fools.”

These comments take a jab at the pitch’s logic. LIV Golf has incurred billions in losses, and investors avoid investing in such businesses or leagues. However, O’Neil tried to show it as something good for investors.

A fundraising pitch meant to inspire confidence instead became a source of ridicule in the golf world.