The Sports Guru
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has confirmed it will stop bankrolling LIV Golf at the end of the season, sending shockwaves through the world of sport. This piece examines what that decision tells us about the kingdom's shifting financial priorities and which corners of its sprawling sports portfolio could be next to feel the squeeze.
For years, the question surrounding Saudi Arabia's extraordinary sports spending was not whether it would continue, but how far it would go. That question has a different complexion now. The Public Investment Fund's confirmation that it will no longer fund LIV Golf after this season is not simply the end of a breakaway golf tour. It is a signal, and a significant one, that the kingdom's appetite for prestige sports assets is no longer unconditional.
LIV Golf launched in 2022 with enormous ambition, luring major names away from the established tour and positioning itself as the future of professional golf. Jon Rahm won its most recent event in Mexico. Bryson DeChambeau has been among its most prominent faces. Yet behind the spectacle, the tour never resolved its core commercial problem: it built a roster of elite players but failed to build an audience. Without a broadcast deal that could rival the PGA Tour's television revenues, the losses were structural, not incidental. PIF's patience has finally run out.
PIF's statement tried to project calm, insisting the fund "remains committed to deploying capital internationally in line with its investment strategy, including its substantial current and future investments in various sports as a priority sector." The very need to say so, however, speaks to the anxiety now surrounding the kingdom's broader sporting ambitions.
A budget deficit and a change of direction
The numbers behind this shift are stark. Saudi Arabia recorded a budget deficit of 73 billion dollars last year, the product of increased domestic spending and lower oil revenues. That financial pressure prompted a fundamental reassessment within PIF, with sources telling BBC Sport late last year that there had been "a shift" in attitude and that "everything in the PIF world" was under serious review. The new emphasis, confirmed by PIF last month, is on "sustained value creation" and "maximising long-term returns." Sport did not feature in that statement at all. For an organisation that had made sport one of its most visible international calling cards, that omission is telling.
The practical consequences have followed quickly. The 2029 Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia was postponed indefinitely. The WTA Finals will leave the country after its three-year hosting deal was not renewed. The Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters was cancelled after just two years of a decade-long arrangement. PIF sold its stake in Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal. And Saudi Arabia reportedly stepped away from plans to bid for the 2035 Rugby World Cup. LIV Golf is the largest and most expensive casualty, but it is not an isolated one. The pattern across these decisions is consistent: events and investments that could not demonstrate a path to commercial self-sufficiency are being shed first.
The World Cup changes everything
Context matters enormously here. Saudi Arabia is due to host the men's FIFA World Cup in 2034, a tournament that will demand colossal investment in infrastructure, stadiums, transport links and hospitality over the next eight years. That kind of commitment reshapes what a sovereign wealth fund can realistically sustain elsewhere. Hosting a World Cup is not merely a sporting event; it is a decade-long infrastructure programme, and the financial obligations it creates are largely fixed and non-negotiable in a way that a golf tour's funding is not.
Dr Johan Rewilak, a sport management expert at Loughborough University, frames it clearly: "With the 2034 World Cup approaching, Saudi Arabia faces enormous infrastructure and delivery costs. It is plausible that the government is reallocating capital and reassessing its wider sports portfolio. Geopolitical tensions and rising construction costs may also be accelerating these decisions, shifting spending priorities toward security and essential infrastructure rather than prestige sports assets."
The conflict in the Middle East has compounded the financial picture, disrupting oil exportation and increasing defence expenditure. For a fund that built its sporting reputation on the assumption that oil revenues would remain robust, that is a materially different operating environment.
Which sports remain in favour?
Not every sport looks equally exposed. Combat sports, which carry mass appeal among Saudi Arabia's comparatively young population, appear to retain strong backing. Turki Alalshikh, Saudi boxing's chief, pushed back firmly last year against suggestions of a slowdown, calling such reports "100% not true." Anthony Joshua is set to fight Kristian Prenga in Riyadh in July, alongside the Esports World Cup, indicating that the entertainment-led spectacle model still holds appeal. Combat sports also require relatively modest infrastructure investment compared with stadium construction or tour operation, which makes them a more efficient vehicle for the kind of high-visibility, low-overhead programming that PIF's revised strategy appears to favour.
Cricket is also reportedly on the radar, with the kingdom exploring plans for a global T20 competition, though a women's tournament planned for later this year has been postponed. The AFC Asian Cup is scheduled to come to Saudi Arabia for the first time in 2025. A new Formula 1 circuit is reportedly in construction. The picture, then, is selective rather than wholesale retreat; sports that align with youth culture and global broadcast audiences appear more durable investments than a golf tour that never found a sustainable commercial model.
Newcastle United, the Premier League club in which PIF holds a majority stake, has not featured prominently in the recent wave of divestments, nor has the kingdom's F1 presence. Both carry the kind of global broadcast reach and ongoing commercial revenues that LIV Golf never managed to generate. But the broader lesson from LIV Golf is that no investment is exempt from review when the financial arithmetic changes.
Verdict: A recalibration, not a retreat
It would be premature to declare Saudi Arabia's sporting revolution over. The kingdom remains committed to the 2034 World Cup, which alone guarantees its profile at the centre of global football for years to come. Its ownership of Newcastle United persists. Combat sports continue to find a home in Riyadh. These are not the actions of a country abandoning sport as a strategic tool.
What has changed is the tolerance for open-ended losses. LIV Golf was a prestige project that never translated its spending into the kind of returns PIF now demands. Its closure is less about sport and more about fiscal discipline arriving, belatedly, to an organisation that had operated without it for years.
The era of Saudi Arabia writing blank cheques for sporting vanity projects appears to be over. What replaces it is a more calculated, commercially minded approach that prioritises events with mass audiences, television revenues and infrastructural legacy. That is a significant recalibration, and for anyone whose sport relied on Saudi generosity without asking what it offered in return, it is a warning worth heeding.
Frequently Asked Questions
The tour's fundamental problem was that it built a roster of elite players, including Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, but never secured a broadcast deal capable of rivalling the PGA Tour's television revenues. Without that commercial foundation, its losses were structural rather than the kind that time and growth could fix.
Saudi Arabia recorded a budget deficit of 73 billion dollars last year, driven by increased domestic spending and lower oil revenues. Sources told BBC Sport that this prompted a fundamental reassessment within PIF, with "everything in the PIF world" placed under serious review and the fund's new stated priority shifting to "sustained value creation" and "maximising long-term returns."
The 2029 Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia was postponed indefinitely, the WTA Finals will depart after its three-year hosting deal was not renewed, and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters was cancelled after just two years of a decade-long arrangement. PIF also sold its stake in Al-Hilal and Saudi Arabia reportedly withdrew from plans to bid for the 2035 Rugby World Cup.
Preparing for the World Cup requires colossal investment in stadiums, infrastructure, transport and hospitality across roughly eight years, with financial obligations that are largely fixed and non-negotiable. That scale of commitment significantly limits what PIF can realistically sustain elsewhere, making discretionary spending on projects like LIV Golf far harder to justify.
PIF confirmed last month that its new emphasis is on "sustained value creation" and "maximising long-term returns," and sport did not feature in that statement at all. Given that sport had been one of the fund's most visible international calling cards, that absence strongly suggests it is no longer treated as a strategic priority in the same way it once was.
Sources: Match statistics, quotes and background information sourced from BBC Sport's reporting on LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund strategy.