[ad_1]
BEDMINSTER, N.J. — LIV Golf is simply three tournaments in, however the Saudi-backed upstart league is already pondering massive about its future.
In an interview with CNBC, LIV Golf Investments President and COO Atul Khosla mentioned the way forward for LIV Golf is groups and creating franchises that may sooner or later be bought. The group is holding an occasion this weekend, beginning Friday, at former President Donald Trump’s namesake golf membership right here.
“We’re constructing 12 groups with franchise values, identical to some other sport that we totally anticipate down the street to have a valuation to be bought,” he mentioned. “All of these issues will occur in golf that occur in each different sport.”
Khosla says the corporate got here to the conclusion from their first two tournaments in London and Portland, Oregon, that followers love golf as a staff sport. He says the staff merchandise gross sales bought out the primary day through the tournaments. “The staff idea is actually resonating with our followers,” he mentioned.
The brand new golf league is financed by Saudi Arabia’s Personal Funding Fund. The dominion’s fund has set its sights on the sports activities sector as one other funding piece in its portfolio and has invested a reported $2 billion into LIV Golf.
Learn extra: Eric Trump teases dad’s potential 2024 run with golf bag at Saudi tour occasion
LIV is spending high greenback to lure golf execs from the PGA Tour, providing fairness within the league, beneficiant prizes and assured cash. To date, it has signed massive title gamers like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau. They’ve additionally snagged high golf commentator David Feherty away from Golf Channel and reportedly had their sights on bringing on TNT’s Charles Barkley. (Barkley advised The New York Publish that he determined to stick with Turner Sports activities and never be part of LIV, in line with a narrative revealed Friday.)
“We do have an extended runway,” Khosla mentioned. “However our investor undoubtedly needs to see returns on the finish of the day.”
The Saudi help has created some controversy for LIV, nonetheless. Relations of those that perished within the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults are protesting the league. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers that day had been from Saudi Arabia, and Osama Bin Laden, the assaults’ mastermind, was born within the nation. U.S. officers concluded that Saudi nationals helped fund the terrorist group al-Qaida, though investigations did not discover that Saudi officers had been complicit within the assaults.
South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel of the Stinger staff in motion as he putts for a birdie on the 18th gap through the second spherical, June 10, 2022.
Paul Childs | Reuters
Trump on Thursday defended internet hosting the occasion, falsely claiming that “no person’s gotten to the underside of 9/11.”
The group 9/11 Justice protested close to Trump’s course, which is lower than 50 miles of the Floor Zero website in decrease Manhattan.
“To see a former president pretending that he does not know what the Saudis did, or saying that he does not know in regards to the 9/11 story, it is simply the worst kind. It is the worst feeling you will get,” the group’s president, Brett Eagleson, advised CNBC. He was 15 when he misplaced his father when the Twin Towers collapsed after hijackers crashed airliners into them.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., sided with the protesters. “I help the 9/11 households’ pursuit of justice and stay dedicated to holding Saudi Arabia accountable for its actions,” he mentioned in a press release Friday.
Khosla additionally defended LIV. He mentioned the league is not the one one with ties to Saudi Arabia. “There are about 23 PGA Tour companions as we speak which have ties to the multibillion-dollar enterprise in Saudi Arabia. I am not telling the PGA Tour to not have sponsors,” he mentioned.
“It is an interconnected international financial system so simply because a bunch of golfers took a little bit bit of cash, I simply do not suppose you might want to get all labored up,” he added.
[ad_2]
Source link