LIV Golf League CEO Greg Norman said he has been told by PIF chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan that the 54-hole circuit "is not going to go anywhere" even if a deal between LIV's backers and the PGA Tour comes to fruition.
Conversations between Al-Rumayyan, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, and DP World Tour officials have been ongoing for months - although not with all parties at the same table - as men's pro golf tries to forge a new path where unification is thought to be the main aim.
Yet - according to the Australian - even if a deal is successfully signed off which allows LIV players to return to PGA Tour events, that will not mean the end for the innovative competition - far from it.
In an exclusive sit-down interview with Bloomberg, Norman said: “The LIV Golf juggernaut is still rolling on. I’m just going to answer as the CEO of LIV. My boss told me LIV is not going to go anywhere. It will be well and truly in operation, running well past his death – he’s a young guy.
“He’s asked me to just stay focused and deliver LIV. LIV is a standalone entity. He’s invested billions of dollars into this and we’re starting to see the creation of an ROI (return of investment) within this, so we're going to stay focused.”
Pushed on what exactly LIV is going to do in order to make sure it continues to evolve, Norman stated that expanding the league's portfolio of owned entities will be a key strategy moving forward.
He said: “Man United owns their stadium. In the Indian Premier League (cricket), they own their stadiums. NFL, they own their stadiums. Think about LIV owning all their own golf courses, each team having a home venue and they host.
“And now you can build out around that. It’s not just a golf course. You bring in education, you bring in hospitality, you bring in real estate, you bring in merchandise, you bring in management, you bring in all these other different opportunities that the game of golf has to deliver to a community, to a region. We are going to be doing that.”
LIV's grand plans will ultimately depend on whether enough eyeballs remain interested in watching the action unfold - an issue that the long-standing PGA Tour has largely been battling in 2024.
Viewership figures are tougher to find in relation to LIV Golf, but its CEO Norman believes his circuit is engaging with several different target audiences in the way that works for them.
🚨♾️⛳️ Greg Norman says Yasir told him that LIV GOLF will continue on forever. pic.twitter.com/n92RjEQzgbMay 4, 2024
The 69-year-old went on to say that, as a result of agreeing further media deals, LIV Golf will maintain its growth, too.
“We are looking at that [access to the game] right now,” he said. “We are talking to corporations – I’m not going to give you the names of those corporations, of course – but we just did a great partnership with Google.
“But what is the definition of ‘tuning in’? Turning on the TV and saying, ‘OK, I’m going to watch the next four and a half hours’? That’s tuning in, right?
"But to an 18-year-old, to a 25-year-old, tuning in may be 12 seconds on the phone. ‘Let me see this, then we’ll go back and do that, and then I’ll come back over here and do another 14 seconds on this.’ That, to me, is ‘tuning in’. That, to me, is a market that’s enormously wealthy, and enormously influential in the direction we’re going.”
