LIV’s stars are leaving. Why is a private equity firm still betting $300 Million on it?

So Rahm is out, Sergio, Puig and Meronk too, and you’d have to think it won’t be long until Hatton and McKibbin follow their team captain through the door. Niemann is eyeing the exit, Cam Smith has hinted that he is too, and Matt Wolff, Cameron Tringale, Marc Leishman, Byeong-hun An and Harold Varner III have all filed legal requests to have their contracts terminated just like Sergio did.

Mickelson hasn’t been seen all season – and with good reason, it seems – and they already lost Koepka and Reed.

Poulter and Westwood, both of whom claimed they had zero interest in taking up DP World Tour membership again have taken up DP World Tour membership again, and even Bryson is asking the DP World Tour about the possibility of getting tournament starts in 2027.

The only player that’s publicly nailed his colours to the mast of LIV Golf – or LIV 2.0, as it’s been dubbed – is Richard Bland, and kudos to him for doing so. It’s now 30 years since the Englishman turned pro, and for 20 of those, he was a full-time European Tour or DP World Tour player and earned almost $8 million.

He’s earned almost triple that in prizemoney alone since joining LIV in 2022, and that’s before any signing bonus is taken into consideration, and at 53, he’s no longer thinking of the OWGR, of major championship pathways, or of Ryder Cup ambitions. LIV gave him the opportunity to become rather wealthy, he took it with both hands, and he’s not about to turn his back on them now.

But with all due respect to Bland, he’s a low-level supporting act and if he’s moved up to headline status, you’ve got major problems.

So, exactly why are BC Partners, a leading international investment firm, talking about pumping in $300 million to keep the show – or a version of the show, at least – on the road? A show that’s incurred almost $5 billion in losses ($3 billion in the United States and a further $2 billion in the UK).

Well, the answer may be precisely that; the net operating losses incurred.

Sure, it’s possible that BC Partners’ Ted Goldthorpe is telling the truth that the idea is to put LIV on “sound financial footing” and to go into 2027 with “renewed momentum,” but is it more likely that the shrewd financial minds at the firm have identified that the $5 billion can now be used to significantly reduce or even eliminate taxes owed on profit in the future.

Now, if you’re thinking that it’s unlikely that LIV 2.0 will ever generate a profit anyway, you’re hardly alone. But it doesn’t necessarily have to. Instead, LIV 2.0 (or whatever the official title will be) could acquire other businesses – profitable businesses – and incorporate them under the LIV 2.0 umbrella, thus benefitting from the net operating losses.

And with corporate tax rates of 21% in the United States, that could amount to more than $1 billion remaining in-house rather than going to the taxman should the companies acquired be profitable enough.

In this scenario, the $300 million BC Partners investment looks a lot less like throwing money down the well and a lot more like using LIV Golf as little more than a pawn in a very-well calculated chess move.