League owners want more international markets.
LIV Golf is heading into the dustbin of sports history. The end came in a courtroom as lawyers for LIV Golf told United States Bankruptcy Court Judge Michael B. Kaplan that it was dropping its survival plan and decided to wind-down the business after filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan. LIV Golf is just another failed sports business. Considering how many sports leagues have failed, it is truly remarkable that Lamar Hunt’s American Football League was able to financially survive for six years in a battle with the National Football League which resulted in a June 8th, 1966 merger of the two leagues. There were three previous American Football Leagues that failed. The Los Angeles Rams franchise came out of the second AFL. Another NFL competitor, the All America Football Conference, lasted four years and three AAFC teams in Baltimore, in Cleveland and in San Francisco jumped to the NFL in 1950 in a merger. The World Football League and the United States Football League failed. An NFL backed league never found its footing in the spring and failed. Other football leagues have failed.
The American Association is one of the failed “major leagues” of baseball along with the Federal League. The National Basketball League and the American Basketball Association had teams join the National Basketball Association. Basketball is littered with failed leagues. Four World Hockey Association franchises ended up in the National Hockey League. The Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia decided last April to pull the plug on funding LIV Golf at the end of the 2026 season. LIV Golf officials thought it had an agreement with B. C. Partners but that deal never materialized. Startup leagues almost always fail except for Hunt’s AFL. In the end, no one wanted to invest in LIV Golf.
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