(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is nearing a deal to acquire a minority stake in PGA Tour Enterprises, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The sovereign wealth fund is in advanced talks about taking a roughly 6% stake in the PGA Tour’s commercial arm, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. An agreement, if reached, would come after months of negotiations, and follow a deal inked earlier this year with Strategic Sports Group, which can invest as much as $3 billion in PGA Tour Enterprises.
PIF’s investment could value PGA Tour Enterprises at about $12 billion, matching the terms at which SSG invested, the people said. Terms could change and the potential deal still requires regulatory approval, said the people.
A PGA Tour representative declined to comment, while a representative for PIF couldn’t immediately comment.
PIF started LIV Golf in 2022 as a rival to the PGA Tour, hiring star golfers like Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm, for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The rival tour sparked a mammoth feud, and the two sides were embroiled in expensive court battles over antitrust violations and player contracts, before agreeing to a deal in June 2023.
Since then, PGA Tour and LIV have been trying to agree the terms of the investment, as well as a new schedule that would allow players to compete in tournaments in both leagues.
A fear among those involved in the deal is that the Saudis walk away, refocusing on growing LIV and luring more PGA players. The fracturing of golf, which used to see the top names tee off against other, has helped cause a drop in viewership for flagship events on the PGA Tour, while LIV has failed to consistently attract large scale audiences.
Hopes for investment from PIF have recently increased, particularly after the re-election of golf-fan President-elect Donald Trump. PIF’s Yasir Al-Rumayyan is also a keen golfer, and played a round with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan in October alongside Billy Horschel and Dean Burmester.
LIV is also considering a potential tie-up with Europe’s DP World Tour, Bloomberg News reported last month. The talks with DP World Tour are separate from the investment discussions between the PGA Tour and the Saudi wealth fund, the people have said.
The PGA Tour and DP World have a strategic alliance which guarantees prize money growth to events run by the latter, and some reciprocal memberships.
(Updates with context from fifth paragraph.)
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