Alan Shipnuck: Why the Saudis Pulled the Plug on LIV Golf Funding

Alan Shipnuck joined The Rich Eisen Show to answer a question Rich had never asked him before. Why did the Saudis cut and run on LIV Golf?

Shipnuck didn't reach for a single explanation. He started with the geopolitics. There's a war involving Iran. One of Aramco's oil refineries was hit by Iranian drones and forced offline for 11 days. When an entire economy is built on oil production, that's a glimpse of how vulnerable the whole system can become if a war drags on.

A few weeks before, Shipnuck said, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia released a new five-year strategic plan. The thrust of it was simple. Money would be invested domestically, in projects inside the kingdom, and international spending would be cut back.

"In that context, sports looks very frivolous," Shipnuck told Rich. The PIF, he said, had already sold its soccer team. It abandoned the Snooker Masters, walking away from a 10-year commitment after only two years. It pulled out of Tom Brady's flag football league.

This isn't a LIV story, in other words. It's a sovereign reset. "This is wholesale change in priorities for the entire kingdom and how they want to spend their money in this precarious moment," Shipnuck said. "LIV is just the biggest, noisiest example of things that are going by the wayside."

Rich pulled the thread further, noting that the man hosting the next LIV tournament could end up being the one who potentially kills it. He meant the President of the United States. Shipnuck didn't disagree with the framing. If the war with Iran is what's pushing the Saudis out, and that exit drags LIV with it, then the irony is real.

"Trump has hosted LIV events from the very beginning," Shipnuck said. "Including the next one. He's profited from these events." Part of the reason LIV was even founded, he added, was as a soft power play that gave the Saudis access to the Western world and to Western decision-makers. That part worked, especially with Trump. So yes, Shipnuck called it a delicious irony that Trump could turn out to be one of the reasons LIV ends.

Under the surface, the math caught up. After roughly five billion dollars in losses, Shipnuck said, the one person keeping the project alive was Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund. Al-Rumayyan loves golf. LIV has always been his baby. But everyone has a boss, and his is the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Shipnuck imagined the conversation. The relationships have been built. The world capitals are open. The PIF doesn't actually need golf tournaments anymore. There was no green jacket. There was no real TV deal. Money kept burning. A path to break-even never showed up.

The Crown Prince, Shipnuck said, is not a golfer. He doesn't care. He's looking at a balance sheet and asking why the kingdom is incinerating a billion dollars a year on a vanity project. The answer arrived: it's time for it to end.