BC Partners

at the point right now.

And Liv lost its lifeline when BC Partners pulled away a $300 million possible rescue.

So they couldn't sustain themselves.

But I think the DP World Tour has done its best point.

My next radar point, a little more fun, probably not for the people that backed it, but Live Golf's $5 billion experiment is finally over.

So for all you golf fans out there that have been upset for a long time, Live Golf is winding down through Chapter 11 bankruptcy and heading into liquidation after British investment firm BC Partners pulled its proposed $300 million in financing this week, Once it became clear the league couldn't lock in enough top players for a live 2.0 relaunch.

Saudi Arabia's public investment fund had already pulled its backing earlier this year after pouring more than $5 billion into the league since its 2022 launch.

Money that is now essentially evaporated through all of the big contracts.

Liv filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in September with as much as $1 billion in debts.

Liv said that despite extensive discussions, the investment firm BC Partners had backed out of a $300 million deal to fund a relaunched version of the league called Liv 2.0. What happens to the players, the money, and also pro golf? Barn Office Sports Golf reporter David Rumsey is with us to explain.

So David, about 30 players had committed to this new Live 2.0 and 10 more were still considering it.

So I guess what broke down that we're not having Live 2.0?

Like you said, Baker, they were nearing the finish line of getting this, what BC Partners had requested, a requisite number of players to sign on to Live 2.0.

Initially, those terms were a certain number of players with a certain threshold of world ranking points.

They didn't meet that, and then they kind of moved that threshold down to just, this is at BC Partners' discretion.

And basically what that meant was, was this going to be Bryson DeChambeau and a bunch of nobodies, or was this going to be DeChambeau and some other high-caliber players, whether it's, you know, Jon Rahm left, Tyrell Hatton, some other European players left, but could they keep like a Joaquin Neiman or Cam Smith, Dustin Johnson? Could those guys all agree, Phil Mickelson, on new terms for Liv moving forward? And ultimately, like Liv said and its lawyers said and BC partners said on Thursday, they just couldn't come to terms on the money that players wanted, the number of players willing to join Liv, and therefore, they have to wind down.

Yeah, I think that's the big next step is sort of where the players are going to play, but I still, you know, important looking at yesterday is obviously...

The big point in this is that BC Partners opted not to fund the league and a big part of that was clearly not having player commitment.

Now, BC issued a statement to us saying, you know, we're disappointed that the mutually acceptable terms could not be reached among various stakeholders.

So it was almost as if they were putting that on stakeholders.

Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, the PIF, which sank about $5 billion into the league, pulled its funding for the venture earlier this year.

UK-based investment group BC Partners had agreed to be the anchor investor in Live 2.0, but backed out this week after the league failed to get enough players to sign on and Alex was no longer available.

Yeah, I mean, I've been training hard, but I don't think the Live is really for me.

So let's catch you up.

Probably not super surprised, to be fair.

BC Partners was looking for a little bit more of an uptake from the current players.

It was a mass exodus, seemingly, from the outside looking in.

Obviously, not being able to keep players like Rahm and a couple of the other top guys as well.

yeah well unfortunately none of it came my way so no

none of it none of it um there was something called bc partners that that's who was going to fund this for 300 million dollars and they pulled out earlier this week And once BC Partners said, yeah, we're not throwing $300 million, we're out.

So what happens to the players now? When Brooks Koepka came back, he took the one-time deal.

And the other players didn't.

Yeah, so they filed for bankruptcy.

The $300 million investment from a BC Partners collapse to the league, which features stars like Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm.

recently expanded its Fox Sports deal before it went under.

Yikes.