LIV Golf Schadenfreude

By NCL CEO, Sally Greenberg

I read a headline today that I found very satisfying – and I felt bad that it made me happy.

“LIV Golf has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It is $500 million in debt, part of its goal to revive the league without Saudi funding.”

What I was experiencing was classic schadenfreude, or “feeling pleasure or joy or satisfaction when something bad happens to someone else.” But I believe that in this case, it’s deserved.

I took the Saudi invasion of US golf personally. I love the game:  I love to play, watch, and I love going to tournaments – seeing golfers’ perfect shots up close is thrilling.

Some context. In June 2022, the Saudi government announced they would launch a men’s golf league to compete with the PGA. LIV promised to pay nine-figure signing bonuses to lure away top names from the men’s tour. I was disgusted that so many pro golfers let greed lure them, including top player Phil Mickelson, who acknowledged that the Saudis threw gay men off buildings and murdered a Washington Post journalist. Still, he was signing with them anyway. “used words I sincerely regret” in a recently published interview in which the six-time major winner described the Saudi regime as “scary motherf******” and brushed aside known human rights violations, including the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

What does LIV pulling the plug have to do with US consumers? Well, power and money are corrupting influences – it showed up in LIV golf, and it shows up in US elections and with the explosion of billionaires in the US – which now has a record 989 billionaires according to the Forbes Billionaires List. Many of the super-rich are using their money to try to buy elections – Elon Musk poured $291 million into Republican candidates, political action committees, and other outside spending organizations in the 2024 election cycle. And Musk was not alone, according to analysis by OpenSecrets.

The other top six political donors gave $100 million or more, and all supported Republican candidates and causes.

The big money far more often goes to candidates who support weakening safety, environmental, and financial regulations, none of which is good for consumers. And controlling content on their tech platforms and resisting regulation for privacy, allowing blatant fraud, violent and hateful messaging, and because it attracts more eyeballs, resisting the call to take it down.

Back to LIV golf collapsing. When in 2022 the Saudis poured billions into US golf and tried to steal the sport with their riches, it seemed like a reiteration of what we are seeing across America –and that is not good. But now LIV has collapsed, and the players who fell for the promise of many millions are now “creditors”. Ie., they will never see the millions they were promised and now have to crawl back to the PGA and hope they can get back on the tour.

Unlimited riches – like what the Saudis have and so too almost a million US billionaires – are dangerous for democracy. But sometimes the bottom falls out even for them. Call it gloating, call it schadenfreude. Either way, it feels like justice.