Ethical considerations drowned out as Adelaide’s LIV affair continues | Jack Snape

The manner of the challenger brand’s ingratiation of Australian officials, players and spectators serves as a model for LIV, particularly as the mooted merger with the PGA Tour shows little sign of delivering a united sport.The 2024 event, which gets under way on Friday 26 April, is therefore significant.

“There’s clearly an ‘anti’ or a conservative sentiment about the Saudis in the US, and the further east you go on a world map from America, the more moderate the views are,” he told the SportNXT conference in a room featuring many of Australian sport’s senior executives.

Sutherland’s comments highlight the region’s appetite for the sport which – due to the PGA Tour’s historical dominance – has largely focused on audiences in the US and, to a lesser extent, Europe.

December’s deal for John Rahm – reported to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars – underscores LIV’s long-term financial commitment, close to two years after it initially picked off its opening lineup.

Its financial results for last year show no specific revenue spikes attributed to LIV, and the largest unexplained growth in a single line item was a $350,000 increase in “sundry income”.

Speirs said the opposition party maintained its anti-LIV stance while the rebel event “remains under the control of the Saudi regime, which is notorious for sports-washing in order to cover up the deplorable mistreatment and basic rights violations of women”.