Speaking at the LIV Golf Team Championship finale, Atul Khosla, who is the President of the Saudi-backed series, stated that he is hoping to have the full 48-man field confirmed by the New Year, with a schedule being reportedly made public by the end of November.
At Trump National Doral, Khosla stated: “We are in the middle of the discussions (about the new signings). We are going to get it done this year. We want the teams locked in by the new year. It will play itself out over the next couple of months.”
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Players that have been reportedly linked include Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Mito Pereira and Thomas Pieters, but LIV Golf have refused to comment on individual discussions with players.
For 2023, LIV have announced a huge expansion, with 48 players and 12 established team franchises competing in an expanded 14-tournament schedule – and an enormous $405m total prize purse, a huge increase on the $225m that was on offer for this year’s eight-tournament Series.
It is believed that within the 48-player line-up, there will also be 12 additional reserves, with the league set to begin in February. However, that leads to another factor, which is the scheduling, something which is reportedly set to be publicly announced at the end of next month.
Although unclear as to where the added venues will be, it is expected that tournaments will take place in North and Latin America, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe, with it being recently reported that two of the venues could be Trump International Doonbeg in Ireland and Valderrama in Spain.
Schauffele and Cantlay are amongst the names linked with LIV Golf
The last big talking points surround a broadcast deal and World Ranking points. Currently, LIV is shown on YouTube and its own website but, according to Khosla, "on the US front, we are back and forth with a few different networks."
He added: “Step one was to show them the product, which they clearly understand. We had to show them the graphics and how it would be very different. Step two was to clear the time.
“We are now at the point where outlets have said time could be cleared. There are only so many times a year you can do that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We are figuring out what the commercial arrangements could look like.
“I feel good about where we are but we have work to do over the next couple of months. We think we are providing an incredible commercial product. These are not six-month or one-year deals, if a TV network is getting behind this it’s for multiple years. We have got to start commercialising the product. We have got to get on TV, we have to get corporate partners. These are milestones that we need to hit.”
Back in October, LIV Golf announced a strategic alliance with Mena Tour to qualify for World Ranking points. It seemed to have worked, but OWGR refused to grant ranking points as "insufficient notice" had been given.
LIV CEO, Greg Norman, has been vocal about the actions of the OWGR, with Khosla stating: "We believe we deserve the points. Clearly, including with our alliance with the Mena Tour, we absolutely deserve the points. We can't control who is on the board and who is conflicted there. It is obvious at this point there are individuals on the board who are conflicted."
