Can LIV Golf Avoid the Failed Fates of Past Maverick Leagues?

Depending on what report you believe, LIV Golf is either on the verge of securing a vital lifeline through at least 2027 or it is preparing the paperwork to enter federal bankruptcy court or both. What is certain is that the once Saudi-backed disruptor that shook professional golf is fighting for survival.The whispers of “LIV 2.O” envisioned by CEO Scott O’Neil suggest a drastically scaled-down version of the circuit previously bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The reimagined entity would pivot toward marquee international team tournaments in Australia and South Africa, while operating eight to 10 leaner tournaments that would allow players to earn Official World Golf Rankings points.To escape its crushing debt and rework suffocating multi-million players contracts, LIV Golf is widely expected to file for bankruptcy protection to restructure contracts and its extensive debt.Signs of distress continue to haunt the league’s future. The league is likely to cancel its upcoming team championship scheduled for later this month in Michigan. In lieu of the hard currency originally promised to players like Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton and Joaquin Niemann, LIV is planning to offer equity stakes in its teams. Those players are still owed hundreds of millions for signing with the upstart league, which has paid more than $3 billion to its players in winnings, salaries and bonuses since 2022.Whether LIV Golf survives to see the turn of the decade remains uncertain. If it collapses, it will take its place as the latest, most expensive casualty in the corporate graveyard of upstart sports leagues that failed to achieve sustained success. United States Football LeagueThe United States Football League (USFL) remains the most compelling “what if” in American sports history. Launched in 1983, the league was built on a logical premise: football fans wanted a high-quality product during the summer when the NFL and college football were in their offseason.For three wild summers, it actively disrupted the sports landscape. Backed by television contracts with ABC and a young ESPN, the upstart league utilized deep-pocketed owners – including a future president – to stage an unprecedented talent raid on the college ranks.By offering staggering contracts for the time, the USFL successfully poached elite college talent right out from under the NFL’s nose. Future Hall of Famers like Jim Kelly, Steve Young, and Reggie White, alongside Heisman winner Herschel Walker, chose the upstart league over the established NFL, proving the new venture possessed legitimate teeth.Flagship franchises in Philadelphia, Birmingham, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Memphis, and New Jersey created interest and enthusiasm. However, the league’s rapid ascension became its undoing, accelerated by New Jersey Generals owner Donald J. Trump. Desperate to force a merger with the NFL, an aggressive faction of owners led by Mr. Trump pushed the USFL to abandon its spring sanctuary and move to a direct fall schedule for the 1986 season. The high-stakes gamble hinged entirely on a federal antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.The USFL technically won the courtroom battle in 1986, but despite finding the NFL guilty of anti-trust violations, the jury handed down a devastating, ironic judgment: a damages award of exactly one dollar (trebled to three dollars under antitrust law).Financially bleeding and entirely homeless in the fall market, the league folded without playing another down. Though it burned out quickly, its DNA survived—the NFL eventually adopted the USFL’s two-point conversion and instant replay systems.The World League of American Football and the World League (1989-1992) were two other football leagues that failed to take root. NFL Europe operated from 1995-2007, and the heavily promoted XFL (2001) also closed after short runs.The USFL brand was resurrected in 2022, eventually merging with the XFL in 2024 to form the modern United Football League (UFL).North American Soccer LeagueBefore Major League Soccer took root in the modern American sports consciousness, the North American Soccer League (NASL) served as the game’s wild, glamorous, and ultimately tragic pioneer.Operating from 1968 to 1984, the league temporarily transformed a niche pastime into a stadium-filling phenomenon, only to collapse under the weight of its own stratospheric hubris.The league’s trajectory permanently shifted in 1975 with a single, seismic transaction: the New York Cosmos signing Brazilian icon Pelé. Backed by the deep pockets of Warner Communications boss Steve Ross, the Cosmos became a global sports circus.Suddenly, soccer wasn’t just a sport; it was Studio 54 on grass. Glitzy franchises emerged coast-to-coast, recruiting aging international royalty like Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, Johan Cruyff, and George Best. By the late 1970s, the Cosmos were routinely packing over 70,000 roaring fans into Giants Stadium, outdrawing the NFL’s Giants and dominating national headlines.However, the NASL’s glittering surface masked a structurally hollow business model. Envious of the Cosmos’ media monopoly, rival owners began spending money they simply did not have to poach international talent, creating an unsustainable arms race. The league aggressively over-expanded, ballooning to a peak of 24 teams by 1978, which severely diluted the quality of play and exhausted local market interest.Worse still, the NASL neglected the vital necessity of American grassroots development. Rules required only a small handful of domestic players on the pitch, meaning the league failed to build a lasting emotional connection with a base of homegrown stars. When ABC dropped its national television broadcast contract due to plunging ratings, the financial house of cards rapidly collapsed.By the early 1980s, franchises were folding in rapid succession. The league plummeted from 24 teams to just nine by 1984. When the flagship Cosmos finally collapsed under the weight of mounting corporate debt, the NASL folded shortly thereafter, canceling the 1985 season entirely.Yet, much like the original USFL, the NASL’s ghost laid the vital groundwork for the future. It conclusively proved that soccer could capture the American imagination, planting the cultural seeds that eventually yielded the 1994 FIFA World Cup and the subsequent birth of MLS. It burned out spectacularly, but the modern American soccer empire was built directly on its star-studded ruins.American Basketball AssociationThe American Basketball Association (ABA) was the rock-and-roll, anti-establishment alter ego of the NBA. Operating from 1967 to 1976, the upstart league didn’t just challenge the older circuit for hardwood attention, it injected pure showmanship and innovation into a sport primed for a facelift.The new league rejected the standard brown leather basketball in favor of a flamboyant red, white, and blue ball that streaked through the air. They instituted a 30-second shot clock to supercharge the game’s tempo and pioneered the three-point field goal, a line mocked by NBA purists at the time as a “circus trick.”On the court, the ABA pioneered the era of wide-open, above-the-rim basketball. The league became a haven for playground legends, high-flying acrobats, and players sporting massive afros. Its ultimate superstar was Julius “Dr. J” Erving of the New York Nets. Mr. Erving took the game to the air, single-handedly inventing the modern art of the slam dunk and turning the ABA’s 1976 Slam Dunk Contest—the first of its kind—into a cultural watershed moment.Alongside Mr. Erving, the league boasted spectacular, Hall-of-Fame caliber talent including George Gervin, Moses Malone, Artis Gilmore, and Rick Barry. Yet, behind the flashy style and the neon lights of franchises like the Indiana Pacers and the Kentucky Colonels, the ABA was structurally chaotic. Teams played in dimly lit high school gyms, bounced between cities overnight, and faced perpetual financial ruin due to the lack of a major national television contract.By 1976, the unsustainable financial arms race between the two leagues reached its boiling point. Exhausted by escalating player salaries and costly legal battles over college underclassmen (another trend the ABA started), the two leagues agreed to a historic merger. Four of the ABA’s strongest surviving franchises—the Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs, and New York (later New Jersey and Brooklyn) Nets—were absorbed into the NBA. The remaining ABA teams were dissolved, with the owners of the Spirits of St. Louis famously negotiating a TV revenue buyout that paid them hundreds of millions for decades.The ABA ceased to exist, but it won the cultural war. The NBA quickly adopted the three-point line, embraced the slam dunk competition, and shifted toward the fast-paced, star-driven entertainment model that defines the modern global league. The ABA burned out in a flash of financial instability, but the modern NBA is built entirely in its colorful image.Women’s Professional SoccerSpurred by the historic cultural explosion of the 1999 FIFA World Cup, the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) launched in 2001 as the world’s first fully professional women’s league. Boasting icons like Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain, it collapsed after just three seasons due to severe overspending and a lack of media revenue. A second attempt, Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), kicked off in 2009 but suffered a similar fate, folding in 2012 amidst governance disputes and financial strain.Learning from past failure, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) launched in 2013 with eight charter teams under a strict, conservative salary cap model designed to foster slow, organic growth established itself as a continuing global powerhouse. Mixed Martial ArtsGraveyards are littered with upstart mixed martial arts promotional companies formed in the early 2000s that failed to challenge the Ultimate Fighting Championships. Companies like Strikeforce, Pride, Bellator, and EliteXC either closed on their own or were purchased and dissolved by the UFC to eliminate the competition.Perhaps the most intriguing was Affliction Entertainment. Launched in 2008 by rapidly growing apparel giant Affliction Clothing, the promotion was backed by Donald Trump Jr. The company made it clear it was challenging the UFC’s superiority in the sport after the UFC banned its fighters from wearing Affliction Clothing into the Octagon.By offering more prize money than the UFC, Affliction signed several former UFC champions and Pride icon Fedor Emelianenko to its roster. Donald Trump Sr., the future president, attended the press conferences held at Trump Towers in Manhattan to support the company ready to challenge Dana White and the UFC.Affliction, however, lost millions in fighter payrolls that outpaced Pay-Per-View buys and the company held just two events before folding.As LIV Golf stares down its own impending restructuring, the historical warnings are clear: money can buy players, but it can’t buy success.

Can LIV Golf Avoid the Failed Fates of Past Maverick Leagues?

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