LIV GOLF VIRGINIA

May 5, 2026

Scott O'Neil

Trump National DC

Press Conference

ILANA FINLEY: Thank you everyone for joining us this week and today as we kick off our Madden LIV Golf Virginia event. This is our first event in the U.S., and we're extremely excited to be back on home soil.

My name is Ilana Finley. I'm the Chief Communications Officer here at LIV Golf, and I'm honored to be joined by our CEO Scott O'Neil. Scott, welcome.

SCOTT O'NEIL: Thank you.

ILANA FINLEY: LIV Golf has entered a journey of transition, and we know there's an immense interest in the league and our business, and we wanted to take this opportunity to speak directly to you, share a little bit more insight about what's going on, how we think about this moment, how we think about the future, and provide a little bit more insight from Scott directly.

We're going to aim to be as transparent as possible. Scott is going to answer as many questions as he possibly can. There may be some topics we can't cover. We will be clear about that when that is the case.

SCOTT O'NEIL: This the largest media room we've had, very cavernous.

ILANA FINLEY: Yes, it's beautiful. With that, we'll dive into it.

Scott, safe to say the last few weeks have been dynamic. How are you doing?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Before we do get started, though, this is Mother's Day this weekend on Sunday. For all of those of you who are mothers, I want to wish you happy Mother's Day.

For those of you who have a mother, which hopefully is most of us in this room, take a few minutes, send your mom a text. Pull your phones out. I would love for you to text your mom something beautiful, something special, something meaningful, some note you learned from her, some lesson she taught you, some impact she had. Just take 30 seconds now, and I will wait. It's more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

I'm going to share. My mom had a really big impact on my life. She taught leadership development and design all over the world. She worked with Xerox and Texaco and ADP. It took her from the U.S. to the UK to Africa. She was a very influential person in my life.

I remember as a young boy her telling me a story which I wanted to share, which I think is a good lead into what we're going to talk about today. She talked about these two shoe salesmen who went to a new market. When they showed up, nobody was wearing shoes. So one of the salesmen immediately sent back a note to his boss and said, Boss, no business here. On my way home. The other salesman had a very different perspective. He said, Boss, you're not going to believe it, this market's incredible.

I think for me I'm that second shoe salesman right now, quite frankly. Excited, happy, feeling a bit of pressure for sure, and very grateful for this opportunity for the team I get to work with. Many of you are here today. It's the most talented group of people I've ever had the chance to work with.

So to have this chance in this business to be able to reset and create something special, something lasting, and a real business is something I will tell you like I am popping out of bed in the morning. I am sleeping a lot less and running very hard.

ILANA FINLEY: I think that's a great place to begin. Let's take a step back. You walked into this role about 18 months ago. Talk us through what you saw and what opportunity you set out to prove with this business.

SCOTT O'NEIL: Two things. If you bifurcate competition and business, the competition, I fell in love with. I fell in love with the players and the markets. I think the team format is transformational. We see -- obviously we see the Ryder Cup and the impact that has, and the impact the Presidents Cup used to have when it had all the best players in the world playing in it, and certainly the impact of team golf on college golf.

But to see it repeated in these markets and to see the impact that it's having in markets like Australia, where we had 115,000 people, and South Africa we had 100,000 people and the UK, where we had 60,000 people last year, and I'm hoping for a bit more this year. Indy had 60,000 people last year. You start to feel that movement that the teams are catching on.

And whether that's the nationalist movement, where you see the Southern Guards, all the Southern Guards gear and hats in South Africa or all the Ripper stuff in Australia or the Korean Golf Club in Korea or Torque stuff in Mexico City is pretty incredible. On the team side, that struck me.

The players as partners is something that doesn't exist in the world, in the world of sports. I've been in several sports leagues in the NFL, the NBA, and NHL. I've been around professional athletes for the last 30 years of my life, and I've never been around a group of more remarkable men who believe in the mission to grow the game of golf around the world, who are willing to get on a plane and travel and make it happen, who stand for hours in the blazing heat after a brutal round and spending time with you guys. I'm talking your biggest stars -- your Jon Rahms, your Bryson DeChambeaus -- signing autographs for hours. This group is committed.

And I saw the impact they're having, not only on growing the game, and we've seen every market we're in, the game is growing around the world, but also how we're growing young talent here. I think from a game standpoint I've been really happy. From an ecosystem standpoint, that was really surprising to me.

There was a lot of angst and a lot of discord and a lot of frustration, and a lot of that has been washed away. Part of that is because our mission is so clear, and that's to grow the game of golf around the world. Part of that is us going door to door.

The biggest part is the openness I found from the doors that have been opened from the four majors and golf tours around the world and the federations and everybody saying we understand the impact and influence that you're having, and we are coming in now as partners. So I think that's been a really nice, welcome surprise.

On the business side, it's just been -- I have never seen momentum like this. I mean, only 18 months ago, I walked in. We moved from 450 million homes to over a billion homes of television distribution. Like the year before I got there, I think we were doing like 1.7 million viewers per weekend, then it moved to 3.3 million. Australia had 5.5 million viewers.

If you benchmark that against Formula One, which is how we benchmark -- we benchmark global viewership, not national, but global -- Formula One is still like 9, 10, 11 million. If we keep this trajectory, it's a really intelligent distribution. From our marketing partners' side, when I walked in, it was a really small base, no true global partners. Remember this league is unique in that it's a very global league. Other than Formula One, there's not anywhere else for partners to go if they have a global business and they want a global impact.

There you see Rolex and HSBC and Salesforce and Qualcomm, and then we had the endemics like PING, and they come on and you start thinking, huh, it's going to be quite a business. Then I was told repeatedly when I first started, you'll never sell tickets in the U.S. We saw 60,000 sold in Indy, 50 in Dallas, 45 in Chicago and 43 in Detroit. I thought, I think there's some real business for this business.

It didn't mean we didn't have to make changes and we have to -- we certainly knew -- I knew very quickly we're going to have to right size this business, and now we find ourselves in that spot.

I will tell you from a golf standpoint, very, very happy. From a player standpoint, I've never experienced anything like having players as partners. From a business standpoint, the momentum is pretty special.

ILANA FINLEY: So you basically laid out what sounds like an incredible foundation -- competition, players, great connection to the ecosystem, incredible business momentum. Let's talk about this moment that we're in right now. What's it like to lead -- to have to lead a company through a period of transition and a period that we're in in this moment?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Well, I'm not very well-known in the golf world, but if you talk to folks in basketball or football or hockey, you'll know that when my phone rings, it's usually not that everything is going really well, we'd like you to be a status quo leader. So when my phone rings, it's usually an opportunity for transformation or turnarounds or hyper growth.

This moment for me -- I understand uncertainty is difficult for some people, and I understand that not knowing what tomorrow brings can be a challenge. This is 100 percent what I love to do, this moment. Everybody is meant for a certain thing in their life. I believe this is what I am meant for. I love this moment.

What I love about it is there's nothing more special in pulling a team together than pressure. That's how diamonds are created. There's nothing that can get you charged up and popping out of bed in the morning than knowing that everything you do -- every call you make, every text you send, every e-mail you respond to -- actually has a real substantive impact on where we're heading. I will tell you, my energy has not been this high since we started.

So I'm feeling good. I'm feeling an appropriate amount of pressure, which I hope we all do here. I'm feeling inspired, and I feel like we have a clear path to a win.

ILANA FINLEY: Let's talk a little bit about where we go from here. As you think about the path forward, resetting the business plan, engaging players in a new model, just talk us through those steps and what that looks like.

SCOTT O'NEIL: I'd invite you to think about a time in your life where you were feeling pressure. It could be a deadline. It could be something with your family. It could be something with a sports team you played on. That certainly crystallizes your priorities and your ways of working.

For us, the priorities are really clear. First and foremost, we need to get the players settled, on board, and focusing on golf. That's first and foremost. Secondly, we have to create a plan that's a business plan, a business that works from a business standpoint, from a profit and loss standpoint, like every other business in the world, and we are well on our way to that.

Thirdly and maybe more importantly -- and I've been blessed with this my entire life -- is you surround yourself with smart, talented, experienced people. For us they came in the form of two new board members, Gene Davis and Jon Zinman. Gene has been through 350 of these, how about that? When we're on a call -- and I talk to Jon and Gene a couple times a day, sometimes more -- and I will tell you having experienced directors that understand the situation we're in, can work with urgency, pace, our very directive, our incredible sounding boards, couldn't be happier.

We brought in AlixPartners, which is an adviser, financial adviser. So in terms of tuning our business plan to make this a business, outstanding. In terms of pushing, prodding, making sure we have the longest runway we could possibly have, extraordinary advisers.

Gibson Dunn has been a longtime partner of ours, a law firm. We shifted to a different group with them, outstanding counsel.

Lastly, with Ducera Partners, Mike Kramer is the CEO. In my history when I was working for Josh Harris and David Blitzer, we bought the Devils through him. We've known him for quite some time. Extraordinary banker, extraordinary person, works at pace, really creative in terms of raising money and doing deals.

So you take that combination and put that with this extraordinary team I get to work with every single day, and I am lifted. I understand that -- I understand where some of your emotions are, mine are in a can do: Let's get the plan set, let's surround ourselves with extraordinary talent, and let's get after it.

ILANA FINLEY: We talked about the team that we've brought in, the work that they're doing. Have you received any response or feedback to the reset thus far, and how confident are you feeling that we still have an opportunity here as we move forward?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Did you say sponsor or you mean investor --

ILANA FINLEY: The response so far to the work we're doing with our advisers.

SCOTT O'NEIL: It's early. If this were two weeks later, this meeting would be quite different because I'd probably put a PowerPoint up and show you where we're heading. Unfortunately in the process, I won't be able to do that.

I had about a dozen inbound calls this weekend, inbound from potential investors, that's good news. So it was a split between private equity, family office, and then your traditional like high net worth -- you probably know who they are, the guys who invest in sports and sports teams. So that's been really positive.

We need our immediate partners to stay with us. We've got -- we're broadcast in over 200 countries. It's very important those 40 partners stay with us, so we're talking to them. We're talking to our marketing partners, several of whom I mentioned, they're on board. That's really good.

I feel like -- look, it's still early. We haven't gotten to market yet. We haven't finalized our business plan. We're still picking and prodding. We have a good sense at this point. Ten days in, we know where we're going, and we're just going to tighten the screws.

ILANA FINLEY: I want to dive into a little bit more about I know the business plan is evolving. I'd love for you to talk about where you see the value coming in from this plan. You often talk about sports as an incredible asset right now.

SCOTT O'NEIL: My whole career, I would sit in a room like this, and I'd be like the young guy. Now I'm the old guy. It's a really interesting situation to look around and see so many young faces. I came into the business in the early '90s. I came in as a marketing assistant. Literally taking dictation, pre-Internet, the cell phones were this big back then.

I remember starting, and the Utah Jazz sold for $13 million. Can you imagine if you invested in that business at $13 million, Utah Jazz? Ryan Smith bought the team, I believe, for $1.8 billion five years ago.

I then went to the Philadelphia Eagles. Jeff Lurie had bought the team. He still owns it. He bought it for $188 million. People say he had lost his mind. This was 1994, that he had lost his mind. I believe he sold a piece of that business for over $8 billion last year.

The NWSL -- some of you may not even know what that is -- it's the National Women's Soccer League, American soccer for women. Bob Iger, very successful businessman, bought the L.A. team for $450 million.

Joe Tsai, owns the Brooklyn Nets, also just sold off a piece of the Liberty, New York Liberty, a women's WNBA team, for reportedly around $500 million.

So if you ask me where the value of this business is, it's in the teams. If you're looking for direction, we believe that teams will have extraordinary value. We believe that once we set the business in the right direction with the right trajectory, with the right revenue base and cost base, which we're well on our way to doing, that these teams will have extraordinary value. And that's where, if you're an investor and you're listening to this or reading this, that's where you're going to get your value.

ILANA FINLEY: I'd love to come back to the players. You talked earlier about them as our business partners and the critical role they play in this process. Dive into that a little bit more. How are they involved? What conversations have you been having?

SCOTT O'NEIL: We'll be spending a lot of time with them today and this week. It's so nice to have an event week schedule that's regular and in a league where the stars show up every week, which is really unique in golf and quite a competitive advantage, I believe.

I'd say I've gotten six, five or six direct leads from them to talk to family offices and private equity. I don't think there's another sport in the world that can deliver that the first week, unsolicited. We have quite a bit of feedback in and around the business plan. Remember some of our players have been around this game a long time, and they are powerhouses, and they are media entities in and of themselves.

Several of our more experienced captains have offered to come on private equity presentations with me. Where is that happening in the world? I have to tell you, like it cannot be under said, it cannot be under sold the impact these players have on the world of golf, on LIV Golf, and on me is immeasurable.

ILANA FINLEY: Maybe this is where we can start to address some of the elephants in the room. There's been a lot of speculation about players pursuing other options. Are you worried that they're going to leave?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I have so much to say on this topic, and I'm going to keep this short because I'm under direction to. I will tell you this, one of the beauties of LIV Golf, the beauties, the thing I enjoy most about it, is that we are for golf. We always have been and we always will be. Our players, we commit them to 14 weeks. They come and play. They know exactly the weeks they're expected to play, they show up, and they play.

If another Tour is open for them to play, that's 14 weeks out of 52. That's 38 weeks. So if you want to see the best players in the world playing together more often, no problem, let's do it on the other 38 weeks. Like it's such a special opportunity.

I feel like the opportunity, the chance, the gift we've been given here at LIV Golf is that we have players who will travel the world, and that is a gift to the game.

Q. Let's talk about partners and sponsors --

SCOTT O'NEIL: I don't think I answered your question correctly. I apologize.

Do I believe that when we have a business plan and we raise money, that this is the place the players will choose? I do. I know these players. I know their caddies. I know their spouses, their girlfriends, partners, I know their kids, and this is a place that golfers want to play. This is a really, really special community, and it's different.

In the most important sport in the world, it's also the loneliest sport in the world, and this is a place where you show up like family. So I have a lot of confidence that this is a place players want to be.

ILANA FINLEY: We've talked about the critical role players play in this process. Let's talk about our partners and sponsors. What are some of the conversations you've been having with them?

SCOTT O'NEIL: As you'd imagine, this is a business. It's very different from other sports. This is a top-to-top business. I've said this before about golf, but the most important people in the world play golf. It's world leaders. That's CEOs of companies. In fact, I just read 90 percent of the Fortune 500 CEOs play golf. Oftentimes these relationships we have with these incredible partners of ours are top to top. So it's very, very easy and simple to pick up the phone and call the heads of our top partners, and I have, and the conversations have been extraordinary, as you might expect, supportive.

Almost anyone who's been in business for a minute has been through the peaks and the valleys and then the peaks again, and the one thing that I've been comforted through and by is just this notion of this community that's been created, and part of that community is just sponsors, and I'm very confident.

ILANA FINLEY: Those are league sponsors, team sponsors, broadcast partners?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Yes.

ILANA FINLEY: Can you talk a little bit about a timeline that we may be working toward, and what's the runway to get this done?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I won't speak to specific timing other than to say that you'll find urgency here, you'll find pace, you'll find less sleep, more action, and our first step is what we have to do to lock this plan down because, once we lock this plan down, we go to market, and that's when the fun starts.

ILANA FINLEY: Maybe another elephant in the room. We talked earlier about bringing in advisers who are experienced in building financial plans, business plans, even restructuring. Is that something that we're thinking about right now?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I mean, we have these advisers -- we're locked in on going to market with a plan. This is transaction, transaction, transaction. That's what I wake up thinking about. That's what I go to sleep thinking about. That's what I think about when I'm eating. That's what I think about when I'm on the golf course. That's what I thought about when I was walking beautiful Trump National out here. This is our -- 100 percent of my time, our time, is focused on driving to a transaction.

Can I just say what I didn't say up front is just a thank you to Eric Trump and Larry Glick and the incredible team at Trump National. I'd be remiss if I didn't say, this is our eighth visit to a Trump course, and it's indisputable, the service is extraordinary. The courses are always in world class condition. This course specifically situated on the Potomac is picturesque, is beautiful, and if you haven't taken a little stroll out to 14 and seen that par-3 on the water, please do so today. This is an extraordinary organization, an extraordinary course, and we're thrilled to be here.

ILANA FINLEY: Just a couple questions, and then we'll open it up to the group. What role will the PIF have moving forward? Can you talk a little bit about that?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I mean, they own the majority of the business now, and they've agreed to fund through the season, as they said. Nothing there has changed.

ILANA FINLEY: Are you talking to other Tours?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I think I alluded to this before. Just to be more specific, as you might expect in a role like mine, this is what we do, as a matter of fact and as a matter of course of business. Whether that be at the majors -- over in Aronimink, my backyard, if you're going to be there, I've spent the last 20-plus years in Philadelphia. It's a beautiful course. I think it's going to be an extraordinary event. And we get to see many of our friends there.

That's the guys from the majors, the other tours, the federations -- the golf ecosystem seems to rally around the big events, and that's where I spend most of my time. So am I speaking to members of the ecosystem? Almost every day.

ILANA FINLEY: Last one before I pass off. What are you most excited about as you think about this period ahead?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I mean, this like in these jobs we have, they come with a lot of pressure, a lot of time away from your family. They come from a lot of work, all of which I accept and love. But these moments -- not this particular one with you guys, although I do love you -- these moments when you get to get to the course and when the shotgun starts on Thursday, that for me, that's what I look forward to. There is something really magical and special and different about these events. They make me smile. They're fun.

Seeing kids at a golf tournament, it matters. Seeing our players engage, it matters. You're talking some of the best golfers in the world, extraordinary business people, and yet they understand their role in growing this game.

So that for me, that's what I'm most looking forward to. The other stuff is business. Again, I've been doing this for a long time, and I love it, and I hope you do too. I'm speaking to my team here, and a lot of them are in the back. Because this is why we do what we do.

Yes, we're going to have to change some things we do, of course, and yes, we've already made some changes, and that should bring you a level of excitement. It should bring you a level of calm. It should bring you like hopefully the excitement to bring it up a gear because, when you get that rush in the business -- and I have it right now -- that's when you know you're in the right place with the right people at the right time.

Q. Scott, you talked about right sizing the business. How do you do that given reportedly burning through, I think, 100 million a month? Do you look at reducing purses this year to keep it alive for next year potentially?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I definitely will not be talking through specifics of the plan, but it's a pretty -- it's a playbook that won't surprise too many people once you see it.

We have a good runway through this season fortunately, and it's for next year that we're going to be making some pretty significant, substantive changes. It's all stuff you've heard from me. If you can piece together what I've said over the last six months, there won't be too much surprise in terms of what you find.

Q. Sergio said, after the news came out or when the rumblings were happening, that you told him that, yes, they had promised you money or guaranteed funding through 2030. How much of a shock was it when you found out that wasn't the case?

SCOTT O'NEIL: I just didn't understand the question. You said Sergio said that I said?

Q. Yes. You told the players that the funding was guaranteed through 2030.

SCOTT O'NEIL: So, surprise? Was I surprised? I don't know, it's hard to even think about that moment. So I'd rather not comment on how I actually felt, my emotion. I can tell you that it was very clear 18 months ago that for this to be a going concern, we were going to have to make significant and substantive changes in terms of the way we do business.

Guys, remember, when my phone rings, it never is the case that everything is going well. I am not a status quo manager. I never have been. I never will be. Like this is what I do. This is what I'm here for, and this is what brings me the most satisfaction, enjoyment, excitement. Like this is what I'm excited to be here to do.

So it would be naive to be surprised, and it would be irresponsible to be thinking anything else other than how far we have to go to make sure that we can continue to grow this game around the world.

Q. Can I just ask one more thing? Just with PIF and everything, if you get investors and teams, it was the case that PIF owned 75 percent of the team. So if you get investors in your team, do you have to pay PIF that money?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Likely in a situation like this, it would be too early to be speculating on what will happen with the value creation, what our new investor or investors will be looking for, and that will all come out in the wash, if you will, in the next few weeks as we go to market. So it's a bit early for that.

Q. You didn't deny the possibility that purses could be reduced next year. Many players have spoken about the reason they came to LIV Golf in the first place was so that they could play less often and make more money. How do you retain players if they're not going to be paid as much?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Yeah, I did not deny nor did I commit nor did I comment -- I just want to be really clear because in this room I want to make sure we're all clear we're reporting what we're hearing and not what we're speculating on. What I said, just to repeat it just so we're all clear, I will not comment on the plan until we have it, but once we have it, I'm happy to share it.

Our view of what the players, what got the players here -- I wasn't here when most of the players came in. I have been here when players have come in, and they're coming for very different reasons. I'd encourage you -- you guys will be here. Ask these guys. Ask them why they're here. Some of them, sure, came for money. Others are here for very different reasons, and I appreciate that.

You've got 57 players from 21 different countries all looking for something in their lives, all at different phases and stages of their lives. Some of them, sure, are chasing money, others are chasing fame, others are chasing legacy and career, others are looking for more predictability and a schedule. There are a whole host of others that want to travel the world and see other places and parts of the world. Others are interested in growing the game of golf.

So I definitely don't want to take 57 guys and pigeonhole them into what they care about. I think that would be irresponsible. I believe, from what I have seen, from the men that I have had the pleasure to get to know, that this is a place where I think players will want to play.

Q. You mentioned that the value is in the teams, but how do you sell a team like the Cleeks, for example, when you don't know what players are going to be part of that team?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Is this Cleeks just an example or did you have -- just like a random example?

Q. Yeah, or say Crushers?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Crushers, okay. So the way the process will typically work -- and I might be getting ahead of myself -- is that we are going to create a business plan. We're going to lock arms with the players. We will go to market and raise money on the top, on a league level, and then we will go and get investors in teams, in that order.

So we should have the players on the team, should be locked in.

Q. I also wanted to be clear, I love my mother. She's a chef in Spain, and it's lunchtime now in Spain. That's why.

SCOTT O'NEIL: Did you send her a note? I didn't see you typing over there.

Q. She's working. I'll get her later. Two questions: In the current reality, in the new reality, how important are the majors for LIV Golf and your players? And how important is it that your players perform well at the majors?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Well, it's the biggest stage in golf, that's clear. At Augusta we had 3 of our top 15 players in the field. The current system makes it a bit challenging for us to have a representative look and what I would say view of our best players playing at that time.

I believe we have 10 or 11 guys playing at the PGA Championship at Aronimink, and would I like to see that number be 20 in a field of 156? I would. Should it be 25? Probably. But it isn't. We've spent five years on the same issue, and I appreciate that it's getting better, and I hope it continues to improve and get better. I wish our guys the best. You have very few guys, Jon Rahm happens to be one of them, who's just extraordinarily excellent every round.

But for most players, I'm talking best players in the world, there's just volatility in this game. Yeah, I hope our guys go out and play, I hope one of our guys win, and I hope they win in dramatic fashion. It would be a lot of fun.

Q. Quick follow-up. In all the majors, in the new reality, in the new model, would you like the players to play in other tours, to play in the PGA TOUR, to play in the DP World Tour?

SCOTT O'NEIL: The fun fact is that our players are always welcome to play. As I mentioned earlier, we have them locked down for 14 out of 52 weeks a year. If you want to see players playing together more often, sounds good to me. I couldn't be more supportive. Other tours are having trouble with that very nature.

One of the beauties of our model is our guys are here. For those 14 weeks, we know who we have. Fans know who's going to show up every week, and that's quite an advantage. I imagine you'll see some shifts in the ecosystem more closer to that model, but we have never, since our inception, ever restricted our players. That's from bans, from fines, not us. Nope, go play where you want to play. We believe in free golf, free agency of golf.

We believe that players should play when they want and where they want so long as they sign up for these 14, and we'll be sticking to that.

Q. You mentioned earlier that you've got funding through the rest of this year. Would there be any --

SCOTT O'NEIL: Bob, I think I mentioned the PIF said that. Just to be specific what I said. I believe I said the PIF would be funding through the rest of the year.

Q. So are you able to, for lack of a better word, hoard any of that for the future? Do you have to spend it all this year? Can you talk about how that might impact the future?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Yeah, any -- again, early. Early for us to be reporting. But we would like to he extend the runway if we can extend the runway, if that's what you mean. That wouldn't impact players. That's more our business.

There's not a person in this room that would be doing anything different than what we're doing. We want to make sure we give ourselves every opportunity to get to market, raise money, and build a spectacular business.

Q. For you personally, are you now unencumbered in terms of decision-making? In other words, I'm guessing you obviously had people to report to at the PIF and maybe sometimes decisions couldn't be made quickly. Can you now do it faster, so to speak, if you needed to without that? Or is that still in play?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Well, Gene Davis and Jon Zinman, who now are the board, they understand urgency. They understand pace, and their decision-making is very quick.

Q. One, is PIF committed to pay out any player contracts that go beyond this year? Secondly, do you see any competitive format changes in 2027?

SCOTT O'NEIL: The first one, I don't even know how to think about answering. The second, competitive changes, this is my two-year view here. We've changed pretty dramatically in my two seasons here, and I've been on the record saying the format changes won't stop, and we'll continue to evolve to optimize the business. So I would not be surprised to see a continued evolution in our format.

Q. The order of operations you mentioned --lock in players, go to market, achieve some investment -- how does that work? How do you lock in players before you have funding secured or what you can tell players you're able to offer beyond the current season?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Well, the good news is they're all with me. They're under contract, so I have them. So they're here. And we have events like this where we get to spend time, and there's no better place for them to make a living and do it within their contract than they are right here. So it works out actually really nicely.

We have ongoing dialogue. We have relationships. We're very fortunate. We have several general managers in the room here, we have extraordinary executives we get to work with, and they lead and manage their players and teams. So we have a good order of operation here.

I'm not sure I understand the depth of the question. Like there are partners in this business, so it's quite different in that we don't sit above them, we sit next to them. This is a for us, by us league. Our competition committee actually, those competition rules that we talked about and the evolution, it's driven by the players. This is like self-policing going on here. This is a Tour, a League that is about the players.

So for us, going to market, we're going to market with them. There's no daylight between what I'll know and what Bryson or Jon or Phil or Bubba or Cam or DJ will know. There's no -- like we're together as one.

Q. Would Bryson have a new contract before you go to market, or would he be going to market with you without a contract to play next season?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Well, that's an interesting question. I'm not sure. We'll sort through and work through. Like I appreciate it, I appreciate the question. It's just Bryson's special. He's different and special. You want to talk about a business partner, we're literally talking about the future of LIV Golf, I'm talking with him about how does he see, not just the golf, but the business? He's smart, he's driven, he's committed, and he's a heck of a partner.

Q. Scott, you mentioned earlier that several of the players have come to you with, I guess, leads for lack of a better word.

SCOTT O'NEIL: Yeah, that's good.

Q. Just curious, I don't know how much you can speak to the situation, but would Phil have been involved in that at all? Obviously given his experience, given how prominent he's been in the game, how much of a help he might be, and if you could even speak to his immediate future?

SCOTT O'NEIL: Yeah, I talked to Phil yesterday, sorry you can't make it today. I just want to be really sensitive. We all have things going on in our lives that are personal, and his is. I have a lot of love and respect for him as a human being and certainly have respect for him as what he's accomplished in his career, and his presence is really helpful. So I hope he comes back soon.

I will tell you that his presence is missed by -- like I miss him, I miss his presence at events. He carries a ton of weight in every room he walks. That's not only because he's a six-time major champion, but he's got gravitas, and that comes with something that's way beyond winning.

Yes, he's one of the guys helping me, of course.

ILANA FINLEY: Thank you, Scott. It's been incredibly helpful to hear you paint the picture and contextualize this moment. We heard you say we're building a plan, we have great advisers, we have a pathway to raise capital and a reason to believe. That's great.

Thank you everyone. We're going to shift our focus to competition and look forward to having an incredible week here at Trump National.