BC Partners is pulling out of its plan to put $300 million into LIV Golf, sources told ESPN on Wednesday. LIV had lined up the London firm to replace Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. The fund spent more than $5 billion on the league and announced in April that it would stop after this season. LIV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 8. Its rescue plan, called LIV 2.0, asked players to take smaller upfront payments in exchange for owning most of the league. ESPN's sources say about 30 players committed, but only a handful said so publicly, and none of those were marquee names. The Financial Times and The Athletic report LIV is now preparing to wind down. A bankruptcy hearing is set for Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET in Trenton, New Jersey, before Judge Michael B. Kaplan. Neither LIV nor BC Partners has commented.

The Deal Made Sense. Not Enough Stars Signed.

LIV's backers say LIV 2.0 made financial sense and died because the stars wouldn't sign.

Bryson DeChambeau says the new model would have worked. The two-time U.S. Open champion and Crushers GC captain said on the "Figuring Out with Raj Shamani" podcast, in an interview Sky Sports reported Monday, that "the business model makes a lot of sense." "It will make full financial sense. No funny business, no nothing," he said. He called it a league "that exists hopefully forever" and said the old LIV failed because "the top co. wasn't really managing that effectively." He was the most prominent player publicly backing LIV 2.0. Nobody has confirmed he actually signed.

Reports say BC Partners quit because not enough players signed. ESPN's sources say the firm quit because not enough top golfers committed to 2027 and the talks dragged on. CBS Sports reports about 15 players showed interest and BC expected at least twice that many. Sports Business Journal reports LIV never got signatures from DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith or Joaquin Niemann. The journal says that is what pushed BC out. One source told Front Office Sports: "This version is not going to be signed." The same source said BC is "not out completely," just "not under this version."

South Australia's premier says the backer was clear about the condition. Peter Malinauskas, whose state hosted four LIV events that drew more than 400,000 fans, said: "BC Capital Partners have made it clear that they don't intend to support LIV if they don't get the players required." He still calls LIV Adelaide "a punt that paid off" and says next year's Adelaide event likely won't happen. A LIV source gave Front Office Sports a different account: a "critical mass of players had been achieved last week." BBC sources say players were interested but the clock ran out. The timelines, as the BBC put it, ultimately proved insurmountable.

The Players Say LIV Offered Them a Bad Deal

The players who walked say LIV asked them to take less money for a league with too many unknowns.

Jon Rahm turned down LIV 2.0 a month ago. His attorney John Beck told the bankruptcy court on Oct. 7 that Rahm "has independently reviewed the proposed terms of LIV 2.0 and has determined that those terms are unacceptable to him." Rahm won LIV's individual title three years running. Reports put what LIV still owes him at more than $100 million. In Abu Dhabi this week he said of LIV's 2027 plans: "Too many unknowns at the time and there are still quite a few." He said going back to LIV "wasn't really ever much of a consideration."

Lee Westwood says nobody showed him a deal worth signing. "There hasn't been anything presented to me that is agreeable for LIV 2.0," the LIV player said. He added that the revamp still had potential. He faces a suspension if he returns to the DP World Tour. "So literally, I'm unemployed," he said.

LIV paid its executives while players and vendors waited, court records show. CEO Scott O'Neil got a retention payment of about $6.4 million less than three months before the bankruptcy filing, and LIV paid top executives about $15.6 million in retention this year. Golf.com reports the filings show millions went to lawyers and executives while LIV left vendors and contractors unpaid. Players were LIV's largest unsecured creditors. LIV owed DeChambeau $5.7 million in past-due payments, Johnson $5.5 million and Smith $4.8 million. Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Tyrrell Hatton, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen and at least four others have said they won't return.

Europe's Tour Says It Had Every Right to Make Players Pick a Side

Europe's tour refused membership to anyone who signed with LIV 2.0. Its CEO calls that a duty. An ESPN source calls it a nail in the coffin.

DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings says players had to pick a tour. He told BBC Sport last month the tour would refuse 2027 membership to anyone who signed with LIV 2.0. "Players need to make a choice," he said. Membership applications are due Nov. 16, and only members can play for Europe in the Ryder Cup. Kinnings told The Scotsman he had heard from people he has known "for over 30 years" that LIV set out to "destroy the DP World Tour." "Myself and everyone at the DP World Tour have a duty to our members to protect our Tour," he said.

An ESPN source says the ban cost LIV player commitments. The source called it "a nail in the coffin" for LIV's hopes of more commitments. Several players wanted to split time between the two tours, and LIV 2.0 was expected to have only about 10 events. LIV player Victor Perez said the ban "has definitely ruffled some feathers." O'Neil had pitched LIV 2.0 as a partner to the established tours. "It's complete, not compete," he said in August. Kinnings rejects the idea that LIV is not a competitor.

LIV Was Always Going to Fail, and It Damaged Golf

Rory McIlroy and longtime critics say the league damaged golf and leaves nothing behind.

Rory McIlroy says LIV left golf worse off. The Northern Irish star, one of LIV's most outspoken critics, spoke to reporters Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. He said: "They took players, they took sponsors, they turned professional golf into an arms race." "They were going around Augusta saying they wanted to destroy the European Tour," he said.

Columnists wrote LIV off in April, when Saudi Arabia said it would stop paying. A columnist for The Independent wrote that "LIV Golf was always a hollow venture, and by the end, even the name was meaningless." The column said LIV "could never shake the sense that these guys were doing it for the money," drew around 300,000 U.S. viewers on Fox Sports, and left most of its stars "worse players than they were four years ago." Golf Digest's Joel Beall wrote that LIV "was not, at its core, a golf league. It was a geopolitical instrument."

LIV's players have no easy way back to the PGA Tour. Brooks Koepka, who left LIV, got back to the PGA Tour before this season by accepting penalties under the Returning Member Program. PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said in September the tour has no plans to bring that program back. That closes the easy route for Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith.

Where This Lands

LIV Golf will be in a New Jersey courtroom at 11:30 a.m. ET Thursday. The BBC expects LIV's own lawyer to tell the court the plan is not viable. Nothing has been ordered yet, and a source familiar with BC Partners insists the firm is "not out completely." The sides have already picked whom to blame. The reporting on BC Partners says the stars would not sign. Rahm and Westwood say nobody offered them a deal worth signing. Kinnings says Europe's tour had every right to make players pick a side. McIlroy says the league took players and sponsors and turned golf into an arms race. Saudi Arabia spent more than $5 billion since 2022, and the league it paid for is now in bankruptcy court.

Sources