Alan Shipnuck

He's one of the guys who said no to live money—

There was a tour event that was on the same day as the AFC Championship game.

And the ratings for the AFC Championship game were 50 times what the PGA Tour event pulled.

So you can't pay guys on the scale of Patrick Mahomes if they only deliver 2% of the eyeballs.

Right now, professional golfers are the most overpaid athletes in any sport on a per-eyeball basis.

And that's because Liv just pumped the numbers up to a completely unsustainable level.

I mean, $5 billion is a very solid number of what they've lost in less than five years.

You know, Liv was never really about golf.

It was about soft power.

And it was a chance for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to buy access to the Western world, to its thought leaders, its political leaders, who all love golf.

In Washington, D.C., all the politicians hang out at Burning Tree Golf Club.

And it really goes back to December when Brooks Koepka announced he was returning to the PGA Tour.

That was a Christmas surprise.

And that was the first crack in the wall that things were happening behind the scenes that not everybody was privy to.

And then Patrick Reed followed.

So at that point, you know, things are happening.

From a business standpoint, things are not going well at Liv.

People made the parallel very quickly.

In fact, I tweeted, you know, now that oil prices are going to skyrocket, maybe Liv can re-sign Bryson because the Saudi economy is tied very closely to the price of oil.

But then the refineries are starting, you know, getting set on fire by drone attacks and the straits were closed and you couldn't export the oil.