Scott O’Neil became CEO of LIV Golf on Jan. 15, succeeding Greg Norman, who had helped launch the aggressive and landscape-altering new league. While Norman came with Hall of Fame golf credentials, a long history of business interests and a sometimes combative personality, O’Neil brings more than 25 years working with major sports, entertainment and investment properties.
Most recently, O’Neil was CEO of Merlin Entertainments based in London, a company that owns and operates theme parks and attractions around the world. Prior to that, O’Neil served as CEO for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, adding to a career in which he also held executive positions with the Philadelphia Eagles and Madison Square Garden Entertainment.
Sitting in a meeting room Tuesday afternoon at Trump National Doral, where the LIV Golf Miami event will be played this weekend, O’Neil spoke with Global Golf Post senior writer Ron Green Jr. about his new role, the evolution of LIV Golf and where he sees the game going. (Some answers have been edited for brevity).
GGP+: You are three months into your role with LIV Golf. What are your key takeaways to this point?
O’Neil: One is these players. They’re world-class athletes and they compete at a level that I hadn’t anticipated. If golf is a gentleman’s game, it’s not out there.
How hard they prepare, how hard they work, how much it takes physically, mentally, how exhausting it is to do what they do at that level. They do it in the high level. I have a much greater appreciation now, much greater.
Also, the character of these guys. Having spent a career in the NFL and NBA, in the NHL, they’re all different. All the leagues have different personalities, and they’re all unique. But this is a special group.
GGP+: You have worked across multiple leagues and in various types of business. Are there particular lessons you can bring from those experiences that help you in your new role?
O’Neil: There sure are. They’re mostly humbling lessons … and so I feel like a culmination of what I’ve done has kind of prepared me for this job in a really strange way. Even my last job was running a theme park business, but it was global. I’d never worked at a global business before.
I worked in 23 countries, and I would go into Malaysia and take my American values and put them in my pocket and learn. The one thing I learned there that was really special, and I think it’s applicable, is in Malaysia, we had Malays running our business. In Korea, we had Koreans running our business. And in China, we had Chinese running our business and it allowed us to seamlessly work through different countries.
That’s a really interesting lesson for me to think about because this is very global. This is the F1 of golf. That’s where we are and that’s what we celebrate.
Here you have a three-year-old sports league. What, I guess, I asked for from everybody is a bit of grace. It’s like, it’s three years old.
We have, I think, an experience at golf that I’ve never seen before. I think we’ve got 30 percent of our audience that has never been to a golf event before. About 40 percent of our audience is female. Where is that happening? It’s like we’re 15 years younger than an average golf audience.
If you truly believe that we take some of the biggest stars in the game to the four corners of the world to grow the game of golf, if you believe in that mission, which I do with all my heart and soul, then we’re living it.
Our eyes are on the flag every second. It’s pretty amazing, but it doesn’t fit for everybody. I know that, right? It’s OK.
“First and probably foremost was just spending time with HE [His Excellency Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia] and with Yasir [Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund]. He’s a visionary and humble and smart and patient and has a long-term view.” – Scott O’Neil
GGP+: Why this job at this moment?
O’Neil: First and probably foremost was just spending time with HE [His Excellency Mohammed bin Salman, crown prince of Saudi Arabia] and with Yasir [Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund]. He’s a visionary and humble and smart and patient and has a long-term view. It’s effectively like if you could take the best aspects of someone I want to work for and put them into one person, he was it.
I literally walked out of my first meeting, called my wife and said I want to work with this guy. Work for this guy. She’s like really? He’s special, different.
Secondly, I’ve been in the sports business for, dare I say it, a long time and the chance to run a sports league is like nothing I ever thought, any opportunity I thought I would have and that’s pretty special.
I don’t think anything’s ever been done like this before and I don’t think it’ll ever be done again. So to be able to build on that foundation and build something special in a global framework with some of the biggest stars in the game … that’s a pretty amazing opportunity.
“Some of the critics are probably right. …We’re our own worst critics. We’re very self-reflective.” – Scott O’Neil
GGP+: LIV has been controversial and it has been criticized by many for what it has done to the professional game. How does it feel to hear those things?
O’Neil: Some of the critics are probably right. …We’re our own worst critics. We’re very self-reflective. The NBA in the ’90s was pretty rough and tumble. It was like a fistfight when you come in a lane and then we changed the rules and opened it up and allowed the beauty and athleticism of the game to go. You could say why would you change the game?
I look at baseball, which is the most traditional sport in the world, they put in a pitch clock. It took 11 years, by the way. In extra innings, they put a runner on second base. The NFL, the perfect sports league by the revenue anyway, they’re changing kickoff rules.
Bring fans to the game and you think, OK, maybe there’s opportunity. Now, as we move from disruptor to innovator because I like that term better, as we move from “golf but louder” to “long LIV golf,” I like that better because it’s about how do we grow the game of golf. … As we move from this tug of war and war of words to hey, let’s talk about, like, grace and, and representing a sport and the way it should be represented.
Taking these incredible players to four continents and five events, it’s pretty amazing. There’s some people though, that they’ll never appreciate us or never like us. That’s OK.
It’s not that I don’t understand people don’t like change. My wife doesn’t like change. It’s OK. It takes her a minute, she gets there, but it takes her a minute. And for me, I love change.
If there’s such, such a word as a change junkie, I think, God, I like it. I like moving and improving and testing and prodding and building and growing. That’s what I think all of us at LIV, that’s what we wake up thinking about, as long as we focus on the flag, as long as we’re focusing on growing the game of golf.
GGP+: Can you provide any update on the negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund? Will there be a deal? Is a deal necessary for LIV going forward?
O’Neil: I know it’s on everybody’s mind to chat through and ask, I certainly appreciate it. But on the critical front, I can say we love what we’re building. We really love it. We love this game. We love the values that the game drives. We love going to these other markets and we’re pretty convinced that the momentum we have in terms of our viewership numbers are … we are in over 800 million homes now. It’s unbelievable. Last year was 50 million. It’s like sponsors, they’re coming to us, you know? It’s pretty amazing.
We have corporate support that is coming. More announcements to come and we have viewership and our social numbers are coming up. We’re three years old, you know? Our mission is pure, and the majors were gracious and are actually opening up opportunities for more of our players. So I don’t know, man, I feel this arc of momentum, and I think we’re doing great.
GGP+: Is there any update on the world ranking issue? Is LIV considering any changes to accommodate what the ranking organization has asked for to grant ranking points?
O’Neil: [I’m] like 90 days in so I can still claim being the new guy for a little while longer. We’ve had a couple conversations.
GGP+: Does that suggest something might be done on that front?
O’Neil: Yes. I think the good news is we all want the same thing, right? We all want to see the best players in the world playing on the biggest stage. There isn’t a person on the planet that cares a lick about golf that wants anything more than that and we do too and so do the folks at the OWGR. Over time we have to figure out what the solution is.
GGP+: There have been reports that at the end of this season or the end of next season, the contracts of many of LIV’s top players will be expiring. Assuming retaining those players is a priority, who will handle the negotiations?
“It’s the first big test in Miami. If there’s something I can tell you I’m excitedly anxious about, it’s about how we’re doing. It’s our first foray onto big Fox this weekend.” – Scott O’Neil
O’Neil: It’s accurate that some of the top names, their contracts are due for a renewal or an extension, or whatever you would call it. I would just say that some of the reports have not exactly hit the nail on the head in terms of accuracy, but that is something we’re really focused on, making sure that our talents are here for a long time.
GGP+: LIV Golf announced a broadcast deal with Fox Sports earlier this year, a significant step given the challenges the league has faced in finding the right partner. Is it too early to gauge the impact of the new deal?
O’Neil: It’s the first big test in Miami. If there’s something I can tell you I’m excitedly anxious about, it’s about how we’re doing. It’s our first foray onto big Fox this weekend. It’s the first time we’re going to be [live] in the same [American] time zone. It’s pretty fun to think about.
As much as was talked about our ratings in Riyadh, and I would say, well, I think we’re on at like 2 in the morning or something here in the U.S. and the East Coast. If I was 18, I probably would have been up, if I was 22, maybe. But at 55, I’m long asleep then.
We had two and a half million people watch that broadcast around the world and for us that’s a really good number. I know [low ratings] it’s a good headline, a story to talk about but when you know there aren’t many global sports leagues out there, it’s kind of us and F1.
Judge me on what I do in Japan and Korea and in Australia and mainland China. It’s part of educating the world what a global sports league is because, even the Premier League, while they play globally, and while they’re broadcasting global, they’re playing their games in the UK, so it’s different. And we are different.
We may be held to the same standard and that’s OK. That’s part of life. But for us, we’re really happy with the distribution, which continues to increase, between Fox and ITV in the UK. …We’re trying to get the map right to make sure that those who want to watch extraordinary golf get that opportunity. But it takes time.