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MIAMI — Not long after Abraham Ancer finished on the 18th green at LIV Golf Adelaide, his captain Sergio Garcia was there for a huge hug. The Fireballs GC won the team event but Ancer’s finish — a sequence of bogeys to close the weekend — dropped him to second behind Joaquin Niemann, who took the individual win.
It was a welcome-to-team-golf moment for new LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil, who joined the league in January. O’Neil said he got the chills.
“I was like, what did I walk into? This is a gift,” O’Neil told FOX Sports Wednesday ahead of LIV Golf Miami. “You have the greats of the game passing down their love and knowledge — and rooting for these young guys. I was like, ‘Okay, team golf. I get it.'”
O’Neil took over for former CEO Greg Norman, who remains on LIV Golf’s board of directors. O’Neil previously served as CEO and President of Madison Square Garden Sports, overseeing operations for the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, and then later took over as CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, where he oversaw the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils.
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For this weekend, the focus is on Trump National Doral, the host course for LIV Golf Miami. O’Neil will oversee the event, which tees off on Friday and concludes Sunday — airing on FOX Sports. But it will also feature a Sublime concert, a Jacob Fellander art exhibit and “The Duels,” a showdown match pairing the league’s stars with golf influencers.
When it comes to the future of LIV Golf, O’Neil is intent on creating a product that looks like what he saw in Adelaide — not just in terms of the special moment between a superstar and a budding youngster, but also in recreating the energy and electricity that the Australian event brought.
“I know what the future looks like [for LIV],” he said. “It looks like Adelaide in 14 markets. And, to me, it looks like our players are welcome, and there’s more outlets for them in the majors. I feel like it looks like Formula One of golf, and I feel the team concept will get traction. … We’re three years old. Think about that. Having worked at the NBA and NFL and NHL, what do you think the NBA looked like at Year 3? And then you look at us, you’re like, ‘What we’ve done is impossible.'”
What is LIV Adelaide like? It’s an electric and raucous party atmosphere where the focus is on the golf — but the league also offers a festival-type experience with music and events. The athletes love it. Jon Rahm has referenced it as the most fun event on the LIV calendar.
Will LIV expand to new courses? Will they bring in new stars? Will they add new teams?
“Yes, to any and all of those, so long as they’re good for growing the game of golf,” O’Neil said. “So if more teams do that, or some new players do that, yeah, we’ll look at all of those things going forward.”
O’Neil said that LIV has already reached 800 million homes this year — up 300 million over a year — thanks in part to broadcast relationships with FOX Sports, ITV and DAZN. O’Neil also said 30 percent of LIV event attendees are attending their first golf event. And 40 percent of the league’s event attendees are women. The average age of attendees is 15 years younger than an average golf event.
In short, their demographic is different than the average golf fan.
“I want to be ambitious, and I want big eyes, and I want a big vision,” O’Neil said. “And all that we have here. I walked into it. I inherited. It is amazing. But I also want to be patient and I want to be grounded in realism, and I want to enjoy this in the moment — like actually enjoy where we are with these stars and these young talent and these incredible courses and traveling around the world. … [The golfers] are wonderful ambassadors of the game and I think that really bodes well for where we’re heading.”
O’Neil didn’t lose sight of the golfers he has in the current stable. And he wants to make sure the world gets to know his players better. The league will always be about the major winners and big stars. O’Neil appreciated the way that Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson. But it’s about building up the up-and-coming youngsters or out-of-nowhere veterans: Sam Munoz, Dean Burmester, David Puig and Tom McKibbin.
“There’s some amazing stories and, quite frankly, I want some of them told,” O’Neil said. “Ratings will be driven by stars, and sponsorship dollars will be driven by the stars. And, and these teams will be driven by the stars. I know that. But, man, the depth of this field is real.”
O’Neil himself isn’t a lifer when it comes to golf.
He has only just come to play the game and he’s working hard at it — hitting the range on Wednesday after his meetings. And he kept saying that it has been “humbling” to pick up a club, particularly as he gets out more with some of the stars on the tour. Both Garcia and Mickelson have coached — or at least given tips — to O’Neil during their rounds together.
Garcia? He’s the best coach of the group. But…
“Not very nice,” O’Neil said with a laugh.
And Mickelson — well, he’s not always a sweetie either.
“My favorite moment was with Phil and I hit a good shot. And he looked at me and said, ‘Hmm, I didn’t see that one coming.’ I have laughed more than I’ve cried out there,” O’Neil said. “[The swing] — it takes time.”
When it comes to building the LIV brand, O’Neil seems to be building with that same balance of patience and determination that he has with his swing.
Prior to joining FOX Sports as an NFL and LIV Golf reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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