LIV tried to manufacture a new sporting tradition. The greater opportunity is bringing beloved competitions - and their fans - to new parts of the world.
LIV Golf’s bankruptcy this week might appear to represent the end of Saudi Arabia’s grand experiment in international sports.
It does not.
If anything, LIV’s collapse offers a useful lesson at precisely the moment global sports tourism is entering what could become its greatest era.
Saudi Arabia did not fail because it believed people would travel for sports — they will. It failed because LIV Golf spent more than $5 billion attempting to manufacture enthusiasm for a league that lacked history, meaningful rivalries and a committed audience.
Famous golfers were purchased at extraordinary prices, but cultural attachment could not be bought along with them.
LIV reportedly generated just over $200 million in revenue in 2025, while television rights produced only about 5% of that total. The Saudi Public Investment Fund could afford to continue underwriting the league, but unlimited financing could not turn an artificial competition into a sustainable business.
That should not be interpreted as broard evidence against global sports investment. It should be understood as a narrower warning about what kind of investment works.
The recent World Cup demonstrated the scale of the opportunity. The 2026 tournament welcomed a record 6.81 million spectators into stadiums across 16 host cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with millions more participating in public celebrations. Those supporters did not merely purchase tickets.
They booked flights, filled hotels, ate in restaurants, rented cars, toured cities and introduced themselves to places they might never otherwise have visited.
They also tweeted, posted, took photos, shot videos, and kicked off viral marketing campaigns for a wide variety of American goods and services. Everyone from corporate giants in the convenience store business to obscure, family-owned roadside diners was lifted by the rising tide of glowing reviews. Genuine consumer created content, free advertisment and it was all entertainment?
Of course corporations have taken notice.
That is the magic of sports tourism: The game becomes the reason to go, but the destination becomes part of the memory.
The NFL understands this. It is no longer treating international games as occasional curiosities. The 2026 season includes a record nine international games across four continents and seven countries. Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Paris join a list of host cities that already includes London, Munich, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dublin, São Paulo, Mexico City and Toronto. Before this season, the NFL had played 62 regular-season games outside the United States.
These games sell because the NFL is exporting something millions of people already value. A San Francisco 49ers-Los Angeles Rams game in Melbourne carries real consequences, recognizable stars and an existing rivalry. It is not an exhibition assembled for local dignitaries. It counts.
Other leagues should follow. Major League Baseball has played meaningful games in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Europe. The NBA possesses perhaps the most internationally recognizable collection of individual athletes in American sports. College football could bring carefully selected season-opening games to overseas destinations. Tennis, Formula One, boxing, cricket and soccer already demonstrate how a single weekend can attract affluent travelers from around the world.
The economic opening is enormous. UN Tourism estimates that sports already account for roughly 10% of global tourism spending and projects rapid growth through the end of the decade. Unlike many development schemes, a successful sporting event distributes spending across an entire local economy — from airports and hotels to street vendors and family-owned restaurants.
Despite the failure of LIV Golf, Saudi Arabia remains unusually well positioned to benefit.
It has the capital to construct stadiums, improve airports and develop the hotels, transit systems and entertainment districts required by international visitors. Its Vision 2030 program is explicitly using sports and tourism to diversify an economy long dominated by petroleum, with plans to finance and develop dozens of new venues. The 2034 World Cup will give the kingdom an extraordinary opportunity to introduce itself to millions of people who know it primarily through news coverage and oil markets.
There are legitimate objections.
Sporting investment cannot merely become a collection of spectacular facilities that sit empty afterward. Host governments must guard against corruption, forced displacement and public expenditures that benefit politically connected developers more than residents. Saudi Arabia will continue facing questions about human rights, religious freedom and the treatment of foreign workers. Tourism does not make those issues disappear.
But contact can accomplish something isolation cannot.
Visitors meet ordinary people, encounter unfamiliar cultures and return home with impressions more complicated than political slogans. Host countries, in turn, are pressured to improve infrastructure, customer service, public accommodations and the treatment of guests. Sports cannot settle every disagreement, but they can create a common language where little else does.
The lesson of LIV Golf is not that Saudi Arabia should retreat from international sports. It is that countries should invest in authentic competition rather than synthetic prestige. Build destinations around events with established audiences. Give visitors reasons to remain after the final whistle. Improve transportation and public spaces that residents will use long after the crowds depart. Let local culture share the stage rather than burying it beneath corporate branding.
LIV tried to purchase a sports league and then find an audience for it. The coming boom will reverse that formula: Find the audiences that already exist and give them unforgettable places to gather.
The failure of LIV Golf is not the end of Saudi Arabia’s sports ambitions, much less the end of global sports tourism. Properly understood, it may mark the moment the industry finally learned how to begin.
(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)