LIV Golf was set to make its debut in New Orleans in June, but that event has been postponed, per multiple reports this week. The news comes on the heels of an interview in which CEO Scot O’Neil said the Saudi-backed golf circuit is funded only “through the end of the year.”
Meanwhile, the Bahrain Grand Prix and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix have been cancelled amid armed conflict and escalating rhetoric between Iran and the United States. War follows no timetable, calling into question the viability of other events in the region in 2026.
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Against this backdrop lies the future of another Saudi sports innovation: the Esports World Cup. Scheduled for July 7 to Aug. 23 in Riyadh, the event is entering its third year.
Qualifying is humming along. As of April 29, 166 of the 689 slots in the tournament have been clinched, according to the EWC website.
Ralf Reichert, the CEO of the Esports Foundation, told The Big Lead there’s no “drop dead date” approaching for determining whether the World Cup will have to switch to Plan B.
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“We’re confident operating the Esports World Cup in Riyadh,” Reichert said.
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That said, he’s mindful of the need for a Plan B in case the regional conflict persists.
Compared to an automobile race or golf tournament, Reichert said, “for players and fans it’s probably easier for an esports tournament to have a contingency plan. We’ve had that since Day 1.”
As for the financial concerns that have threatened the existence of LIV Golf, Reichert notes that the Esports Foundation is a nonprofit. LIV Golf, by contrast, is a commercial enterprise launched by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).
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“We are partly self-sustaining at this point,” Reichert said. “We have significant revenue streams already going. It’s a different setup, it’s a different market, and it’s a different maturity state.”
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The EWC is also a novel, one-off event that faces no competition analogous to how the PGA Tour can pilfer talent from LIV Golf.
The same can be said for the inaugural Esports Nations Cup scheduled for Nov. 26 — a date on the calendar that poses less threat of rescheduling. That event will by organized around players representing their respective countries, rather than crowning a winner among for-profit teams competing at different esports events, like the World Cup.
That’s a different organizational challenge altogether, but Reichert is confident it can be a success in Year 1. And his optimism around maintaining the July 7 start date for the World Cup is not blind.
“If you’re on ground in Riyadh, life is absolutely normal,” Reichert said. “Everything is going as if there’s nothing happening. There’s a complete normality, to be honest, while honestly travel is partly impacted.”