LIV Golf is anticipated to rent former NBA and NHL govt Scott O’Neil to interchange Greg Norman as its CEO and commissioner, sources confirmed to ESPN on Wednesday.
If a deal is finalized with O’Neil, an announcement may come as early as subsequent week, sources mentioned.
O’Neil labored as CEO of the Philadelphia 76ers beginning in 2013 and later oversaw the NBA franchise and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils as CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports activities & Leisure.
O’Neil was most not too long ago the CEO of London-based Merlin Entertainments, one of many world’s largest operators of amusement parks and resorts. Merlin Entertainments introduced Wednesday that O’Neil had knowledgeable its board that he’s leaving for “one other alternative” and stepping down as CEO on the finish of the yr.
Norman, 69, had beforehand mentioned he expects to stay with LIV Golf in some capability. He informed Sports activities Illustrated that his contract with the circuit ends in August 2025.
A LIV Golf spokesman declined remark when reached by ESPN on Wednesday.
Sports activities Enterprise Journal first reported that LIV Golf was concentrating on O’Neil for the place.
Norman, a two-time Open Championship winner, helped reshape males’s skilled golf by recruiting PGA Tour gamers to the breakaway circuit, which has been financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund the previous three years.
Norman helped lure main champions Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and others to the brand new league with assured contracts value greater than $100 million.
O’Neill additionally labored because the president of Madison Sq. Backyard and was an worker of the NBA.
The PGA Tour and the PIF have been in negotiations for months a couple of deal that will inject greater than $1 billion from the PIF into PGA Tour Enterprises, the brand new for-profit entity launched by the tour and Strategic Sports activities Group.
The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF signed a framework settlement on June 6, 2023, to type an alliance. That deal expired on Jan. 1, however the sides have continued to work towards a possible deal.
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