[Photo: Getty Images]
LIV Golf chief executive Scott O’Neil has heaped praise on the league’s flagship Adelaide event, lauding it “one of the top sports experiences of my life”.
The 54-hole tournament saw more than 100,000 spectators through the gates in February at The Grange Golf Club. The tournament – which is underwritten by the South Australian government – has been so successful that the league signed an extension with the state government through 2031 to keep it in Adelaide.
Your correspondent asked O’Neil overnight (Australian time) at LIV Golf Miami what O’Neil’s takeaways were from Adelaide given the former chief executive of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers only took the LIV CEO job in January.
“Adelaide is really special,” O’Neil said. “There’s a hundred thousand people. It’s a party. They’re singing songs while we’re playing. And music events were incredible and the golf was insane. The golf course was beautiful at The Grange. It is one of my top sports experiences of my life.
LIV is hoping to recreate some of the elements of Adelaide in its other events globally.
“ I think is the example of what we should become quite frankly,” he said. “But we’ve got a long way to go to get there, particularly in the US. We do a lot closer than that outside of the us, but in the US we got ways to go.”
That’s high praise coming from O’Neil, 55, an experienced sports administrator who has worked at the NFL, NHL and NBA in the US.
