LIV Golf, a professional golf league launched in 2021, filed Chapter 11 on September 8, 2026 in the District of New Jersey (No. 26-20189) after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), its controlling shareholder, stopped funding it. The league entered court with a restructuring support agreement (RSA) under which BC Partners, a private investment firm, would anchor a $300 million investment in a smaller relaunched league called LIV 2.0, and with a debtor-in-possession (DIP) loan from PIF.

On November 10, 2026, LIV Golf New Jersey LLC and its affiliated debtors (the Debtors) filed a joint Chapter 11 plan (Dkt. 557) and a disclosure statement (Dkt. 558) in the District of New Jersey. A motion for conditional approval of the disclosure statement and the solicitation procedures followed the same day (Dkt. 559), and the Bankruptcy Court granted an application to shorten time and set a hearing on that motion for November 24, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. (Dkt. 561).

The documents describe a liquidating plan. Five days earlier, on November 5, BC Partners had terminated the Restructuring Support Agreement that anchored the Debtors' case from the petition date, and the Debtors told the Bankruptcy Court at a hearing that day that the LIV 2.0 transaction would not proceed. The plan that followed vests the Debtors' remaining assets in a Wind-Down Trust. Holders of Prepetition Facility claims receive the net proceeds. General unsecured creditors, a class that includes the players, receive a pro rata share of a $2,000,000 cash payment from PIF.

To give the proposed terms context, this report compares them with fourteen professional sports and sports-league bankruptcies from the past two decades, among them the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars, Phoenix Coyotes, Arena Football League, XFL, AVP Pro Beach Volleyball, and Grand Slam Track. Each comparison is cited to the docket of the case concerned in the source note for its section. Because the plan is a liquidation, the most useful comparisons are to cases where a lender controlled the outcome, a sale or wind-down replaced a reorganization, or player claims shaped the result.

Every term described below is a proposal. The Bankruptcy Court has not yet ruled on the disclosure statement motion, objection deadlines have not passed, and the Debtors have reserved the right to amend. Several figures that matter most to creditors, including the allowed amount of general unsecured claims and the projected recoveries, appear as blanks in the filed versions.

Sources: Plan, Dkt. 557; Disclosure Statement (DS), Dkt. 558, at 2-3, 4-6, 30; Dkt. 559; Dkt. 561. No. 26-20189 (D.N.J. Nov. 10, 2026).

The disclosure statement tells the pre-filing story in a sequence that matters for the plan. Entities controlled by PIF had invested approximately $5 billion in equity since the league launched, and the league lost money in every year of operation. On April 30, 2026, PIF announced that it would stop funding equity and would provide capital for the remainder of the 2026 season only through a secured loan. That loan, the Prepetition Facility, was entered into on June 4, 2026.

The Debtors spent the spring on governance and a sale process. Two independent directors joined the boards on April 13, and on April 24 they became the sole members of a Strategic Initiative Committee (SIC) with authority over conflict matters and strategic transactions. Ducera launched outreach to more than 300 potential investors in May. Of those, 104 signed non-disclosure agreements, roughly 30 engaged in detailed diligence, and two submitted non-binding term sheets by the July 22 bid deadline. The BC Partners proposal, built around a $300 million investment in a new LIV 2.0, was selected.

Cost reductions came before the filing as well. The Debtors canceled two tournaments, issued WARN notices in July, and on or about September 1 (United States) and September 3 (United Kingdom) terminated approximately 289 employees and furloughed approximately 22 more in the United States. Forty-one employees remain. The league's 2026 season ended before the petition date, so no events are being staged during the cases.

Two earlier precedents bracket this sequence. In the Cubs transaction, a buyer was negotiated outside court and the bankruptcy order existed to close it, which took about two weeks from approval to closing. Grand Slam Track entered Chapter 11 after a Series A commitment that was deferred and never closed. LIV Golf had a committed lead investor and an RSA on the first day, and the binding documents for that transaction were never signed. The structure of the plan reflects where that left the case.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 2, 19-25, 29-33; Dkt. 79; Dkt. 175; Dkt. 202; Dkts. 309, 310. Precedent: Cubs/Tribune, No. 08-13141 (D. Del.), Dkt. 2332; Grand Slam Track, No. 25-12188 (D. Del.), Dkt. 14.

The original RSA, signed on the petition date, committed BC Partners to fund the LIV 2.0 transaction, with supplemental debtor-in-possession financing for start-up costs. Its milestones required an assumption motion within three days, an assumption order within ten days, PIF to join the agreement, and players holding at least two-thirds in amount and one-half in number of eligible player claims to sign on within 35 days. The Amended and Restated RSA of October 25 reset those dates. Players in the number BC Partners determined, in its sole discretion, was necessary to continue a bona fide golf league had to sign by October 25. PIF had to become a party, or agree in writing to support the transaction, by October 30. The Effective Date was required by January 6, 2027.

The DIP documents carried a second clock. The Amended Plan Term Sheet attached to the Final DIP Order provides that if binding documentation for an acceptable business transfer transaction was not executed by the 52nd day after the petition date, or PIF had not otherwise consented, the Debtors would file a wind-down plan within three days. October 30 passed without that documentation. The disclosure statement states that PIF afforded additional time, that the Debtors were unable to agree terms, and that the Debtors determined LIV 2.0 was not viable for lack of player participation.

BC Partners' November 5 termination notice cited the milestone requiring PIF to join the RSA by October 30, which had neither been met nor extended. The RSA carries a termination fee of 3.00% of the $300 million financing amount, which works out to $9.0 million, payable only from the proceeds of an alternative restructuring transaction. The disclosure statement reports that BC Partners asserted in its notice that the fee survives termination. The Debtors take the position that no fee is payable, because the RSA provides that a wind-down plan or a conversion to Chapter 7 is not an Alternative Restructuring Proposal.

The RSA assumption motion was filed on October 5 (Dkt. 202), after the three-day filing deadline in the original RSA had passed, and the Bankruptcy Court approved the assumption on October 15 (Dkt. 309). The $4.0 million DIP upsize, funded by vehicles advised by BC Partners, was held in a segregated account for LIV 2.0 expenses. Under paragraph 24(c) of the Final DIP Order, any unspent balance must go back to that participant, and the dollar amounts spent and returned are blank in the disclosure statement.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 2-3, 22-23, 27-30; Dkts. 202, 309, 310.

The plan sorts claims and interests into eight classes. Administrative claims, DIP claims, professional fee claims, and priority tax claims are not classified. Only Classes 3 and 4 are entitled to vote.

Player claims are not separately classified. The disclosure statement states that claims held by players, including claims arising from the rejection of player contracts, are General Unsecured Claims in Class 4. Class 4 therefore holds the players, trade creditors, landlords, and other counterparties whose contracts were rejected during the cases.

The treatment of equity places the case closer to AVP Pro Beach Volleyball than to the Dodgers. In AVP, the 72% shareholder, who was also the largest creditor, bought the tour's assets out of bankruptcy for about $3.8 million while the remaining equity received nothing. In the Dodgers case, every creditor was paid in full and the owner received the net sale proceeds. In the LIV plan, existing equity receives no distribution, and PIF, which holds approximately 98.48% of the common ownership of the ultimate parent Debtor, also holds the DIP and Prepetition Facility claims at the top of the creditor waterfall.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 4-8; Plan, Dkt. 557, Art. III. Precedent: AVP, No. 10-56761 (C.D. Cal.), Dkt. 51; Dodgers, No. 11-12010 (D. Del.), Dkt. 1700.

PIF appears in three capacities in the plan documents: DIP Lender, lender under the Prepetition Facility, and, through controlled entities, equity holder. The order of payment runs through the first two.

The DIP Facility is a senior secured superpriority priming term loan of up to $49.6 million in new money from PIF, with $14.0 million available on the interim order and the balance on the Final DIP Order. It includes a dollar-for-dollar roll-up of Prepetition Facility obligations in an amount equal to the new money funded. The Final DIP Order also approved an upsize of up to $4.0 million, funded by funds or vehicles advised by BC Partners, which brings the aggregate to $53.6 million and was reserved for LIV 2.0 start-up costs.

The Prepetition Facility carries approximately $495 million in principal, reduced by the amount rolled into the DIP, plus accrued interest, fees, and expenses. The plan deems those claims allowed in an aggregate principal amount of not less than $495 million, subject to paragraph 11 of the Final DIP Order. That paragraph binds all parties to the Debtors' stipulations about the amount, validity, and priority of the prepetition debt and the liens securing it, unless a party with standing starts a challenge within a defined period. For most parties the period ends on the earlier of confirmation of a plan acceptable to the DIP Lender and 75 days after the interim order, which by this report's calculation falls on November 24, 2026. For the Committee, the period runs 75 days from the Final DIP Order, or December 29, 2026 by the same calculation, provided any challenge is heard no later than confirmation. Both periods are subject to extension.

Priming debt has cost creditors before. In the Dallas Stars case, first-lien lenders recovered about 75 cents on the dollar and second-lien creditors recovered virtually nothing, and priming loans, accrued interest, and professional fees cost creditors more than $50 million on top of the principal shortfall. The Class 3 recovery percentage in the LIV disclosure statement is blank, so the equivalent comparison cannot yet be made.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 4-8, 27-28, 38-39, 46; Plan, Dkt. 557, Arts. II-III; Dkt. 310. Precedent: Dallas Stars, No. 11-12935 (D. Del.), Dkt. 177.

On the Effective Date, the Wind-Down Trust would be established for the benefit of holders of Wind-Down Trust Units. Its assets would consist of a Wind-Down Amount held in a segregated account (the dollar figure is blank), the Retained Causes of Action, and all other property of the Debtors, including Cash remaining after the DIP and Prepetition Facility payments. The Wind-Down Amount would be held free of the liens of the DIP Lender and of PIF as Prepetition Facility lender.

PIF selects the Wind-Down Trustee after good-faith consultation with the Debtors, and the trustee is identified in the Plan Supplement. On the Effective Date the trustee becomes sole director and sole officer of the Debtors, the sole representative of their estates, and stands in the Debtors' position with respect to privileges. The trustee reconciles claims, pursues the Retained Causes of Action, disposes of tax assets, files tax returns, and dissolves the Debtors, and may engage professionals. Expenses are paid from the Wind-Down Amount and then from other trust assets under a Wind-Down Budget whose duration is blank in the filed version.

The plan limits PIF's obligation to fund. Except for the PIF Cash Consideration, nothing in the plan requires PIF to fund the Wind-Down Amount or the Wind-Down Budget or to extend funds beyond the amounts provided under the DIP Facility. If wind-down costs exceed the Wind-Down Amount, the shortfall reduces distributions to holders of Wind-Down Trust Units, who are the Prepetition Facility lender.

The units are uncertificated and not transferable except by will, intestate succession, or operation of law. The trust is intended to qualify as a liquidating trust under Treasury Regulation section 301.7701-4(d) and as a grantor trust. Securities Act exemptions rest on section 1145 of the Bankruptcy Code, and the plan invokes the section 1146 stamp tax exemption. Unassumed executory contracts and unexpired leases are deemed rejected on the Effective Date, and the existing D&O liability policies, including tail coverage, remain in place for the full policy term.

The sports precedents offer only partial comparisons. The Arena Football League ended in a Chapter 7 liquidation, and its trademarks, team names, and history were sold at auction to a buyer that relaunched the league under the same name for the 2010 season. XFL's assets went through a bare section 363 sale for about $15 million plus roughly $9.2 million in assumed cure costs, and the buyer relaunched the league. The LIV plan vests all remaining assets, which would include the league's intellectual property, in the trust for liquidation, and the Wind-Down sections of the disclosure statement do not set out a marketing process for those assets. The fourteen-case survey did not include a sports case in which an insider lender funded a confirmed liquidating plan of this shape.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 34-35, 37-39, 48-49; Plan, Dkt. 557, Arts. IV, VII-VIII. Precedent: AFL, No. 09-29024 (N.D. Ill.), Dkt. 183; XFL, No. 20-10940 (D. Del.), Dkt. 358.

The Debtors rejected the player contracts early in the cases. The First Omnibus Rejection Motion, filed on the petition date, sought rejection of the player contracts effective as of that date. The Bankruptcy Court authorized rejection of the adjourned player contracts on October 14 (Dkt. 302), and the rejection damages claims fall into Class 4. A general bar date of December 11, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern) applies to claims arising before the petition date, a governmental bar date of March 7, 2027 applies to governmental units, and rejection damages claims carry a bar date that is the later of the applicable bar date and the date set in the rejection order, or 30 days after that order if none is set (Dkt. 533).

The largest unsecured claim on the Debtors' consolidated list belonged to a player who reached a settlement approved on November 5 (Dkt. 530). The settlement releases all of that player's claims, including rejection damages and any administrative expense claim, terminates the player's contracts, returns the player's name, image, and likeness rights to the player, and leaves the Debtors with ownership of historical content and a limited license to use it. A team's marks and related assets were assigned to the player's entity on an as-is basis, and the player acknowledged the cancellation of former team equity without consideration. The settlement takes that claim out of the Class 4 pool.

For the remaining Class 4 holders, the only source of recovery is the $2,000,000 PIF Cash Consideration. It is reduced dollar for dollar by fees and expenses of Committee professionals above the amount budgeted for them in the DIP budget. Class 4 holders receive nothing from the Wind-Down Trust, because the trust's net proceeds go to Prepetition Facility claims until those are paid in full. The disclosure statement describes the aggregate amount of allowed general unsecured claims as potentially substantial.

One illustration helps frame the scale. Reports at the time of the filing placed the amount owed to players at roughly $45 million. Spread over a $2.0 million pool, that figure alone would yield about 4.4 cents on the dollar before counting any other Class 4 claim, any reduction for Committee fees, or the effect of the settlement above. The calculation is arithmetic and not a projection, since the plan leaves the allowed claims amount and the recovery percentage blank.

Against that set, the LIV recovery pool is small and set by agreement with the funding party. Grand Slam Track, a startup track-and-field league that filed in December 2025, is the closest structural match, since its DIP lender sponsored the plan, but there the sponsor's plan was a going-concern reorganization and the athletes' class was separately capped and funded. The Grand Slam Track settlement also followed a creditors' committee objection to the disclosure statement. A committee is in place here, and the plan and disclosure statement objection deadline is proposed for December 28, 2026.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 4-8, 26-27, 32-33, 38-39, 45-46; Dkts. 263, 302, 308, 530, 533. Precedent: Grand Slam Track, No. 25-12188 (D. Del.), Dkts. 149, 188; Coyotes, No. 09-09488 (D. Ariz.), Dkt. 1079; Rangers, No. 10-43400 (N.D. Tex.), Dkt. 534.

Article IX of the plan contains a Debtor Release, a Third-Party Release with an opt-out, an exculpation provision, and an injunction. The Released Parties include the Debtors, the Post-Effective Date Debtors, the Wind-Down Trustee, PIF (as DIP Lender, Prepetition Lender, and equity holder), the Committee and its members, the Debtors' current and former directors, officers, and managers, the Releasing Parties, and their related parties.

A holder that opts out of the Third-Party Release, or timely objects to it and does not resolve the objection before confirmation, does not become a Released Party. The opt-out applies in the classes that are not entitled to vote as well, since holders that are deemed to reject are listed among the Releasing Parties unless they opt out.

The structure echoes the Dodgers case in one respect. There, the settlement between the league and the owner barred the owner from day-to-day sale decisions and placed the process in a Blackstone-led sale effort. Here, independent directors hold conflict authority and decide whether claims against the controlling party are retained, released, or settled. The calendar matters, because the Debtors' stipulations in the Final DIP Order become binding on parties with standing at the end of the challenge periods described in Section V, and the plan's release of PIF waits on a separate process with no stated date.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 9-11, 20-21, 33, 38; Plan, Dkt. 557, Art. IX. Precedent: Dodgers, No. 11-12010 (D. Del.), Dkt. 4.

Votes are being solicited from Classes 3 and 4 only. A class accepts the plan if holders of at least two-thirds in amount and more than one-half in number of the claims that actually vote cast ballots in favor. The voting record date is proposed for November 24, 2026, and the voting and opt-out deadline for December 28, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern).

Section 1129(a)(10) of the Bankruptcy Code requires at least one impaired class to accept a plan, determined without counting the vote of any insider. The disclosure statement describes the standard in those terms. Class 3 consists of the Prepetition Facility, and the disclosure statement identifies PIF as the lender under that facility and as the DIP Lender. It also reports that PIF holds approximately 98.48% of the common ownership of LIV Golf Investments, the Debtors' ultimate parent. A holder in that position would appear to fall within the Code's definition of an insider, and to the extent the Class 3 vote is cast by an insider, it would not count toward the requirement. Classes 1 and 2 are unimpaired, and Classes 5, 6, and 7 are deemed to reject. That leaves Class 4 as the one class in a position to supply an accepting impaired class from outside the insider group.

The Debtors also assert that the plan satisfies the best interests test. The disclosure statement says a Chapter 7 liquidation would yield substantially smaller distributions, citing a disorderly sale, trustee costs, additional rejection and priority claims, and termination of the DIP Facility. The liquidation analysis, Exhibit C, and the wind-down sources and uses analysis, Exhibit D, are placeholders in the filed version. For Class 4, the comparison turns on what holders would receive in a hypothetical Chapter 7 case, which is the question Exhibit C is meant to answer once it is populated.

The Debtors further state that, based on the wind-down analysis, the trust will have sufficient Cash to make all required payments on the Effective Date and to fund the Wind-Down, so that confirmation is not likely to be followed by a liquidation or further reorganization other than the one the plan proposes.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 4-5, 42, 49-55; Plan, Dkt. 557, Arts. III, X; 11 U.S.C. §§ 1126(c), 1129(a)(7), 1129(a)(10), 1129(b).

Confirmation requires a disclosure statement order and a confirmation order, each consistent with the Amended Plan Term Sheet and acceptable to the Debtors and PIF. The Effective Date has additional conditions. Among them are the Final DIP Order remaining in effect, a confirmation order that is a Final Order and contains a section 1146 finding, execution of the Wind-Down Trust Agreement and appointment of the trustee, funding of the Wind-Down Amount and the Professional Fee Escrow Account, delivery of the PIF Cash Consideration, payment in full in Cash of allowed DIP Claims, and the absence of any continuing breach of the definitive documents. The conditions may be waived only with PIF's prior written consent.

Two conditions are specific to the Debtors' foreign entities. UK Recognition Completion requires an order of the English High Court recognizing the Chapter 11 cases of the UK Debtors as foreign main proceedings, or as foreign non-main proceedings with discretionary relief acceptable to PIF, under the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006. The English court recognized the cases of LIV Golf Ltd and LIV Golf Events Ltd as foreign main proceedings on September 17, 2026. Jersey Administration Completion requires an administration order from the Royal Court of Jersey for each Jersey Debtor under Article 143D of the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991. Jersey has not enacted the UNCITRAL Model Law, so the Jersey Debtors are in a plenary administration with joint administrators and a cross-border protocol. The DIP Facility treats specified adverse developments in the foreign proceedings as events of default.

Dates appear as the disclosure statement proposes them, most within brackets, except where a docket entry has set them. Grand Slam Track moved from filing to confirmation in about four months, the Dallas Stars in about two, and the Texas Rangers in about ten weeks. A January 7 Combined Hearing would sit about four months after the September 8 petition date, on pace with the first of those and slower than the other two.

Sources: DS, Dkt. 558, at 27-28, 31-34, 36-37, 44, 52-53; Plan, Dkt. 557, Art. X; Dkts. 533, 561. Precedent timing: Grand Slam Track, Dkt. 188; Dallas Stars, Dkt. 177; Rangers, Dkt. 534.

The plan and disclosure statement were filed with a number of figures and schedules still blank. These items determine who is paid what.

The next dated event is the November 24 hearing on the conditional approval motion, at which the Bankruptcy Court will consider the disclosure statement, the solicitation procedures, and the form of ballots, and set the dates that follow.

Sources: Plan, Dkt. 557; DS, Dkt. 558, at 4-8, 28, 30, 33-34, 38; Dkt. 561.