It is the off-season for LIV Golf, but the PIF-backed league is making massive moves outside the greens. The league would soon start the LIV Golf Promotion to add newer faces but before that, they had expanded their executive bases and turned to what was once Nike’s treasure. While the $3 billion merger between the PGA Tour and PIF gets delayed without further notice, LIV Golf seeks a better future regardless of it.

In the past few months, the Greg Norman-led circuit has hired many c-suite general managers to run their thirteen teams better and grow the circuit. The latest addition is Ilana Finley, who has worked for nearly two years at Nike. Finley started as an intern at Swoosh; however, with her expertise and hard work, she was employed in various roles, the last being Senior Director of North America Media Relations. After that, she worked as a Global VP for Converse (it was within Nike).

Now, since September 2024, Finley has started working for LIV as a Chief Communications Officer. Finley overlooks all the communications for the league, its 13 teams, and the 14 events and handles the sustainability and impact of LIV Golf on or off the course. The North Carolina alum will work out of West Palm Beach and will be reporting to Greg Norman, the Sports Business Journal reported. 

Norman-led has been adamant about elevating the league to a level where it remains one of the best. However, will it become a huge gamble? Because, like Finley, many other hired managers, although C-suite, do not possess a golf background.

Meet the new hires of the LIV Golf

It is not just the golfers that the Greg Norman-led is hunting; they are also looking for team members who would help expand the LIV’s vision globally and much more successfully. In the past three years, the PIF-backed league has been fueled with millions of dollars; however, their revenue has been zero to nothing. Moreover, the TV ratings do not show a pretty picture either, as LIV’s events have failed to attract a larger audience base.

However, hiring experienced managers may aid the breakaway circuit in growth even if they aren’t from golf. Before Ilana Finley, LIV Golf hired the former CEO of Mojang Games, who developed Minecraft for Cleeks GC, the Esports Gen.G executive, and former LA Dodgers, Martic E. Kim for Irons Heads GC, Nick Adams as Ripper GC’s GM, Richard Glover, who has worked with ATP Tour and Cricket South Africa for Stinger GC, and Jeff Koski, the former Senior VP of Golf at SPORTFIVE, for Jon Rahm’s team, Legion XII.

Out of all, only Koski has worked with golf, and all are new to the golf world. Although they have decades of experience in growing their former respective first, it remains to be seen what they would do at LIV Golf and how it would grow the breakaway circuit shortly.