Technical difficulties took down LIV Golf’s stream of its Mexico City tournament moments after it went live Thursday.
LIV’s sixth tournament of the 2026 season began on YouTube and the Fox Sports app at 3:15 p.m. ET. About five minutes later, an error message appeared telling viewers to “please standby.” The stream was still unavailable as of 5 p.m. ET.
The competition got off to a quick start before the broadcast suddenly failed. Joaquin Niemann, the fourth golfer to the tee and LIV’s fifth-ranked player, hit the tour’s 16th ever hole-in-one. Niemann is looking to defend his win at last year’s Mexico City event. The tournament runs through Sunday.
“We know many of you were tuning in, and we’re sorry for the disruption,” the tour posted on X more than two hours after the outage began. “We’re experiencing technical difficulties due to local power outages which is impacting our broadcast feed. We’re working on a resolution and hope to be back on air as soon as possible.”
Though LIV’s statement attributed the feed disruption to a local power outage, music blared from speakers at the event while television screens displayed throughout the venue remained operable.
Thursday’s broadcast problems come as LIV is fending off reports that its top investor, the Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund, is considering pulling its funding from the league. The Athletic reported Wednesday that high-level LIV executives are scrambling to map out the league’s next steps while beginning their own job searches.
LIV broadcasters Arlo White and David Feherty dismissed the reports just before the start of Thursday’s round. White called the stories “greatly exaggerated” and said an interview he conducted with LIV CEO Scott O’Neil, whom he described as “bullish about the future,” would air later in the program.
“It must be exhausting to will LIV Golf League out of existence,” White said.
Feherty offered up a general criticism of the integrity of news organizations while refuting the reports.
“I’ve been in the professional game for 50 years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever had two or three days where there was more of the absolute nonsense spread out,” he said. “There’s still some writers and broadcasters that take pride in their work, but this generation has spawned a bunch of fast typists that consider themselves to be experts. Evidently, they’re not.”
In a company email that went out Wednesday afternoon, O’Neil downplayed the reported financial concerns and described them as inherent to the league’s startup nature.
“I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” the email said. ” … The noise you hear is simply the sound of a movement that is working. Embrace it. We are pioneers, and while the road isn’t always smooth, the destination is worth every mile.”
LIV closed its media center at Club de Golf Chapultepec on Tuesday, citing power outages. It’s unclear whether those problems are related to Thursday’s streaming issues.
The Athletic has reached out to LIV, Fox and event production company EverWonder Studio for comment. None of those requests has been answered. This story will be updated if that changes.