Deep in the United States Patent and Trademark Office website are signs of change within LIV Golf. Our best guess? New — or re-branded — franchises are on the way.
LIV filed three new trademark applications last week in exactly the same way it has applied for trademarks for its existing 13 franchises.
The names of the marks are as follows:
– Real Club de Toros GC
– Southern Balindi GC
– Becko East GC
In its pursuit of marketing and monetizing each franchise, LIV has applied for trademarks for each name and logo under categories related to apparel and entertainment services. In other words, making and selling franchise merchandise and also promoting, organizing and running golf tournaments. In this case, LIV has applied for three trademarks in exactly the same way it did for, say, Jon Rahm’s “Legion 13” team.
So, are more franchises coming?
We’ll have to wait and see. Initial requests for comment were made to LIV over the weekend, but have not yet been responded to. Online speculation has linked “Real Club de Toros” to Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs team, while Balindi is the name of a village in eastern India. Becko East? Your guess is as good as ours.
LIV’s team model operates 13 four-man teams and a handful of wild card players, bringing 54 players onto the course for a shotgun start each week, for tournaments that will now feature 72 holes. Obviously, the biggest impact of adding two or three new teams would be finding space for — and maintaining decent pace of play with — an extra eight to 12 golfers on an already mostly-full course, but LIV leadership has maintained the possibility of league expansion over the years. These trademarks would appear to be the first signs of it since Dec. 3, 2023, just days before Jon Rahm publicly signed a multi-year contract with the league.
