Is LIV Golf forming a new team? These documents may hold clues

Deep inside the USPTO website, signs of change within LIV Golf can be seen. Our best guess? New (or rebranded) franchises are coming soon.

LIV filed three new trademark applications last week in exactly the same way it filed for trademarks for its 13 existing franchises.

The tag names are as follows:

– Royal Toros Club GC

– South Balindi GC

– Baker East GC

To market and monetize each franchise, LIV has filed trademark applications for each name and logo under categories related to apparel and entertainment services. In other words, manufacture and sell franchise merchandise and promote, organize and host golf tournaments. In this case, LIV applied for three trademarks in exactly the same manner as it did for Jon Rahm’s “Legion 13” team.

So, will more franchises be coming?

We’ll have to wait and see. We made an initial request for comment to LIV over the weekend but have yet to hear back. There is speculation online that “Real Toros Club” is linked to Sergio Garcia’s Fireball team, while Balindi is the name of a village in eastern India. Baker East? Your guess is as good as ours.

LIV’s team mode features 13 four-man teams and a handful of wild-card players, with 54 players taking to the course each week for shotgun matches that will now feature 72 holes. Obviously the biggest impact of adding two or three new teams would be finding room for an additional eight to 12 golfers on an already nearly full course and maintaining a good pace of play, but LIV’s leadership has kept the possibility of league expansion open for years. The trademarks appear to be the first indication since December 3, 2023, just days before Joe Rahm publicly signed a multi-year contract with the league.

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