‘Putting us on the map’: LIV Golf expected to generate about $40 million in local revenue, boost regional tourism
LIV Golf Chicago returns to Bolingbrook Golf Club for the second straight year Aug. 8-10. The tournament is expected to draw attendees from across the region and generate about $40 million for the host city, according to organizers.
“We have an amazing course and we have a huge golf club, and that’s really what they need,” said Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Alexander-Basta.
LIV Golf Chicago in Bolingbrook is third from the last of the remaining stops on the 17-site 2025 LIV Golf schedule, which started in February in Saudi Arabia.
A representative for the four-year-old upstart golf circuit, Christine Azzolino of Coyne Public Relations, said the 2024 economic impact of the three-day tournament was more than $44 million.
The average money a host community receives is around $40 million, Azzolino added, with a variety of factors combining for the overall economic haul.
There’s the crews responsible for the “event build out” that transforms a venue such as Bolingbrook Golf Club into a site worthy of hosting a major tournament stop — the hospitality tents, structures for tournament operations, grandstands, leaderboards and the like. Marketing and media adds to it, Azzolino said, plus taxes on food and beverage sales, merchandise and tickets.
Prices for a three-day grounds pass start at $115, with Saturday’s individual ticket — the most expensive of the three days — priced at $48. A three-day pass for the least expensive hospitality tent, the “Fanstand” level, goes for $609.90, with a Saturday Fanstand ticket costing $257.25.
According to Azzolino, the average visitor spends $940 at a LIV Golf event, which includes their ticket, merchandise, food and drink, hotel stays, local entertainment and travel.
“There’s definitely an impact on the local community. Our hotels fill, our restaurants have bodies in them, our entire golf course is rented,” Alexander-Basta said, noting that crews for the tournament have been in town since June, staying in nearby hotels.
The mayor said last year more than 15,000 people attended the tournament on the second day of the event. LIV Golf noted that figure set a new single-day attendance record for one of its tour events in the United States.
Alexander-Basta estimated that over Sept. 13-15, 2024, roughly 30,000 people came to Bolingbrook to watch the tournament. She said 17% of those visitors came from outside of Illinois.
She said the state of Illinois made more than $1 million alone on income tax from the prize purse in 2024, reported by Sportskeeda.com as $25 million. The state’s new rental tax will add an additional $1 million this year, Alexander-Basta said.
“There’s quite a bit of rental,” she said, including equipment required for the tournament build out, and car and bus rental to transport players and officials.
Through LIV Golf’s “Potential, Unleashed” program, Alexander-Basta said the tournament donated about $100,000 to the city. In turn, Bolingbrook diverted that money to five different nonprofit organizations and its two largest school districts — Plainfield Unit District 202 and Valley View Unit District 365.
“And then there’s putting us on the map, Bolingbrook-wise, because you have the media exposure and you really can’t put a dollar amount on that,” Alexander-Basta said.