PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan is close to a $3 billion deal with a group of US sports team owners that includes the owners of MLB’s Boston Red Sox, the NBA’s Boston Celtics, and the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, which will help prop up the struggling golf tour. And reports are that this deal being close to the finish line doesn’t mean the multi-billion-dollar PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund can’t happen, too.

“The agreement with Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of billionaire team owners that includes Tom Werner and John Henry (Boston Red Sox), Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons) and Wyc Grousbeck (Boston Celtics), would infuse more than $3 billion into a new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises, the sources said,” according to ESPN journalists Mark Schlabach and Don Van Natta Jr.

The report also notes that this doesn’t mean the proposed PGA-LIV merger is dead.

“The PGA Tour is also continuing talks with officials from the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is financing the rival LIV Golf League,” Schlabach and Don Van Natta write. “If a deal is reached with both Strategic Sports Group and the PIF, more than $7 billion might be infused into PGA Tour Enterprises, which would combine commercial assets of the PGA Tour, PIF and DP World Tour.”

The news of Jay Monahan’s deal with the Red Sox, Celtics, and Falcons comes as the Dec. 31 deadline for the PGA-LIV merger rapidly approaches. It is also just days after LIV Golf poached another major superstar, Jon Rahm, from the US-based golf tour.