PGA, LIV tours to merge

TFP

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I’m of the opposite mind.

I don’t think that guys like Phil and Brooks would have staked their careers on contracts that weren’t absolutely iron-clad bulletproof so if all else failed, they were getting paid no matter what. There was a chance that they could have been completely blacklisted from PGA events for life.

That money is an easy write off as the acquisition cost of getting your foot in the door to buying an ownership stake in the PGA.
Imagine taking the position that Phil and Brooks are smart about money. Lol.
 

cshea

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Wasn't one of the lawsuits between PGA and LIV going to result into a very deep dive into the PGA as a charity organization?

That's the part I took from Monahan's letter, where he writes "PGA Tour Inc will remain as a 501(c)6 tax exempt organization...

Then later, he writes "this brings about an end to all pending litigation between the entities..."


IMO, Monahan saw that these lawsuits were going to result in a deep look under the hood at the PGA's finances and structure, and potentially create massive problems for them as a "charity" organization, so he sold out knowing its better than the alternative.
Discovery likely wasn't going to be good for either side of the table.
 

Deathofthebambino

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Discovery likely wasn't going to be good for either side of the table.
I suppose, but in reality, what did the LIV Tour side have to lose?

At worst, they lose the Tour that nobody cared about and didn't exist a couple years ago. At best, they lose money, which they can laugh about around the campfire that they toss 100's into as kindling.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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  • Likewise, I don’t like how this feels because I like to think that I care about these things, but how many PIF-funded companies do I or many of us use on a daily basis without know they’re PIF-funded? Like, if you invest in the S&P 500, your success is the PIF’s success. Sort’ve, because the Vision Fund is also a cluster, but that’s a different issue. The point is that as much as I may hate this, it’s not like I’ve taken any drastic actions to avoid all PIF-funded companies in the past. I don’t know that my behavior necessarily changes here as well.
If you look just at Vision Fund 1, of which PIF contributed $45B of the $100B fund, some of the big well known notable investments were/are:
  • Arm (which probably everyone has a couple dozen devices with their chips in it)
  • ByteDance (i.e. TikTok)
  • Compass - the real estate company
  • Door Dash
  • Fanatics
  • Nvidia
  • Slack
  • SoFi
  • Uber
  • WeWork
 

GB5

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Business decision by Moynihan, plain and simple. He is running a business, the players who play and whom many of us idolize are about the business..the money. Rider Cup week aside.

Moynihan might get sent overboard here due to optics but he just accomplished a huge victory for the players.
In one swoop, he ended the PGA Tour’s exposure in a lawsuit which had enormous negative potential to be devastating.

He crushed the LIV Tour as the Saudi money will now be going to the PGA Tour.
He just dramatically increased the purses for the PGA Tour players. The players make out phenomenally as they can bitch and moan about the politics of it all…at the same time they are cashing much bigger checks.

The bigger picture in all of this is the Saudis. They are near to stay and expand. They aren’t going anywhere.

They are a huge presence in the worlds sport of soccer.
They are making a move in golf.
They are all over boxing… and

They are coming for the big boys. They will get involved with MLB, NFL and NBA and with the amount of money they will be offering the owners of those teams will not say no
 

ngruz25

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I’m of the opposite mind.

I don’t think that guys like Phil and Brooks would have staked their careers on contracts that weren’t absolutely iron-clad bulletproof so if all else failed, they were getting paid no matter what. There was a chance that they could have been completely blacklisted from PGA events for life.

That money is an easy write off as the acquisition cost of getting your foot in the door to buying an ownership stake in the PGA.
Maybe guys with legacies to worry about did their due diligence, but we know that Talor Gooch was blindsided by the PGA Tour suspension when he played in his first LIV event. He thought he could play in just one event and go back to the Tour. Similarly, Kevin Na apparently didn't know what was in his contract based on Alan Shipnuck's reporting from the first LIV player's meeting this year.

Probably the bigger concern is that the same agency was pushing LIV contracts at dudes. They had all the incentive in the world to inflate the contract figure if their commission depended on it.
 

DanoooME

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At least golf figured out a solution (as gross as it may be) before they destroyed their sport unlike IndyCar/CART who took 15 years to fix their differences and in the meantime let NASCAR pass them as the preeminent motor sport in the US.
 

ifmanis5

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Hard ball.
View: https://twitter.com/JNucci23/status/1666195445754871810

NEW: Geoff Ogilvy confirms in a post-players meeting interview that news of the PGA Tour-LIV merger was set to be leaked, so they were forced to announce it early without all the details.

View: https://twitter.com/TJEckertKTUL/status/1666194998344179726

Johnson Wagner on Golf Channel now talking about the player meeting with Jay Monahan after the PGA Tour LIV Golf merger: “It was contentious.” “Players were angry.” “Multiple players called for his resignation.” “A couple players got standing ovations for quoting Monahan.”
Wagner says that Monahan was asked if he feels he’s been transparent about the merger: “No I have not.” Fair.

View: https://twitter.com/DanHicken/status/1666194650737041438

as expected pga tour players went hard after Monahan during meeting according to GC...some calling for new leadership...
 
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Gdiguy

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Business decision by Moynihan, plain and simple. He is running a business, the players who play and whom many of us idolize are about the business..the money. Rider Cup week aside.

Moynihan might get sent overboard here due to optics but he just accomplished a huge victory for the players.
In one swoop, he ended the PGA Tour’s exposure in a lawsuit which had enormous negative potential to be devastating.

He crushed the LIV Tour as the Saudi money will now be going to the PGA Tour.
He just dramatically increased the purses for the PGA Tour players. The players make out phenomenally as they can bitch and moan about the politics of it all…at the same time they are cashing much bigger checks.

The bigger picture in all of this is the Saudis. They are near to stay and expand. They aren’t going anywhere.

They are a huge presence in the worlds sport of soccer.
They are making a move in golf.
They are all over boxing… and

They are coming for the big boys. They will get involved with MLB, NFL and NBA and with the amount of money they will be offering the owners of those teams will not say no
I mean this is all true; but it's also true that the PGA Tour side of this was over-the-top sanctimonious for months about what terrible people the golfers were that went over to LIV, and how dare they sully the good name of golf by cavorting with the Saudis; where at the end of the day it appears to be exactly as Phil said, the actual problem that the PGA Tour had with it wasn't actually anything about the Saudis, it was that the players rather than the PGA tour wasn't getting any $ out of it.
 

TFP

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Jay killed LIV and named himself CEO of all of Pro Golf in one day. Absolutely wild play by him.
 

ColdSoxPack

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TFP

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And it's a PIF guy - it's not like Greg Norman is here running the show. Jay sold his soul to the Saudis/PIF to be king of pro golf.

I don't know if I agree with the move (not that it matters if I do), but man it takes some balls to do it and sell out the stars of the PGA Tour who were loyal this whole time.
 

thehitcat

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The Saudi guy is Chairman of the Board. Jay is the CEO and the PGA Tour retains a majority position on the board. Jay is king.
Except the money is Saudi. And as we know money is king. OK players time to put your money where your mouth was. Who's retiring/quitting over this? What's that no one is? Ah right OK then carry on. Nothing to see here folks. Just a bunch of posers who got caught out when the dollar signs got big enough.
 

bsan34

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Except the money is Saudi. And as we know money is king. OK players time to put your money where your mouth was. Who's retiring/quitting over this? What's that no one is? Ah right OK then carry on. Nothing to see here folks. Just a bunch of posers who got caught out when the dollar signs got big enough.
I mean these guys are also driven to be the best in the world at their thing. Asking them to not do their thing anymore, while noble, probably isn’t realistic.
 

twibnotes

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I mean these guys are also driven to be the best in the world at their thing. Asking them to not do their thing anymore, while noble, probably isn’t realistic.
agree

the time to make a stand was when LIV launched. The worst actors in all of this are guys like Johnson, Koepka and Mickelson who sold their soul to be even uber richer.
 

riboflav

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I mean these guys are also driven to be the best in the world at their thing. Asking them to not do their thing anymore, while noble, probably isn’t realistic.
Yeah the choice before was sell out and make tons vs. compete and make decent dough and now it's sell out, compete, and make almost-tons vs. sit home, don't compete, and make nothing. The circumstances changed a lot.
 

Comfortably Lomb

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And it's a PIF guy - it's not like Greg Norman is here running the show. Jay sold his soul to the Saudis/PIF to be king of pro golf.

I don't know if I agree with the move (not that it matters if I do), but man it takes some balls to do it and sell out the stars of the PGA Tour who were loyal this whole time.
I don't know how Rory and Monahan are possibly going to be on speaking terms after this. Rory has gone to bat over and over for the tour for the past year. Got fined $3M a couple weeks ago for skipping a tour event. Is on the tour's board of directors. And was blindsided by this being negotiated behind his back for the past few months? Yiiikes.
 

ColdSoxPack

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If I remember correctly the golfers who went to LIV wanted to play less golf and make more money. The PGA schedule will have to accommodate them.
 

TFP

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The PGA schedule will have to accommodate them.
It will? The LIV golfers have to adjust to Jay's rules, not vice versa.

I don't know how Rory and Monahan are possibly going to be on speaking terms after this. Rory has gone to bat over and over for the tour for the past year. Got fined $3M a couple weeks ago for skipping a tour event. Is on the tour's board of directors. And was blindsided by this being negotiated behind his back for the past few months? Yiiikes.
I am guessing there's a 8-9 figure check coming his way to ease that anger. But I agree that if I was Rory I'd be absolutely furious. Although his tone has been softening lately so maybe he knew something was coming, even if not the specifics and timing.
 

Zomp

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I mean let’s be honest. I fully expect Rory to take the high road here.

something like “I’ve wanted the game of golf to be unified again and if this is what it took than so be it. I’m happy to have the best players all together again”
 

Van Everyman

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The Saudi guy is Chairman of the Board. Jay is the CEO and the PGA Tour retains a majority position on the board. Jay is king.
If Monahan is truly king and has a majority of the board, is there potentially some long game of getting the Saudis out of the tour?
 

jose melendez

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I couldn't care less about golf--hell, I actively dislike it--but if I were a golf fan I'd walk away. I said I'd do it when the Saudi's were rumored to buy WWE, and I would have.

Really sorry for those of you who love the game.
 

Dave Stapleton

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I’ve been consistent that the PGA’s sanctimonious BS was just that. It was never about anything but money.

I’m with DOTB. PGA realized that legally they were in real trouble, especially with an opponent that had endless money to keep the litigation going. Seems like the leak’s real impact was to rush the announcement and prevent the internal and external PR spin.

One wildcard here will be the DOJ review of the transaction.
 

ColdSoxPack

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It will? The LIV golfers have to adjust to Jay's rules, not vice versa.
You’re right. Not sure why I thought that.

I am guessing there's a 8-9 figure check coming his way to ease that anger. But I agree that if I was Rory I'd be absolutely furious. Although his tone has been softening lately so maybe he knew something was coming, even if not the specifics and timing.
 

OCST

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I'd just be livid if I were a PGA pro, where I got trotted out by the tour to express my outrage and then they cut a deal behind my back. I guess the idea is that enough $$$ will smooth things over, but I want a say before getting sold out.
 

Doug Beerabelli

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Doesn’t Jay work for the players, in a sense? If they are equivalent to stockholders, they could vote him off the board if he’s a member, and/or put board members that remove him as an officer. I’m a bit confused as to the corporate structure of the player tour and the commercial entity, and how they work together, so this analysis may be waaaay off. I believe the players are ICs, not employees, but have often been referred to as stakeholders. Which could mean a lot of different things. At the same time, they likely don’t announce this deal unless all that corporate stuff is squared away, or a pretty sure thing. Unless they are the Oakland A’s.

I found the Golf channels incessant anti LIV coverage to be overdone and pandering, as well as possibly it being a overly enthusiastic good dog to its quasi PGA master. It got to a point where I stopped watching all the talk show programming. Maybe NBC thought it was the way to go for its own golf broadcast future. But watching now it’s like tuning into YES on the night of YED.

I got the Rebecca joke, fwiw.
 

nattysez

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The NYT coverage makes it sound like Monahan has been FRANTICALLY backpedaling about the finality of the deal since the meeting with the players. I'm very curious to see how this goes.
 

E5 Yaz

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The NYT coverage makes it sound like Monahan has been FRANTICALLY backpedaling about the finality of the deal since the meeting with the players. I'm very curious to see how this goes.
In a previous life, he got drunk and traded Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams. Somewhere there's a cocktail napkin with Monaghan's okee-dokee on it
 

TheRooster

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By not telling the players ahead of time, he (they?) let's them claim ignorance and disgust while cashing dem checks. A bit like Goodell being the fall guy for the NFL owners. As for the LIV guys, I strongly suspect it will be "keep what you've already been paid, but the rest of the contract is void" (along the lines of what Death posted earlier). The idea of clawbacks/givebacks by Phil or the others seems nuts.
 

mauf

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The NYT coverage makes it sound like Monahan has been FRANTICALLY backpedaling about the finality of the deal since the meeting with the players. I'm very curious to see how this goes.
The agreement is being described as a “memorandum of understanding,” which as you know is typically language used to describe a non-binding agreement, but one that reflects alignment on material terms, such that a final agreement can be anticipated.

Do we know if there’s anyone who needs to approve this for the tour? A CEO wouldn’t typically have power to agree to a deal of this magnitude without board approval. It may be that Monahan already quietly got that approval (which would explain why Rory isn’t saying much), but if any kind of player approval still needs to be secured, then I assume there’s a risk that won’t happen.
 

joe dokes

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I suppose the leak threat prevented them (whoever "they" are in this scenario) from pitching this more as "LIV is dead" with Monahan astride the carcass and the PIF guy as some sort of Vichy board member. But the "merge" verb took hold from the outset.
 

ehaz

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DOJ/FTC might step in too. The current environment is the most difficult it’s ever been for merger approval in decades.