DOJ Investigating PGA Tour
While the PGA has said that this was not unexpected, the timing of the DOJ launching an investigation on the eve of Biden heading to Saudi Arabia seems a little interesting. Given that the major backer of the LIV tour is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia - I thought this was very notable timing.
"One of the issues that is being closely examined by the DOJ, according to another agent, is whether the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the governing bodies of the majors are conspiring to not award Official World Golf Ranking points to LIV players. " - ESPN
Not meant to be a political post - more interested in what some other golf fans think about the timing here.
Pure coincidence, nothing to see here. Please move along. /s
Had the same thought. I don't particularly care about the Saudis but what PGA is doing is anti-competitive. That said, do they have monopoly power? Not sure that's the case, if so then it's an open and shut case but if not it's more dicey
Look at what Middle Eastern money has done to soccer. Hell even cricket has succumbed.
My view is that the PGA is a dinosaur, the old guard. LIV will keep throwing money at players until there is a tipping point where golfers prefer a bigger check over a green jacket. How hard do you think it is for the Saudis to throw dough at building top notch courses in the ME?
The problem with this analogy is that even in Europe where Middle Eastern money has heavily influenced soccer, the prestige remains in the Spanish, Italian, English, and German leagues. Your analogy would be better if middle eastern money just bought the PGA and related tournaments but they are trying to start something from scratch. Would be like trying to start a Saudi soccer league that competes with the EPL, the brand name and prestige are just not there. Are people even watching these LIV tournaments?
Look at what Man City became. A garbage team with a small fan base and now, after years of pumping $, it's a global brand.
Whether its building world class courses in the desert or attracting high profile players for eyeballs, all it would take is enough money. Which we all know is a problem the Saudis don't have.
As someone totally ignorant of international sports, what has ME money done to soccer / cricket? Have they taken over a bunch of high profile teams?
Any idea how much Saudi money has been deployed to buy sports teams? LIV is more of a sports 'league' of sorts, no? So is LIV unique vs what Saudis might have done with just buying teams in other sports?
They have taken over major sports clubs in Europe like PSG and Man City and recently a Middle Eastern back consortium just took over Newcastle, but its like above said, the prestige still remains in the residing country and it's more of a 'partnership' if you want to look at it that way. LIV is competing directly with the PGA which is what is leading to all this contention as it may overtime eventually render the PGA tour obsolete.
Yeah - the short version is that deep pocketed owners in European soccer leagues will run massive operating losses, buy up all sorts of players at virtually any price and have an 'unfair' advantage as there were no salary caps, etc. Other clubs would try and keep up with this which would either make them A. simply uncompetitive or B. saddled with their own losses and then huge debt loads... which, as you'd guess, made them uncompetitive or they ended up having to sell themselves. Or some variation of this. It's not unique to the Saudis - Chelsea was long one of the big offenders when Roman Abramovich would simply spend whatever and write the check. They did institute financial fair play rules to try and level things out but still an issue.
I'd suspect if you add up all the dollars out there, it's in the Billions - between club ownership, random horse races, formula one deal, etc. I tend to agree with others here that while the money certainly has influence, there is a prestige factor that is hard to buy in sports although doesn't seem to slow down jersey sales or, really, participation in the events.
On the LIV Golf stuff - I think the biggest difference, from my outside viewpoint, is that it's literally lighting money of fire. It's not diversifying assets, revenues in other currencies, etc. etc. or any other justification you can come up with. Buying a premier league soccer team is one thing - spending damn near $750 million on a handful to top golfers just to show up... is another thing. The PGA's secret weapon, that's not so secret, is that they were a tax exemption/write off - so even if viewership declines, there's still an incentive for sponsors to throw dollars at them as long as they don't screw things up too badly or lose the exemption.
Speaking of viewership - I'm not sure how loyal golf fans are to anyone outside of Tiger, nor do I think they are going to 'seek out' Liv golf wherever it is broadcast. I guess is they spend enough money, and pull enough golf talent, they could put the PGA between a rock and a hard place from a competitive standpoint.
Another point to note is that the PGA commissioner who has never won a golf tournament in his life is complaining about the players leaving to make more money, when he is the second highest paid commissioner ($4mm/year) based on salary as a % of revenue, trailing only Roger Goodell. I don't blame the players for telling him to F off and that they're taking $100mm to play a few times a year, instead of having to travel to Portland, Oregon for the Waterbury Open. (bonus points for anyone who gets the movie reference)
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