PGA to merge with LIV

[Rob Marshall]

Yes and thanks to the UK for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to to go back home to a heroes welcome for killing college students and others flying home from  a semester abroad. Talk about glass houses. Pretty sure we have all made mistakes.

Not the UK, but Scotland.

https://www.government.nl/topics/brexit/question-and-answer/which-countries-make-up-the-united-kingdom

[Anthony Butler]

I'm curious with all your anti-Trump posts ... how do you feel about the current president that has a very difficult time actually completing a sentence, a thought, or keeping his balance, and has taken money from our enemies for himself and his family?

On the other side of the pond we read nonsense like this and wonder how on Earth a once great democracy has fallen so far.

Haven't the Saudis bought up more of Europe, especially the UK and big chunks of London.  Plus Newcastle FC.

Prior to the Pandemic I used to travel to the UK quite regularly. Our office is right near Kensington Palace. I often walked or biked through Holland Park on my way back to my accommodations, encountering many £15 million houses with new Rolls Royces parked at the curb outside - both looking like no-one had touched them in months.


My parents were once evacuated from the Dorchester Hotel when a Saudi sheik decided to build and light a campfire in his suite, thereby setting off the sprinkler system on their floor.


People with unlimited money don’t view the world - or their obligations to the rest of society - in the same way as the rest of us. 

[Cliff Hamm]

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/37841251/pga-tour-liv-golf-partnership-facing-government-scrutiny

[Sean_A]

George, you can wait and be as moderate as you wish. That will not change the fact that the Saudi's are human rights violators and murderous thugs.   The PGA has no spine.

If you are dialing things up. Sounds similar to past US behaviour. People in glass houses....

Ciao

Yes and thanks to the UK for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to to go back home to a heroes welcome for killing college students and others flying home from  a semester abroad. Talk about glass houses. Pretty sure we have all made mistakes.

My point exactly. Except what is considered a mistake is based on a personal subjective basis.

Ciao

[Michael Tamburrini]

Yes and thanks to the UK for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to to go back home to a heroes welcome for killing college students and others flying home from  a semester abroad. Talk about glass houses. Pretty sure we have all made mistakes.

Not the UK, but Scotland.

https://www.government.nl/topics/brexit/question-and-answer/which-countries-make-up-the-united-kingdom

Scottish law is completely separate from English law. That was an entirely Scottish decision - the UK government was against it.

[John Kavanaugh]

Once I forgave the Scottish people the quality of my life improved. Isn’t that always the case?

[Craig Sweet]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/jun/13/saudi-arabia-golf-pga-tour-public-investment-fund

[Bob Jenkins]

Craig,


Thank you for posting that excellent article from the Guardian.


I am not familiar with the structure of the PGA but note the Board was apparently knowledgeable as to what was happening. Would it not be necessary that Board and possibly membership approval will be required to close this transaction?

[Rob Marshall]

George, you can wait and be as moderate as you wish. That will not change the fact that the Saudi's are human rights violators and murderous thugs.   The PGA has no spine.

If you are dialing things up. Sounds similar to past US behaviour. People in glass houses....

Ciao

Yes and thanks to the UK for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to to go back home to a heroes welcome for killing college students and others flying home from  a semester abroad. Talk about glass houses. Pretty sure we have all made mistakes.

My point exactly. Except what is considered a mistake is based on a personal subjective basis.

Ciao

I'll mention that to the Hunt family who live in my town, Their daughter died on that flight on her way home from a semester abroad from SU.....I guess we had that coming and 9/11 too....

[Wayne_Kozun]

Craig,


Thank you for posting that excellent article from the Guardian.


I am not familiar with the structure of the PGA but note the Board was apparently knowledgeable as to what was happening. Would it not be necessary that Board and possibly membership approval will be required to close this transaction?

I doubt that the PGA Tour Policy Board was kept aware of this deal.  Rory is one of five players on that board and he found out just before it went public.  Peter Malnati is also on that board and he didn't even attend the players' meeting that was held last week in Toronto, which makes no sense if he was on-board with the deal.

[Sean_A]

George, you can wait and be as moderate as you wish. That will not change the fact that the Saudi's are human rights violators and murderous thugs.   The PGA has no spine.

If you are dialing things up. Sounds similar to past US behaviour. People in glass houses....

Ciao

Yes and thanks to the UK for allowing the Lockerbie bomber to to go back home to a heroes welcome for killing college students and others flying home from  a semester abroad. Talk about glass houses. Pretty sure we have all made mistakes.

My point exactly. Except what is considered a mistake is based on a personal subjective basis.

Ciao

I'll mention that to the Hunt family who live in my town, Their daughter died on that flight on her way home from a semester abroad from SU.....I guess we had that coming and 9/11 too....

I recently watched the excellent documentary Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland. Often times the actions of people are far removed from the stated goals. I think all people, groups and nations sometimes suffer from this seemingly unavoidable truth.

Ciao

[Brian_Ewen]

Scottish law is completely separate from English law. That was an entirely Scottish decision - the UK government was against it.

Your wasting your time Michael.

[Anthony Butler]

I ran into a Seminole member over the weekend who knows Jimmy Dunne both through the club and his work.

He mentioned that after the LIV circuit commenced and the PGA responded with their elevated events etc.. Dunne asked Tour management if he could 'look at the books' to assess the PGA's future viability. Dunne's opinion was that continuing in their current status was unsustainable... a number of sponsors of elevated events were questioning the value of their sponsorships and neither side was looking forward to the discovery process and what it would reveal: The Saudi's because they don't want outsiders involved in their business and the PGA Tour because it may cause them embarrassment with Sponsors, Charities etc.

I can't confirm it, but the implication I got from another source is that fellow PGA Tour Board Member Randall Stephenson - former CEO of AT&T - called around some of the CEOs of the major Tour sponsors to do a temperature check on whether a deal with PIF would send them running for the hills. They felt good enough about the responses to go ahead with the deal... the last person that needed to be convinced was Monahan as he was the one who would have to eat shit AND take all the hits from the media.

Given all that, you have to wonder if being forced into that situation might have taken a toll on Monahan's health. We still don't know what his status is but you have to figure it was either a heart issue or a stroke elevated by the stress of voluntarily torching your credibility in front of the entire professional golfing ecosystem.

 

[SB]

Can someone tell me how the Tour is exactly structured?  I know there's a for profit part and a non-profit part, but I was under the impression that the Tour was created by its members to benefit its members, like a 501c(7) club.  If so, you'd think that major decisions, LIKE SELLING YOURSELF, would require the consent of the members, and not just some 51% of some "advisory  board" (or whatever it is).  If that doesn't require consent of the members, then I guess they're not "members" of anything, but just golfers. 


What do the non-profit and for profit entities do?




In any event, also curious how the for profit and non-profit entities are related, and how the TPC properties fit into this.  Does the Tour directly own these clubs (excluding the ones that we know are owned by others)?  Will the TPC's be 50% owned by the PIF?  I would imagine some members may not be too happy about that.


Last, while I get why the PGA tour wants to get rid of LIV, I don't understand how some cash helps the Tour.  Let's say some tournament has $24M in revenue, and right now 1/3 goes to the purse, 1/3 goes to cover costs, and 1/3 goes to charity, just to pick some random numbers.  PIF drops $5M to boost the purse from $8M to $13M, OK.  But now they have to get a return on their money, so lets say they want $6M back, or heck, maybe they just want $4M back.  Where's that coming from?  It's not like increasing the purse will sell more tickets or increase revenue.  Can't cut expenses, it's already all volunteers, so the only place to cut is charity?  That will end badly.  Is this just covering existing losses?  I don't get the strategic move here of getting an investor.

[Tom_Doak]

What do the non-profit and for profit entities do?

In any event, also curious how the for profit and non-profit entities are related, and how the TPC properties fit into this.  Does the Tour directly own these clubs (excluding the ones that we know are owned by others)?  Will the TPC's be 50% owned by the PIF?  I would imagine some members may not be too happy about that.

These are the sort of questions the public never asks and the Tour doesn't really want to make public in a litigation.  If the world starts pulling apart the differences between the for-profit and not-for-profit divisions, it might call into question whether they are really as much about charity as they claim.


I don't know the answer to your specific questions above, but IIRC, back when the TPC network was starting and there was some player resistance, it was partly quelled by implying that the revenues from the TPC courses [and/or licensing fees to the developers of non-Tour-owned courses] would go toward the players' pension fund.  But that was ages ago; there's no telling how many times the Tour's accounting firm has restructured things since then.

[John Kavanaugh]

This deal has the legs of a Rory finish.

[Carl Johnson]

The agreement: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/framework-agreement/e6d16d2b509ae1fa/full.pdf

[Carl Johnson]

Bump.  Any comments on the text of the agreement (just above), or are we just plain tired of the whole thing?

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Bump.  Any comments on the text of the agreement (just above), or are we just plain tired of the whole thing?

There's not much there. Almost nothing we didn't already know before. It's not the agreement specifically; it's the framework. No details.

[Cliff Hamm]

From Punchbowl News:FORE! Congress digs in on PGA, LIV mergerThe most controversial merger in sports history will get its day on Capitol Hill next week, when top officials from the PGA Tour will testify in front of a Senate committee about its union with the Saudi-backed LIV Tour.Ron Price, the chief operating officer of the PGA Tour, and Jimmy Dunne, the top powerbroker in professional golf, will testify in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), on July 11. The hearing is entitled “The PGA-LIV Deal: Implications for the Future of Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Influence in the United States.”Price has been with the PGA since 1994. Dunne is a longtime force in professional golf. He’s the vice chairman of investment bank Piper Sandler and a member at some of the nation’s most prestigious golf clubs, including Seminole Country Club in Florida, Pine Valley in New Jersey and Augusta National, the home of the Masters.Greg Norman, the former professional golfer who has served as the face of the LIV Tour, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the head of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, declined to testify on July 11.The politics here are fascinating. The PGA Tour railed against LIV for months – urging senators and members of the House to join in the criticism – and eventually merged with the Saudi-backed tour in a reversal that shocked the sports world and many players. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed pause about the Saudis’ involvement in the PGA Tour, especially given its sometimes adversarial relationship with the United States.U.S. athletic organizations have so far balked at foreign ownership, and now, according to critics, the Saudis will have outsized sway over the world’s premier golf tour.But the PGA leadership has argued that Saudi investment will make the tour stronger and consolidate the fractured professional golf world.What to watch: It will be up to Dunne and Price to explain how the Saudis will be involved in the day-to-day management of the PGA Tour. Furthermore, we may get more information on how the LIV Tour and PGA Tour will merge – which, as of now, is akin to a state secret.[/size]The downtown angle: The PGA Tour has DLA Piper and former Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) – himself an avid golfer and member of the exclusive Burning Tree Country Club in Maryland – on retainer. Jeff Miller, a close ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also lobbies for the PGA Tour. The Tour spent $190,000 lobbying in the first quarter of 2023 – $110,000 with Miller Strategies and $80,000 with DLA Piper.[/size]– Jake Sherman[/font]

[Tim Martin]

From Punchbowl News:FORE! Congress digs in on PGA, LIV mergerThe most controversial merger in sports history will get its day on Capitol Hill next week, when top officials from the PGA Tour will testify in front of a Senate committee about its union with the Saudi-backed LIV Tour.Ron Price, the chief operating officer of the PGA Tour, and Jimmy Dunne, the top powerbroker in professional golf, will testify in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), on July 11. The hearing is entitled “The PGA-LIV Deal: Implications for the Future of Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Influence in the United States.”Price has been with the PGA since 1994. Dunne is a longtime force in professional golf. He’s the vice chairman of investment bank Piper Sandler and a member at some of the nation’s most prestigious golf clubs, including Seminole Country Club in Florida, Pine Valley in New Jersey and Augusta National, the home of the Masters.Greg Norman, the former professional golfer who has served as the face of the LIV Tour, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the head of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, declined to testify on July 11.The politics here are fascinating. The PGA Tour railed against LIV for months – urging senators and members of the House to join in the criticism – and eventually merged with the Saudi-backed tour in a reversal that shocked the sports world and many players. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed pause about the Saudis’ involvement in the PGA Tour, especially given its sometimes adversarial relationship with the United States.U.S. athletic organizations have so far balked at foreign ownership, and now, according to critics, the Saudis will have outsized sway over the world’s premier golf tour.But the PGA leadership has argued that Saudi investment will make the tour stronger and consolidate the fractured professional golf world.What to watch: It will be up to Dunne and Price to explain how the Saudis will be involved in the day-to-day management of the PGA Tour. Furthermore, we may get more information on how the LIV Tour and PGA Tour will merge – which, as of now, is akin to a state secret.The downtown angle: The PGA Tour has DLA Piper and former Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) – himself an avid golfer and member of the exclusive Burning Tree Country Club in Maryland – on retainer. Jeff Miller, a close ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also lobbies for the PGA Tour. The Tour spent $190,000 lobbying in the first quarter of 2023 – $110,000 with Miller Strategies and $80,000 with DLA Piper.– Jake Sherman

It’s interesting to note that while the above says Norman and al-Rumayyan declined to testify on July 11th another article said that they were unavailable due to their schedules. I can’t imagine that the PGA Tour wants either of them in front of congress and Jimmy Dunne seems like the logical choice to put the best spin on the arrangement.

[Steve Lapper]

The LIV-PGA Tour merger is TOAST!


Yasir and Norman have effective raised their proverbial middle finger to the US Senate. This act will inevitably lead to bipartisan resentment (they do come together for mutual despise).


Prediction:


Congress calls for kiboshing this deal and threatens to-- and actually does--remove the Tour's 501-3c exemption.


Regardless, the Tour is immediately recognized for being left in the lurch (remember the lawsuits were dismissed "with prejudice."). Only then will a golden knight (think superstar from the left coast) rides in, makes the Tour a deal it can't refuse, and injects big cash. Jay Monahan will never again be seen nor heard in front of a microphone, nor in the prime seats at a major.


Jimmy Dunne & Ed Herilhy come out smelling like a rose with the boss of the world's largest investment fund on the first page of their  speed dials. They let Jay into Seminole with a provision he doesn't get an entry into their Pro-Member this lifetime.


Game...Set...Match.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

I'm not political at all and know next to nothing about politics, but what I've heard that makes the most sense to me: the U.S. Government will make a show of "looking into" this, but given that they're trying to keep the Saudis happy and on their side… will let it go through. There's more at play here than golf and a league and "anti-trust" stuff.

[Tim Leahy]

Believe me, I am anti LIV, but other than who is financing the new league is this "merger" any different competition wise than when it was just the PGA Tour and DP Tour with an agreement to share players with prior approval. Now instead of 2 tours you have 3 tours with an agreement. I don't see how antitrust laws would apply now any more than when there was just the PGA TOUR and the DP tour with an agreement. This sounds like another scum Republican shake down of the Saudi's for more money to just let it go later after the check clears.

[Rob Marshall]

Believe me, I am anti LIV, but other than who is financing the new league is this "merger" any different competition wise than when it was just the PGA Tour and DP Tour with an agreement to share players with prior approval. Now instead of 2 tours you have 3 tours with an agreement. I don't see how antitrust laws would apply now any more than when there was just the PGA TOUR and the DP tour with an agreement. This sounds like another scum Republican shake down of the Saudi's for more money to just let it go later after the check clears.

The basis for LIV’s lawsuit was that the tour was a monopoly. Now they want a merger?? Kind of a tough arguement.