He's got three, but he's trying to hit kind of a slice around this tree and get something right of his pin.
Professional golf has always been one of the quieter, more genteel sports to watch, or it was until live golf crashed onto the greens.
Okay, boys, here we go the first time.
The Lift Tour motto is Golf but louder.
The upstart rival to the PGA Tour, flush with cash from Saudi Arabia, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to lure away some top players like Phil Mickelson.
Pretty Much all the best players played on the PGA Tour, at least for the last twenty years. That will never be the case again. And I think going forward, you have to pick a side. You have to pick what side do you think is going to be successful? And I see live golf trending upwards. I see PGA Tour training downwards, and I love the side that I'm on.
Other big names in the sport, like Rory McElroy have sounded more skeptical. I don't agree with what Phil said. I understand why he said it because of the position he is in. I certainly don't see the PGA Tour trending goingward at all. It's also divided fans.
It's just somebody with too much stupid money, but who didn't want to play over there.
It's a competition breeds excellence and that is what Live Golf is forcing the PGA to do. And of course it's turned into a legal battle over whether players have the right to compete in both places.
They were completely opposed to the idea of having Live golfers wearing Live branded T shirts and caps at the PGA Tour events.
It's kind of like the popular kid in school convincing all of his friends not to talk to the new kid.
I'm Wescaso today on the big take, the expensive, not so quiet fight for the future of golf. There's a lot to dig into here, and let's start with Bloomberg Sports writer Ira Boodway. He's been watching this rivalry unfold. Ira, for the longest time, PGA was golf, and Live really threw a grenade into this entire sport. Yeah.
I mean it not only brought for the first time, like a real competitor to the PGA Tour, but it forced the PGA Tour to really kind of reassess some of what it was doing and pushed it to reform itself. So it's been a really disruptive force in the game. It's got Saudi Arabian money. They've poured two billion or so into it out of six hundred billion that they have in this public investment fund, so it's essentially limitless money. And they came and said, we're going to pay players more.
We're going to have no cut during our tournaments. So this was really attractive to star players who felt like they needed more guaranteed money and that they were really driving the economics of golf and not seeing enough for war. So the tour said, okay, we hear you. We're going to start adding enhanced events with bigger purses, and starting next year they're going to have events with no cuts.
What is new cuts mean?
Typically on a PGA Tour event, you have to compete for the first two days Thursday Friday, and then a certain number of golfers who are above whatever mark make it through to the last two rounds to sort of speed things up, and it's the ones who have a chance essentially at winning, and they get rid of everybody else.
So you could be a star golfer, decide to go to a PGA Tour event, have a bad couple days, go home, even though you're the one that was on all the commercials and that a lot of the fans showed up to see you go home with very little money. You only play for two days and it kind of feels like a bust. The live events don't do this. They do fifty four holes, which is live is Roman numeral for fifty four. Everybody plays three. It's only forty eight golfers in the field, so it's much more kind
of golfer friendly in that way. The tour has had this long tradition of being really egalitarian, where it's like you have to compete to make money, and that's a big part of the attraction and kind of the knock on live that it's just kind of soft. Like a lot of these guys who came over, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, they got huge guaranteed money contracts just to join live,
in Mickelson's case, reportedly two hundred million dollars. For them, it's easy money and they don't have to worry about how they're performing as much. The tour is moving a little bit in that direction and saying all right, we're going to have these so called enhanced events with bigger purses, and we will not cut anybody from the field throughout.
And it's a smaller field, so there's more sort of guarantees or at least opportunity for star players to be sure that they're going to get a reward for their investment of time. The tour also had started this thing called the Player Impact Program. It's a way to reward the players who drive the most interest simply based on their social media influence, their celebrity, there fame, and they measure this through a formula that they have and then at the end of the year they pay those players
just for being interesting. Basically, Tiger Woods always gets the most. He got fifteen million last year, and they increased that pool now to one hundred million dollars for twenty golfers. So they're doing all these things to keep the stars happy and keep them from defecting and keep the tour interesting. When Live came along, it was an amazing opportunity for
Greg Norman, the former world number one from Australia. He has been a strident critic of the PGA Tour for a really long time for failing to give star players enough opportunities and reward them for the fact that they
are the people that fans tune in to see. Greg Norman was sort of the leader of that effort to get the tour to change the way it treated players, and so when the Live Tour came around and offered him the job of CEO, he jumped at that because he saw this as a way to finally get at the PGA Tour and shake it up.
So how many of the players have moved over to So.
The biggest names to go over are Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson. You've also seen Brooks Kopka, Cameron Smith, Bryson, De Shambeau, Bubba Watson, Sergio Garcia. These are some of the more well known guys. They don't have, notably the world number one and the guy who just won the Masters, John Rahm. They don't have Tiger Woods, and they don't have Roy McElroy, and McElroy in particular has been a very vocal leader
of the resistance to this. Golf as a game is massive, but man's professional golf is a very small part of that, and what it's done to the world of man's professional golf is ripped it apart. Last summer when Woods flew to Delaware, McElroy was there a lot of the top golfers. They got together to say, look, we know you have problems with the way the tour is set up and we want to fix those, and the tour is going to listen to us this time, but stay with us.
And it kind of galvanized them. So the defections have slowed and it's really given the tour a lot of motivation and urgency to deal with these problems. It's galvanized a lot of the players around working with the tour, and it's given them a common enemy. And honestly, I think for the tour it's been maybe a blessing in disguise, because not only does it bring all of that to help them solve these old standing problems, but it makes them look good by comparison, just in terms of sort
of public relations. You know, golf has a reputation as a kind of crusty, retrograde sport and certainly has earned that, you know, with the clubs that don't allow women or minorities in, and that kind of reputation that it has, but if you look at it next to the Live Tour, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, it kind of gives the PGA Tour this this sheen of like, actually, they're the good guys in the world of golf.
One of the ways, probably the way that Live has been able to push those big players is with big money. How big a difference is the money between say a tour perse and a live perse.
The typical live event is a tour twenty five million dollar perse, and that's split. You know, they have a team format, so it's four teams of twelve. Out of that twenty five million. Certainly you're gonna probably go home with even as the bottom finisher, amount of money that you'd really have to do well in an old school PG Tour event to get. And some of these guys like Michelson, when he went over to the Live Tour, he lost deals with Amstell and KPMG, a lot of
his big endorsement box. So the gap financially, even though the guaranteed money is definitely bigger still with the Live Tour, the gap between them I think has begun to close because of what the PGA Tour has done.
And what about for fans. You mentioned that golf has this reputation as kind of a crusty old sport, and Live has tried to shake that up and create kind of a more party atmosphere out on the course. Yeah.
I mean their slogan is golf but louder. You know, if you watch these events on TV, you'll overhear sort of club music in the background sometimes, which they allow near the tees. All the guys are wearing shorts. That looks a little different, but you know, ultimately it's still golf. If you're not interested in watching guys putt and seeing that shot tracer follow the parablo the ball, then you're
not going to want to watch this, you know. In terms of like whether they make it more of a party experience for people who are there, I think that's the idea that they're going to try to unbutton this a little bit and make it more fun.
Well for fans watching at home, though it does create this kind of dilemma, who do you watch You can't see some of your favorite players play together if one has gone to Live and one is stuck with the tour. How are fans responding to this? As you know, just a sport they like to watch. Well.
The one interesting thing about this is that for most golf fans, you really tune in for the four majors, the Masters, the British Open, the US Open, and the PGA Championship, and those are not officially part of the
PGA Tour. There's a big dust up right now about sort of how do you qualify for those majors, and players who are on the live tour are not being credited for their results by the OWGR so official World Golf rankings, They at the moment are not recognizing live results as counting towards those rankings, and the way that you qualify for the majors is according to those rankings.
So golfers who are performing well on the live tour are falling down the rankings and at risk of not qualifying for majors.
And why don't they count them?
It's basically it's part of this conflict right between sort of the PGA Tour and old golf and this new upstart disruptor and one of the levers that's there is kind of the governing bodies getting to decide what counts towards your standings, and at the moment, the way it's set up live doesn't count. Now. I think that's a matter of intense negotiation. But what has not happened is that the majors can decide for themselves whether they want to throw out anybody who's joined the Live Tour, and
they have not done that. So if you're tuning in for the Masters, you're still going to see golfers on the Live Tour competing, so it's not like they've just disappeared from your world as a golf fan. But it is true that on the tour, you know you're not going to see some of the big names and some
of the best golfers in the world. My sense is, though, that enough of the best golfers are sticking around that the tour is where you go to see who's the best right now, and the live is sort of like this interesting sidelight that if you're really into golf, maybe you watch that too.
After the break. What does Saudi Arabia hope to get from its big investment in golf.
Anyone who's ever played this game understands what a hard game.
It is, So they say, who's your favorite golfer? All of them?
Anyone who's ever picked up a club a root for them.
I red.
You mentioned the controversy with the backers of the tour, which is Saudi Arabia. There's been a lot of tension there, especially charges that Saudi Arabia is in this for kind of sports watching, the idea that they're going to under their reputation by sponsoring a big sport and make people forget about some of the things that that government is doing.
Yeah, So the Public Investment Fund which backs the live tour is part of this broader effort by Saudi Arabia to diversify its economy. But within that they have entered the world of sports. They have bought Newcastle United in the Premier League and they started this live tour, and that is maybe not just about diversifying your economy because frankly, the odds of them making a ton of money running
a golf tour not great. A lot of what that is about, or at least people speculate, is about changing the conversation about Saudi Arabia toward things that people enjoy, right watching golf, watching soccer, and so that is the definition of sportswa washing and that is part of maybe why it's an i'll pill battle for the Live Tour they have to overcome inasmuch as there's resistance to that among fans around the world.
Has there been resistance among fans among players? Some of the players who've joined Live have come under a lot of criticism.
Yeah, I mean Phil Mickelson has borne the brunt of it. As I mentioned, he lost some sponsorships, and that has happened to other players. You know, it's not always clear that these sponsors are coming out and saying because you join the Live Tour and because of its associations with Saudi Arabia, we are no longer doing business with you.
But there are these sort of conveniently timed we're going to part ways statements that happen when players have moved over to the Live Tour, So there's been that blowback. My suspicion is that if these are the best players competing in the most fun events, then people will eventually migrate to it, and that its struggles are really more about it's not winning on the product level. Right, It's
not the best golf in the world. And I think there's even maybe among golf fans a sense that I want to see guys have to win to get paid. That's kind of the point of this. That pressure and that needing to perform is what makes us exciting.
Like the tour does.
The tour has stakes every time. I mean, the tour is ratcheting back a little bit on that idea that like you basically don't get paid if you don't perform on any given tour event. They're making it a little bit more like if you show up, you'll probably get a decent payday, but it's still much more tilted toward paying players who perform that weekend, and I think that's something that fans want to see guys performing under pressure in order to get their pay day.
You said that it's going to be difficult for a Live to wind up making a ton of money off of this. Is there feeling in kind of the sports world that they're in it for the long haul, that they're committed that we're going to see Live five years, ten years down the road.
I think that's going to be really fascinating to watch that unfold, Like, what is their appetite for this if it looks kind of dead in the water. I mean, they did a deal with the CW for their media rights, and it is a kind of out of the way network. By their own admission, it's sort of a second rate deal that they feel like the tour and the tour's interference in their business kind of left them relegated to that world. And it's a deal that's an advertising revenue share,
you know. It's not even like the CW went out and paid them a bunch of money for their media rights and they're only drawing a few hundred thousand viewers. So how long does the public Investment Fund want to stick with something if it's not a winner in the marketplace. They have the money to do it indefinitely, and I think probably partly what they want to see is how
the legal battle unfolds. But I don't know what their appetite is for doing this if it really is a money loser and just kind of a reputational liability.
Obviously, PGA Tour is trying to stop live. How do you see that playing out? Can they really tell players, no, you are not allowed to play for anyone else.
I think they have to be really careful, honestly, because also that brings in federal regulators looking at sort of antitrusts and monopoly issues and investigating how the tour operates in that guard and really they have over their history been allowed really broad latitude to kind of dominate the world of professional golf and the schedules of the players on the tour. They really are well served by focusing
more on that battle in the marketplace. I get why they want to do that, but I think really their best move is what they're doing to try to just convince players that this is the place to play. You know, we are listening to your concerns and if you want to be a famous golfer and get rich golfing, you should golf on the PGA Tour.
Hi, Ron, great talking to you, Thanks for being here.
Thank you.
As we've heard, the dispute between Live and the PGA Tour is also playing out in court filings, so I wanted to talk to Bloomberg reporters Malfi Nayak and Eric Larson. They're covering the legal back and forth between the two sides.
So as soon as LIV entered the scene and started poaching some of these big players, PGA Tour immediately started banning these plays from participating in PGA tours as punishment, accusing them of violating their contracts, and Live shot back by suing in federal court accusing PGA Tour of violating US anti trust law by behaving in a monopolistic way. And that is a similar type of laws that companies accuse each other of breaking all the time if they
engage in anti competitive behavior. That is where we find these two competitors now in federal court in San Jose in California, fighting over which one of them is wrong here, whether PGA is violating US anti trust law, or, as PGA claims in a countersuit it filed, whether Live is actually in the wrong here by using its deep pockets to convince these players to violate their contracts.
In addition to Liv's claim that the PGA Toor is a monopolist, PGA Toor is accused by Live of also intimidating sponsors and broad US networks of doing any business with Live or any business with Live golfers. And we'll have to see how that bears out at trial, whether there'll be enough evidence for them, you know, to back those claims.
Malti, What does PGA Tour say about that?
So the PGA Tour is arguing that this has nothing to do with them thwarting competition, But it's all about the investment and the sort of brand that the PGA Tour has built. What they're saying is that they don't want live to freeride on their reputation that they have spent a lot of time building over the years.
And I should say that representatives for Live Golf didn't respond to requests for comment for the Bloomberg article about this case. Eric, you said, the PGA is accusing these golfers of breaking their contracts with the tour. If you're a professional golfer, you only allowed to play for PGA.
Well, I guess that's one of the things we'll we'll find out in this court case. But I think the idea for PGA Tour is they're saying that if you're signed up with us, we are pooling all of your resources,
all of these golfers talents. They're going to combine that talent and get the maximum value from it by letting all these broadcasters and these marketing partners and advertisers know that you're going to be here for all of these tournaments and that we have sort of this exclusive access to you and your skill and I think that that's basically what they're saying is we're here PGA working for you to get the best deal, and we can't do that if you're off playing with all the other tournaments.
When we come back, how is this dispute likely to play out?
All the other sports have had organizations break away from them and they finally merged. Football did it with the AFL. They made the NFL might pick four five years but for Bill Merge and the one big international golf and we'll see all this louds back together again.
By the way, all these strong opinions you've been hearing today are from Mauthi's interviews with fans at golf events. PGA Tour does allow its golfers to compete in other countries, and they don't label those as off limits to its members, So why.
Not live So I think that there are some of these leagues, like the European Tour, the DP Tour, like they have all these long standing agreements in place for a long time, but they are in different continents. So we're talking about this territory here on American soil and them sort of being the dominant player and having this new upstart challenge them here. So I think it's sort
of this fight for dominance in America. Although there are all these larger new political issues playing in the background. When it comes to the court case itself, the court is only going to pay attention to the anti trust claims Malfi.
What about fans are they weighing in?
I spoke with one fan I remember who said that she was very hurt by the fact that some of the players she loved had jumped ship to this league back by Saudi Arabia. And at the same time, there were some who were very sympathetic and said, it's fine. They did it for the money, and I totally get that. You know, they have a choice, they can go where
they want. So it seems like some fans are okay with what happened in terms of this new Saudi Arabian league coming forward and poaching some of the PGA Tour players, and some of them are sympathetic and they're like, we get it, It's totally fine.
Eric. As you continue to watch this case, what are you looking for? How do you think ultimately it plays out.
It'll be interesting to see whether Saudi Arabia follows it through or whether it says, you know what, this isn't worth the trouble and just backs out.
If the case goes to trial and it's set for me next year, what I really want to see at trial is some sort of evidence that basically gives us a better understanding of what Live Golf's business model is and what the endgame is in terms of whether they actually want to profit from this, because they have said in fis that so far they're not being able to make a lot of money because of what the PGA
Tour is allegedly doing. This is probably the first time the PGA business model, as well as how it operates, its handbook and regulations that it has for players, are being tested in courts. I'm very curtious to see how this plays out in the future, just in terms of what this means for a legacy player that's been around for so long.
Malthy, Eric, thanks so much for coming on the show, Thanks for having us, Thanks for listening to us here at the Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you, email us questions or comments to Big Take at bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of the Big Take is Vicky Bergolina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink.
Our producers are Moe Barrow and Michael Flero. Phild Garcia is our in. Our original music was composed by Leosidrin. I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.
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