It's the Son of a Butch podcast. We come to you every Wednesday. I am your host, Claude Harmon. This week's guest Brendan Quinn. I haven't had a journalist on. I've had some TV people on, but I hadn't had a journalist on full disclosure. We recorded this last Thursday during the day. We I mean everybody pretty much knew John Ram was signing with Live, but we did it as kind of a hypothetical. Even though we thought he
was going to sign You never know. I mean, all these rumors, there's there's rumors about people all day every day. But I wanted to get a journalist on because I hadn't had one on before. I had some people that were in the TV space, but I wanted to get someone who writes. And the thing I like about Brendan he doesn't come from a golf background. He starts. He
still writes college basketball. But I wanted to get someone's perspective that wasn't a kind of season golf journalists because I think in twenty twenty three, I think everybody's opinion kind of you know that is that is deeply, deeply embedded with all the tours is somewhat, I don't know, maybe compromise just because of their own bias. So I thought to get a fresh take Brendan. I really like his writing, and we talked about some good stuff. Listen.
It's crazy times, and I don't want to bombard all you guys with tons of PGA tour lift stuff, but it's impossible, given you know, everything that's happened in the last week with John Rahm going to Live to not talk about where we are with that and where everything is. So I think it's a really good podcast, and we talked about some you know, some stuff that you know. Listen, it's been going on for the last two years, and I thought it was important to get another point of view.
So sit back and enjoy listening to Brendan Quinn. I guess is Brendan Quinn, you write for the Athletic both basketball, college basketball and golf. But obviously we could talk about college basketball. But it's the end of the twenty twenty three season. The golf landscape Brendon over the last two years is just it's unrecognizable from what it once was. On the podcast, I've talked about this, I've had players talk about it, I've Caddy's stuff. But we're in the
middle of it, right. Some of these guys are on the PGA Tour. Some of these guys are on live. But for those of us in the sport, I think it's hard to see the overall view of it when you're in the middle of it. And right now, it seems like there's two sides, right there's the PGA Tour guys and then there's the live guys. And as a journalist and someone watching the last couple of years, what's
it been like and what are your thoughts? Because it's I mean, I even though I'm right in the middle of it, I work with three guys that are on live, two of the biggest guys on live. Still, to me is crazy that when I look back at, you know, the end of the year in twenty twenty one, you just couldn't have told me that we'd be where we are today.
Yeah, you know, it's funny. It's for number one, it's not what I or a lot of people signed up for. When you're like, I wanna go cover golf, right, it's and then suddenly you're in the middle of like covering this like geopolitical just spionage. There's just you know, with
all these layers and understanding. And I remember when when it all really started kind of bubbling to the surface, but that would have been like twenty one summer, right, I was coming out of basketball season and going to Augusta and this was like, right, things were really popping around Phil et cetera, et cetera. And my editor is like, you know, you want to write a column about you know, live and all these things going on and you know, right and wrong, because it was very much still the
right and wrong portion of the conversation. And I said to my boss, I'm like, I gotta tell you, I don't know what a sovereign wealth fund is.
Can we start there, you know?
And I kind of embarked on it that way, and one of my first big stories on it was very much.
Speaking to.
Academics and finance people and journalists who work in that space of foreign governments and understanding governments stuff like that.
This kind of involvement in sports there is I mean, it's crazy to me, you know, as someone that has been you know, part of I'm on tour on LIB the last two years because that's where my players went. But I find it crazy that as much as golf wants to be like everything else. Right, And one of the big things right now I think is the golfers. The Saudis have come in and started to pay professional golfers like other athletes get paid, like they get paid
in American football, soccer, over in Europe, baseball, basketball. You know, some of the contracts, the film contract, the Bryson, the DJ, the Brooks, those big live contracts. We're on a par with what we see in basketball, baseball, other sports. Right, We've never seen that before, but we have seen governments countries get involved in sports through various companies and things like that. Right, Yeah, why do you think that golf has been so Why has this issue been so polarizing in golf?
So?
I think mainly it's there's a difference between buying a team and creating a league. So, you know, we're not going to go and rehash you know, should the tour have taken those initial calls, et cetera, etc. Right, it's a whole other thing. But there is something fundamentally different by creating a competitive league that's going to go up against your old school standard bearer, the brand, the institutional piece and go head to head. You know, that's that's
not You've seen that happen in other sports. You've never seen it created this way though, and where the money came from and all that. So I think that was like the most baseline reason for why this has been so different. And then you know, I mean, we can get into all the geopolitical stuff of why it became a hot button issue and some people, I think, use that to their advantage and other people honestly felt that way and things like that, But it's.
A journalist, it's just covering the sport. Yeah, what has surprised you about the last two years?
You know, I think the biggest surprise is the kind of the constant lack of clarity, if that's it, Like everything.
Is just everything speculative, everything.
Speculative, speculative, speculative.
You hear people say one thing, and like it took a while for a lot of people to just be like, Okay, let's just stop listening to what anyone says because the numbers it doesn't matter.
Until right in the middle of John Rahm going to live rumor Mania three hundred six hundred and like, like I'm in the I know the people involved with making these decisions and the numbers that get thrown out, it's like you don't even know what to believe anything anymore.
Mm hmm.
And it's crazy, it's not like is it like that? And not? Do you think it's like that in the end? And do you think the rumor mill on let's say Patrick Mahomes is going to leave the Chiefs? I mean we saw that when Lebron was going when when the Lebron lottery was happening in the NBA are where was Lebron going to go? That was that was was big news.
Well, there's there's rail, there's guardrails to all that stuff. There are dates on the calendar of when you can go, we know the length of It's nothing like that.
There is nothing like that in this space.
Where it's like, you know, six months ago, if you asked anybody about John Rahm as a non starter at that point, you know, I mean, it's one hundred and he's not going anywhere. You know, these guys are tent poles. They're not going anywhere. Well, now it appears one of those tentpoles is gone, so okay, Well that means let's
look at those other tempoles. How many of them are actually planted right, because this one, I mean, this is going to be It's obviously right now when we are speaking right now, this is still slightly speculative, but it seems like this is happening.
This is a this is a different domino.
In what way? In what way do you think John Rahm is a different domino at this point? So because obviously the biggest domino in my opinion, Yes, Phil was huge, Yeah, but DJ going to Live to me was the tipping point that changed everything. When a player of his caliber, with his resume, as beloved as he is by the fans,
as popular as he is on the PGA tour. I remember getting the call from DJ and him telling me that he was going, and I was shocked, even though I'd been with him for the last five years and watched him entertain this and watched him agonize over to the decision. And he struggled after the Masters, after winning, for those two years after before he went to Live, because the question of do I do this? What is
my legacy going to do? He played terror, He didn't play great for two years, not up to the standard that he's used to. And I think the struggle of the decision to do it, and I still remember rend In him calling me and even though I thought he might do it, I was shocked. I got off the call and I just went, holy shit, Yeah what just happened. And I think he was the domino. And if you talk to the people that subsequently went after DJ, they all will say, yeah, once DJ went, it made it
more viable. Now John Rahm is a bigger dominant. I think for Live the three biggest dominoes have been DJ going, Brooks winning a major as a live player, and if John Rahm does go to Live, that is another domino because I think in the same way that maybe I know for a fact that after the Masters and Brooks almost winning, people went, Okay, we've got to figure out what is really happening, and we've got to try and figure something out because we thought that this wasn't going
to happen, and it basically just did. And then he wins the PJ So that was a big domino to where then he's on the Ryder Cup team and all that. Do you think that the domino effect of John Rahm is he's such a big player, two time major champion, you know, all of the things that he's done up to this point in his career. Why is he such a big domino?
Number One is age? Okay, So like obviously DJ was.
Still incredibly mid thirties, could certainly pop up and win, you know, another major and no one would be stunned.
But also someone clearly on the back end of the career. Rom's twenty six, twenty seven. So A, you have all this runway.
B you have his ranking, see you have he was a face of the tour without question, and.
The face of the European tour.
Sure.
The thing that really I think is kind of the biggest, biggest piece of this though, is the legitimacy of the brand in terms of competition. When When Live wants to say we have a top three player in the world now and the reigning masters Chimp and Brooks at times is the top three player in the world, and other times he is not. I mean physically he is what he is. There are times you think he could be done in a year if his body doesn't hold up.
Like John Rom ain't going anywhere for ten years, fifteen years, as long basically as long as he wants to go. So that's different and when you talk about what he has behind him in terms of brand potential and things like that. He's the face of Callaway, He's the face of a lot major pieces.
He's one of the faces of the European Ryder Cup team for the next fifteen years.
Is this the final one that gets a major brand to come in and say, we're gonna put X amount of dollars into your friend, he's gonna get his own team. We're gonna put X amount of dollars. Rumor is he's going to get his own Yeah, we're gonna put X amount of dollars. And when that happens, other brands seeing it and say, okay, well, now that brand's going to
put in this money. You know, we all kind of roll our eyes a little bit where at some of the valuations of some of these franchises where it's like, oh, yeah, that Sergio's team's worth two billion, and you know, it's like, I feel like he just kind of pulled that number out of this guy.
But I'm not saying that would be legitimate.
But like someone like rom having his own team and being a guy who could go and.
He could win multiple majors in a year, he is just.
If John Rahm goes to live he could win five day times.
He's that yeah, oh yeah right, And.
Not to say that the other guys aren't. But I say this all the time on the podcast. Anytime we talk about John Rahm, we've had his coach, Dave Phillips on. I don't he is so talented. He is one of those players that you don't you don't understand how he doesn't win every week. Right, that's how great of that's how great his talent is. And I think the other thing that you're talking about internationally John Rahm is he's European. Even though he went to college in America, he's European.
He's Spanish, and that plays another role in it as well.
I think, and you know, I mean, this further fractures things. I mean, look, by the time this thing airs, who knows what the state of the framework agreement is at that time, if there is any more clarity as to what's going on. But like everyone's talked about the game being fractured in recent years, and like this is the epitome of it. Man, Like if we don't get to see Scottie, Rory and Ram playing each other at like on a regular basis beyond four weeks a year, then
the game is fundamentally broken. At that it's already broken, but there's just something different, you know, even with DJ over on Live and Brooks, there's Jeff.
Smith and the players.
Yeah, like camp Smith Campus is a great example, and Bryson was a great example. But like right now, I think when you just think of like the best players in the world, that's the conversation. And Cam was in that conversation and it has changed, it feels like since he went over.
And also I think if your Live, you're not gonna get Tiger. You're not gonna get Rory. You're not gonna get Scotti, Scheffler, you're not gonna get j t You're not gonna get Jordan, You're not gonna get the PGA Tours boys. Yeah, and they are their boys, right, they are the one you're not probably I'm ninety nine point nine percent sure you're not getting Max Homy either, right, So from Live standpoint, they're like, Okay, we're not gonna get Tiger and Rory. Rom is the closest thing we
can get to. That to further our legitimacy of what we're trying to do. You said, obviously it's your opinion that golf professional golf is broken if it is broken, and that's up for debate, but there are a lot of people that share that center.
That's how I feel.
And if you and someone gonna make a noo counterpoint, and I'm fine with that, but that's how I feel.
But if it is broken, is there a way to fix it?
Well, we thought that that was there was the potential of it if LID was coming unto the umbrella of this for profit business being created by the pediator et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, with the investment fund from the public investment fund. Okay, we thought there was going to be some sort of marriage of the clans, right of the two sides. But this is like another This is a great example of when you're trying to understand things in real time.
I'm like, wait a second, does rom doing this? Is that good for the framework deal? Is that bad for the good Dad? I just like, I don't pretend to I'm like, I'm not a smart man. I don't know. I don't know. And to me, it.
Feels like if it changes the valuation of live without question beyond just the money that is going to Ram, it changes the valuation of the brand to have him associate with it. And then you've spent multiple months trying to come up with valuations for both the PGA Tour, all of its properties and live and all of its holdings. So this changes all of that, and the deadline is kind of on the clock here.
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your daily health and fitness regiment. There is an argument I think you can make that both both the tours as they are today are as strong as their biggest players. Because the PGA Tour, just like the Knock against Live as everybody goes, I don't even know half the people who are playing. But there is a large contingent of players playing on the PGA Tour that could walk into
a restaurant and you not know where they are. And I think in a lot of ways, golfers fly under the radar like that, because if you're six foot eight and you're in great shape and you show up in e Bentley to a restaurant and you've got all the blade and the ice on, more than likely someone's gonna go I'm guessing that guy plays professional sports of some right. If you just walk in and you're like when Christian
McCaffrey walks into a people are are they don't. That's not a normal guy, That's not normal, right, So golfers, I think I have had a lot of anonymity by the sport. Right up until Tiger. It wasn't athletic, it wasn't seen to be athletic. You know, nobody was in shape. It was a bunch of old people and stuff like that.
But do you think that because if if Rom does go to live, it's Rom, it's Phil, it's Brooks, it's DJ, it's camp Smith, it's Bryson, it's Sergio, right, they're kind of the big ones, and then there's a bunch of other ones. If you're a golf fan, you might know who they are. But if you aren't a diehard golf fan, you might know that. But like I said, there's a lot of people, you know, these these opposite field events mississip it be and that's only gonna get worse now.
And we have already been hearing from some people on the PGA to or that it seems like there's a cast, there's a there's a there's a two class system. There's the haves and the have nots. And so do you think that there's a case to be made that if you look at if Rom were to go, if you look at the stars, are they getting closer from an amount from a.
Maybe who they say it's it depends on how you look at You can almost look at it inside out too, where it's like when when I say that the game is fractured, just Rom going to live. I don't think magically is gonna make people wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and be like, holy shit, I got sorry, I just clap in your mi like holy shit, I gotta watch John Rom today. I'm sure there's people in Spain who feel that way, and I'm sure there are some fans who do, but the large public, he just
doesn't have that much sway. I don't know if anyone does. So here's the thing, what guy going I don't look at it as the like that much tilt on the scale. I look at it as that him going over there does make that product slightly smaller. I still don't think anyone particularly is going to be.
Crawling to the.
Remote to make sure that they are watching every week. The PGA Tour is getting more and more water down though, like the tour needs to have all of the best players there just to get any just to get casuals to watch on a weekly basis. So now you have a scenario where say there's two tournaments happening at the same time, which will happen multiple times this year, Well, you know, the tours.
A little bit watered down.
And I'm not a big fan of live now I'm watching no golf, you know, and there are a lot of casuals.
I know people listening to this are not.
People listening to this are golf fans. And so take your journalist hat off. We think the average golf fan now thinks about the professional game.
I think they're sick of the conversation. I think they see a lot of entitlement on all sides. I think none of these guys are relatable anymore.
I think the people are just bored with the con It was. It was kind of sexy and weird.
Right in the beginning, but now it's just like, all right, man, like this two years of this, there's still nothing. They're still just you know, pissing on each other's legs and arguing over money, and and none of.
Them steal each other's girl, is right.
It feels like like a high school fight, right, like like the two sides of these dudes, who are you know, just kind of going at it like it's just old and tired, and there are so many options, right, Like this is a football country. Everyone's watching football right.
Now, you know what I mean?
Is a football country.
Yeah, and they're going to turn on the Masters and say who's playing where, and they're going to get caught up on it. I just think my buddies back home, I live in Detroit, I play with like we are public golf course guys, right, we have like our one trip a year, like that's our group, right, And you know they follow along with the rumors and send me texts of like.
Man, is this real? Is rom going? And I'm like, I don't know, probably to but.
I think that's most people where there's no appeal to any of this is there.
I think the only thing that I see is to me this this happens. What's happening currently between the PJ Tour and Live. You know, the people at the Country, the club that I work at, the finance people, They're like, I don't understand what the big deal is. This happens literally every single day in the business world. Companies, no competition.
Somebody you see a company that's vulnerable, you try and buy them, they say no. Then you hear the guys going through divorce, and you go, well, hey, wait a minute, are you interested in selling?
Right?
No competition, but this happened. I mean Dan Rappaport I saw where Taylor Gooch now has left the Range Goats and gone to Smash and he's like, you never need to know the lack of legitimacy for Live. When the best player in the league goes to another team. I'm like, that happens all the time, like pitchers in baseball. When the side Garrett, the guy that played for the Astros they won the World Series, Garrett Wilson, Garrett, I can't remember, but he was playing for the Astros, Cy Young getting
paid a ton. The following year, they had a great year. The following years at the Yankees try they paid more money, they paid more money. And I guess being inside the sport and being part of athletes, I've always I haven't had an issue what's going on with live because I am pro athlete, because I work for athletes. I work for golfers, so I am a hired gun to professional golfers.
And I think that professional athletes, whether they're golfers, baseball, but whatever, like everybody else in every other walk of life and business, should have the opportunity and should be able to make a choice to make as much.
Money as they want with that question.
That happens in every other walk of life. And I've been fascinated as watching this happen for two years, and I've always thought this about golf, and I think we're in a stage right now crazy. You know the live rumors, you know the John Romrouvers, the ball roll back and everybody.
But it's always seemed to me like there has been this Truman Show utopian view of golf that golf has to be this evergreen concept and thought that it never changes, right, and it's the only thing in life that can't change. It has to stay the way it was in the fifties and sixties and all the rules and all the stuff.
And I've always thought that at times golf can seem antiquated and archaic, and I don't think the sport grows if we have more courses where it's impossible to become a member right where you know there are only like if you look at a lot of the guys when you know when Jimmy Dunn and Ed hurleyhy are involved in all this stuff for professional golf, I mean, those
guys are the golf illuminate. They're members at Cyprus Augusta Pine Valley, similar they are part of something that the majority of people in golf will never even be part of. And I do think that there are certain people in golf that are kind of the gatekeepers that, in my opinion, sometimes want golf to stay the way it was and the way their version of what it is should be And I don't think that. Does that happen in other sports.
I'm maybe a little bit, you see a little bit in college sports. There are people who are just against name, image and likeness legislation and are just wow, we're.
Paying these guys.
And now it's all different and it's changed because it's not my version of college football. And it's just like and when I went to school, Hell, does it matter to you if this nineteen or twenty year old kid is able to make a car commercial and get.
The universities making one hundred and fifteen, the coach is making fifteen million.
Making ten million a year? What is the hashue?
College coaches get paid a lot. They don't get paid as much as Jay Monahan does.
Facts, but I think you do see it there though. There is this ideal of the college sports. Are these guys coming, they get their scholarships, They play for my school with that school's name across the tire, and that's all that matters. But when you tell them, oh, well
the playing fields, that evening out a little bit. Now the kids are getting some money, they have control, they can go to whatever school they want, because guess what, the school doesn't matter They're just going to play their game, maybe go to some glasses, maybe get into I don't know, it's really up at this point.
It's up to the athlete. If the kid wants to get a degree, then get a degree. They don't let me do it.
But it is a pathway to the professional sports. So you see a lot of pushback there, and I think there's there's all kinds of stuff that goes into that of why so it's just people like college sports and other people. I just don't think like seeing kids get money and be entitled. So that's the closest comp that I can find. Now, it's obviously the other sport that
I cover, so it's easy. But the difference that comes with professional golf though, at the end of the day, is that what is there to identify with in a professional golfer? Right, I'm from Philadelphia, so I'm an Eagles guy, Phillies.
Six, right, So there's a lot of teams.
I went to Saint Joe's University in Philadelphia, so Seeing Joe's is my school, so were the guys who play for those teams?
Those are my guys, you know, And there's just nothing like that.
And golf you have to pick an individual.
They're just they're just people.
You're a Rory guy, You're a j T guy, You're a DJ guy, whatever guy you are.
Like, what's the is there?
How many of those guys actually had like carry emotional attachments from their fans. Tiger did, But Tiger doesn't count. He's his own sport basically.
But these guys, you.
Know, everyone's just kind of along for the ride with them, but they're not living and dying. They're not you know, when if they blow it on a Sunday, that fan isn't waking up on Monday morning crushed for the next three days. The Eagles loose to the Cowboys this weekend, people filled up, You're gonna be pissed on Monday.
It's it's different.
So, you know, and live creating teams, that's not you know, people are not gonna ever have that attachment to those teams they're trying.
Yeah, I just don't.
I just me personally, I just don't see that ever being a real thing. I like the team competition, but I don't think anyone's gonna ever be just ride or die for smash.
That's just the rider die for smash. I'mna make a t I'm gonna tell Brooks to make a t shirt. Rid Er die for Smash. You mentioned Tiger Woods. Obviously Tiger didn't go to Live. I think Tiger basically right now is kind of the de facto. He and Roy are the face of the PGA Tour. In twenty twenty three, Tiger came back at the Hero last week his tournament said he's probably gonna play, you know, maybe once a month. Okay,
in twenty twenty three. Does the game of golf and the professional game of golf still need Tiger?
I think so.
I mean, does it like need it is an interesting way of putting it. I know they want in terms of moving the needle, in terms of still getting casuals to watch, in terms of getting extra attention.
Yeah, it needs it. It's extremely cred I still think.
That one of the knock on lives, and you mentioned it. Listen, the team nobody cares. I'm not gonna get involved in that. A lot of people say, listen, I just I don't care. I don't care who's playing it. I'm not gonna watch. You still think that the casual, not die Hard, but the casual golf fan and the casual non golf fan will tune in. If Tiger Woods teased up at.
Riviera, I think they're more likely to. And if he can do anything, the people are gonna pay attention to it. I don't really care anymore because I just don't think it's a really competitive venture anymore. But you know, people will come out, people will buy a ticket, ask Rivier if they want Tiger to play, you know, I mean it getting people to come out and physically spend money.
Yeah, But there's also I've always thought at this point there's an argument to be made for Tiger because his
body is where it is now. He's only going to play a very very limited schedule, right, So the question is can he get the momentum he needs to be competitive again, and obviously he's going to be competitive in the majors or at this point is it Michael Jackson in sal Polo in front of three hundred thousand people saying, this is my new this is the song off my new album, and Everyody's going just play PYT and Thriller
totally nobody. And I think Tiger was such an unbelievable golfer that he has spoiled us so much that I think everybody still expects him to do what he did in the.
Day, right, And I was kind of curious to see TGL just because I mean literally, you asked me, does golf need Tiger? I don't know, but I do know that an entire professional league was created just basically to allow Tiger Woods to hit golf shots on television?
Right, does golf need something like the TGL?
I don't know. I don't know who's watching that. I maybe I just it's to me. Do I care?
I don't know, And I know some people over there, so like I feel bad saying this, but like I just have zero interest in watching. And I live in Michigan, like I have to play in simulators, you know, But I just don't know if it's.
If it's like a real thing. I don't know.
Maybe I'm not a big enough golf fan to be perfectly honest with you. But what does it do for anybody?
Put your journalist's hat back on? Okay, next year, at this time, on this day, What the hell do you think this looks like? What do you think and what would you want it to look like? But first of all, what do you think happens? Do you think that we spend another year of just this dangling of a carrot, that maybe there's a daytant that maybe we can get everybody together. Does maybe live if John Rahm goes to more players follow, does this all just become one big Morgas board of.
Yeah, I think it gets worse.
This is totally a guess, right, This is not based on like, oh I've got some secret conversations, not that. This is my absolute guess is that the framework fractures, Live doubles down more money.
So if the framework goes away, you you see, y'alls are going.
What are they gonna do?
I'm gonna push back all.
Where they going to pack it up? Yeah, there's no true. They're too deep. They're too deep, right, This is the it And that's based on reporting when I was at I went to the event at the Ral and I left there confident that if this thing, if the framework doesn't go through and it is just still two separate entities, that what are they would they ever realistically pack it up and just be like, well, I guess you know, tip the cap PGA tour. That doesn't happen in this world.
They have too much money, So who's.
The commissioner next year.
That was gonna be the other part.
I was gonna say, fractures the side split. I don't think Jay would survive. Why that, you know, lack of confidence amongst the players.
If you're a player on the PGA Tour, whether you're a big player, do you think it's different if you're a superstar versus non superstar? Your opinion of Jay Monahan at this point, I mean, is Justin Thomas's opinion of Jay Monahan. Is Roy McElroy's opinion of Jay Monahan different than.
I think those guys at least, I think those guys at least feel like Ted Podd Jr. Those guys at least feel like he has to take their call and answer to them to a degree, right, Like they still have weight. Those other guys you have, they just they're along for the ride. They don't have weight. And guess what, the the notion that they should to me is crazy, okay, because go cover professional sports and go ask the tenth, twelfth,
fourteenth guy in the NBA locker room. You know, if the owner really cares about their opinion, and that's that's just just the way professional sports.
There's about Lebron's opinion exactly.
So I think to your question, yeah, like Jay knows that he has to you know, play Kate. Answer to those guys that you're talking, those those small, those few which could get fewer big time voices, and those guys, I think that they the more the worse this gets, the more power they have, the more power they have, the more options they have to be able to pick their.
Own new leader.
They're going to have an extra seat on the board. They now rank the independence. So why couldn't this be a player led not revolt, that's not the right word, but a player led.
Coops say, you're out. Do you have a.
Problem with the players being more involved with how professional golf is run? Because some people do. Some people say this is basically the mark of the end because the players will now just basically say listen, it's all all about us. Will take all the money. And we've heard that in you hear that sometimes in the NFL. You hear that sometimes. And it's a players league, right. But the owners, I mean, I work at a club, my club, I've had them on the podcast. Jim Craney owns Houston Astros.
I mean, there's what the players want, And then I spend a lot of time around Jim and I listened to what he wants as an owner, as someone that wants to return on his investment, right as the one
that put up the money to buy the team. I think there's a really great story that during the pandemic, one of the players, Jim was playing with one of the players, and it was when the players were in baseball were saying, you know, we we should still get part of our salary and stuff like this, and I think one of the players, it was a big player for the Astros, said to Jim they were playing golf during the pandemic in Houston, I mean in Florida, and he said, you know what, you bought the team for?
How much? And how much is it worth? Now? You know? Jim turned around and said to him, go buy your own team. Then, yeah, go get six hundred million dollars, go raise it, Go buy your own franchise. Then you make all the decisions you want. But until you can go pony up and get six hundred million to go buy a franchise, you're making forty mm hmm.
Right, Well, I would count the question with this, like, once there's outside investment my end, you are seeding control? Yes, right, so it there. The money that these players want to make has to come from somewhere. So if they want to play for all these all these millions of dollars and get all these endorsements and all this stuff, well that has to come from somewhere. And to get it from somewhere, you have to seed a degree of control.
Like they're say, the framework actually went through, okay, and this for profit business is me Are they under the impression that they still just get to call their own shots or all this stuff? Do we just think that the public Investment fund is just going to be like, here's three billion have fun. Yeah, you know, like no.
I thought that was good. I mean I had players, you know, I had players from the PGA tour. I had people involved in, you know, broadcasting the PJ tour. When the framework happened, they all said it was fun while it lasted. But you guys are toast. Now Jay's going to get rid of Live And I'm thinking I've gotten to know Yelsa pretty well over the last four or five years, both professionally and spent some time with
him privately. I'm thinking I don't think someone's going to give you three to ten billion dollars and say have at it and whatever you want to do. I'm good with that. Yeah, I just don't see that happening.
Yeah, and that was very much. I mean, the tour was pushing that hard when that agreement was was finalized, you know, finalized in air quotes, because obviously we know it wasn't finalized. But you know, the day those two are on CNBC, Man, the back channels were already cooking with the narrative.
When that when they're in control when that day happened. Did you think you were getting punked? Did you think it was real? I got a text I was driving I've just left the gym. I was driving up to work, and someone sent that to me. I'm like and I'm like, that's not real. And then five seconds later my phone just went yeah, and I was just like.
What, yep, were you surprised?
I was in I was in Philadelphia visiting my father and had a flight out at like seven pm that day, and it was what nine o'clock in the morning.
Or something, and.
I was so caught off guard and so just kind of like reactionary. I said, not only do I need and not only do I have to leave Dad, sorry, but like I gotta go home. I need to be at my desk cause this day is gone to hell. And I looked it up and there was a flight leaving in like fifty minutes, and I just hauled as to the airport and just got on a plane and went back to Detroit and was at my desk and on the phone for the next you know, as you know, fifteen hours or whatever. And yeah, I mean it was.
It was so preposterous to see the two of them sitting next to each other acting like this was a normal situation to be Like.
Well, I think that situation, I mean, I know both of them. I think the situation was way more normal for Yaser than it was for j Yosters used to doing shit like that all the time.
Sure, but they had been and they had been talking for weeks, and a Jay I think had come to the point of being accepting.
Because Yoster had always wanted totally to get involved in the PGA tour. You know, I went to the Saudi International when it launched on the European tour in twenty eighteen. I have an academy in Dubai and we teach the Saudi national team, so I knew all the guys there. They invited me over. Keith Pelly was there from the European Tour. He was announcing how great it was going to be for the European Tour, and I saw Jay I think at the at the Players Championship a couple
of hours, like, dude, talk to him. They want to be involved, they want to invest in professional golf, and you know, for whatever reason, that didn't happen. Lastly, lastly, can.
I ask you if you think the Framework Agreement's going to get done.
Now? I don't think it gets done because I just think that there are too many people that see the Saudi's involvement as something sinister, as ulterior motives. And having spent a good chunk of my adult life living in the Middle East, you know, I lived in Dubai for three years, and you know, when you look in my opinion, taking away all of the geopolitical elements of it, right just from a shear what I think they're trying to do.
I think they look at their population, which the majority of it is under the age of forty to fifty, and they look at Dubai and most people only know about Dubai because of golf. A lot of people know about Dubai because of golf. Now, in the last five years, maybe Dubai's become but there was a big period of time to where people like Tiger Woods and Freddie Couples and Greg Norman and the American golfers that went over
there kind of put Dubai on the map. And I think what the Saudis are doing, And you know, Randal continues to call this sports washing, but I think what they're trying to figure out is how can we use sports as a vehicle to bring tourism in to do other things. I'm not a politician, right, so and the barstool guys and the no laying up guys love to use at all. Anybody that said they're not a politician's gone to live. I'm like, well, are you guys politicians?
Are you guys in politics? You guys are doing podcasts right And I just I've been to Saudi every year multiple times for the last five years, and everybody that I've met involved and from the golf standpoint, loves golf.
They want golf to be a part of what they're doing, but I don't think the framework gets done because I just think there is a core group of people that just fundamentally, like you said, they don't want to see the power and they see that if they do a deal with the PIF, with Yaser and the Saudi, is
it some it's a power struggle and they're losing. I think it's I think it's been good for golf because I think it's made everybody involved in professional golf somewhat wake up, because I think the system's been broken for a long time. The tour knows the system's broken, the agents know the system's broken, and the players know it's broken.
But the agents all say to the players, listen, if you guys want to change this one hundred and fifty hundred and seventy high aver any people on the PGA Tour, you guys can vote. But nothing ever significant has ever really come out of the pack, right. There hasn't been anything that has been, you know, breaking, breaking news, and so I just think that maybe they gotten complacent and
the players felt like they looked at other sports. I mean, I remember when DJ we were at Memphis and Steph Curry signed his new deal and DJ it was he won, so he just had, you know, amazing year that you won, you know, fifteen sixteen million dollars And we're sitting at dinner and he's like, well, at least I made more money than the commissioner of the tour this year last year. And he's like, that doesn't happen in other sports, right, I mean, Roger Goodell gets paid on a par with
what Patrick Mahomes gets paid. He doesn't get paid exponentially more than the superstars. But in golf, for a long time, I think there has been a little bit of difference. But I just think that I think competition is good, and I think that if the PGA Tour, pivots and their product changes and gets better, and I think the
majors now hold all the cards, right, yeah, the majors. Oh, you know, you've got to be a die hard, die hard tennis fan to know, namely five other tournaments Roger fetters one other than Wimbledon, the French, the US and the Aussie Open. You've got to be I mean, tennis has to be part of your DNA. And I think that the majors now will only become bigger.
Yeah, one of the things that just will never go away.
As the primary issue is that, like, if you were designing professional golf, now no one I related to the NC double A. If you were creating college sports, nobody would have ever created the model today that they created, that was created, and that it what it kind of formed into and just or devolved into or whatever you want to say, Like it just became this preposterous version of what it started out as. That's professional golf. It's
the same. And you can't you can't undo the paste done right, Like you know, like the in college football, they kicked the can down the road on a playoff for all these years because they were beholden to these ridiculous bowls, keeping these bowls happy and all the ye we answered to the Rose Bull. It's like, why do you answer to the Rose Bowl? You know, who gives
a shit? And and these in the in the tour, you know, we have to worry about this a tournament that sponsor and this and that, and you're like, you just can't. There's so many miles to feed and really that all that matters at the end of the day is guys competing against each other. But everything around it is just nothing.
Makes sense.
Brendan, thanks for talking us fascinating, fascinating times. Next year we're gonna get you back on and see if we were right. Ah, thanks for talking to us. Thank you so much. Quote. So that was some really good stuff from Brendan. And listen. I mean we did this, uh, not knowing if John Rahm had officially signed with Live, but now that he has. Listen, depending on what side you're you're on, and you don't have to take a side I keep. I've been saying that a lot. It's
just golf. You can watch golf wherever you want to go watch golf, but now that genre has gone to Live, I think it's a big deal. I think John Ram is arguably at any given time, the best player in the world. And I think when the best player in the you know, one of the best player I think, you know, you can make an argument when these guys
are playing good. But Jon Ram is one of those players that when he is on and when he is playing at his best one four times last year including the Masters, there is an argument that you can make. And Jen Ram passes the eye test, uh for the best player in the world. So for Live to get someone who is arguably the best player in the world right now. He can go toe to toe with Rory, he can go toe to toe with Scotti Scheffler, he can go toe to toe with anybody on any tour
anywhere in the world. And for all the things and for all the negative things that a lot of people say about Live, they just got John Rahm. And whether you like that, whether you don't like that, whether you think that's big, or whether you don't think that's big, one of, if not the best player in the world just chose to leave the PGA Tour. And I think
that's significant. Now where this goes, how this plays out moving forward, I don't think anybody knows, but I do think that it is significant, and that is why I wanted to get brendan On to not only talk about that the rumors of that which turned out to be true, but also to talk about, Yeah, it's been crazy the last two years. I hope in twenty twenty four we all can just get back to talking about golf, golf
on the golf course. I don't think that's gonna happen, because I still think there's a lot of moving parts, but it's going to be an interesting twenty twenty four, and there were a lot of surprises in twenty twenty three that a lot of people didn't see coming, and I think there's going to be more in twenty twenty four.
I'm gonna take a couple of weeks off for the holidays, heading out to Dubai to my academy, spend some time out there, and spend Christmas out there, but wishing all of you happy holidays, and we will see you all in the new year. Son of It, which comes to you every Wednesday listen. I can't thank everybody over the last two years that listens to the pod on a regular basis. It really does mean a lot to me.
We've got a lot of cool stuff planned for twenty twenty four, a lot of cool guests that are going to be coming on, and we're going to keep doing what we do here at Son of a Bunch