I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball.
In a Friday Egg, Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday Egg, Frida Egg brid Egg, Frida Egg bride Egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off of the Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today with the Live Team Golf Championship approaching, we're talking about what Live is doing well and what it could be doing better. But first we're going to discuss what we're in on and what we're out on this week. Here to do that with me are Andy Johnson and Joseph Lamania. Let's start with you. Joseph, what are you in on?
Garrett?
I am in on playing golf tournaments in the countries, in the home countries of superstars, and I think this sometimes gets framed as national opens, right, which we had the Irish Open this past weekend and it was an unbelievable scene with Rory McElroy playing to a crowd that was extremely friendly to him. One of I mean unbelievable scenes watching him walk down the seventy second fairway. Shane Lowry similarly had a lot of support out there. But I just think in general it's a great way to
engage fans sell tickets. I think it's something that Live does effectively. And I know we're going to talk about Live a little bit later, but having a tournament in Spain when John Rahm and Sergio Garcia are two of your biggest stars, I think this is something for the PGA Tour to heavily consider. The Zozo in Japan is not a high profile event, and that could be really cool if you had more of the top players showing up.
When Hideki Matsuyama is one of your most marketable global stars, right, the Irish Open could be really cool if more players were there.
I thought that Zozo was becoming a huge event before COVID because you had Tiger go and.
I win it.
Yeah, and it felt like it had a lot of momentum until the pandemic, you know.
Yeah.
And I think another small example would be getting rid of the match play in Austin, where Scotti Scheffler and Jordan Spief both went to school. Like some of there's so much local support for those golfers some of their biggest stars. I think there should be more of an effort to be a little bit more flexible with venues and get to the places where your best golfers, your most marketable golfers have either grew up or have ties to So that was a big takeaway for me from
watching the Irish Norway Here we Come. That'd be sweet.
It's the star still.
That's a good question. After this season, Yeah, who knows? Who knows how Victor Hovlin is doing? All right, So what I'm in on, first of all, The big thing I'm in on is something I'll touch on quickly and we'll discuss maybe later. Is Bubba Watson being relegated and lived. That's hilarious, don't. I don't know what's gonna happen there. I mean, he's basically he's like a co owner of the range Goats.
From what I've gathered. What I've gathered, not a lot of people like playing on Bubba's team. That could be part of why they made the late rule switch is that Bubba, Bubba and in and of himself, is a cancer in his own clubhouse potentially.
Yeah, well, I mean if he isn't playing, then he would be a non playing GM presumably, or maybe he just end up playing for another team and retaining equity in the range. I don't know. It could get really messy, but I'm pretty in on that. The serious thing I'm in on is during the Solheim Cup, what I saw was really refreshing in terms of the dynamic between the players. I thought there was a great combination of competitive spirit and genuine friendship between the two teams, and it was
just it warmed my heart. I couldn't help it. This is a little bit sentimental, but you know, like it seems like Nellie Korda and Charlie Hole are really friends,
but they went after each other. They had this I mean, it wasn't that great of a match because Charlie Hole absolutely wiped the floor with Nelly, but it was a great matchup, a great combination of two big personalities and great players, and they seem to keep it really friendly but at the same time take the competition very seriously and put all of their energy into it, and so that was just a wonderful competition. It just seems like that balance of the friendliness and the classiness and the
competitiveness isn't always there in the right cup. It seems like the men don't quite get that right all the time. But for whatever reason, this past week's Soulheim Cup was was right on the money with the with the vibes. The vibes were great. All right, Andy, what are you in on?
I would just add one thing. I thought the personalities were great in the Solheim Cup.
Megan Kang was like, it was a big week for Megan Kang.
I just think that in general, like the personalities really came out in the group atmosphere. And I think for women's golf, that's a big thing that they could differentiate from. You know, men's golf is men's golf doesn't have a ton of personality. It's kind of like, oh, we like this guy because he hits the ball far, or we like this guy because he's got a good short game, you know, and there's very few players who show personality. And I thought that was a big part of the
women's game this week. I guess I like, since you guys haven't haven't said anything, I guess I'm in on on golf being held at the greatest golf courses in the world.
Robert Trent Jones Golf Club.
Royal County Down was incredible.
Yeah, of course it was.
It was awful coverage, horrendous like in terms of like it was. I think at the shotgun start we talked about how we were excited for like a modern broadcast at Royal County Down with bells and whistles. It was like a two thousand and five broadcast at Royal County Down. It was handheld cameras. They couldn't track the ball. It was just straight world feed. There was no like drone, There was nothing, nothing out of this world about it was.
It was horrible, horrendous coverage. That being said, it still was honestly probably the most captivated I have been for a golf tournament non major division in uh forever, outside of like the Ryder Cup and made That was the most into a golf tournament I've been. And it's because the golf course like really forced, Like what you saw was a golf course forcing its will on players. Players had to play certain ways because of the golf design,
the elements that were thrust in their way. And you know the other thing that worked really well with it was the time that it was on, at this time of year. It was done wrapped up before the kickoff of football, and golf has made this like they've moved mountains to avoid football, move like, done everything. But the reality is like it doesn't work because golf the best golf season is September and October, arguably like late August,
September October. That's when you you have every venue, every venue in the world is a possible destination for the most part outside of the Southern sphere, and you have like these delightful, delightful opportunities to have great golf tournaments and the tour. Because of how US centric it is, which Joseph just hit on. Because of how US centric it is, it acts like like we can't avoid football in any other way.
But the.
Opportunity, the way to avoid football was very abundantly clear, and it's also in the part of the world that's got some of the best golf courses that you could play tournament golf on. It just seems like it makes too much sense to have a Links season. Everybody talks about Link season in July. I think they should have a Lenk season in September and October. And you have these tournaments that end before football, and people wake up
I thought it was great. You wake up, you're having your coffee, you're watching golf, and it rolls right into football and it solves your your big issue with the fall, and then the season makes a lot of sense. It goes from January to October. There's a two month off season for everybody, and there you go. It doesn't have to be as congested, it's spaced out, it's it's it's the way that the season should go.
They've got to commit to that, though, and train people to watch golf at those times, because the ratings issue is a profound one, an issue regular tournament, but even more so when you're when you're televising these tournaments in the morning. You know when you're in that you know, three to six pm Eastern time zone, uh kind of tournament playing prime prime time, you know, golf time zone. You know you're you're getting the ratings that you are
what it's like two to three million on Sundays. But if you're earlier in the morning, I'm agreeing with you. I think it could work. But it's just like the ratings for the Open Championship in the US are not very good, and for better or for worse, mostly for worse.
Probably US ratings are really meaningful for the PGA Tour, and it's it's financial well being, and so they've just got to train people to get up and watch golf, make coffee golf a thing, like, really commit to it and actually say this is a fun thing to do. Let's get up early and let's watch them golf before football.
I just feel like they have a shot in the fall of getting people to watch golf in the morning, you know, and.
They don't have much of a shot of getting them to watch golf in the afternoon.
Right pro Core pro Core was not a hot ticket, did not register on the Doppler this past weekend.
Okay, I want to get into what we're out on.
Yeah, sure, I'll start garts ready to go.
I'm ready, and I am out on the LPGA Tours and NBC's seeming lack of readiness to channel the enthusiasm that fans felt for the Solheim Cup this past week. There was real momentum behind the Solheim Cup. People wanted to get on site and watch that tournament. People wanted to watch it on TV, and guess what, they couldn't get to the golf course. There were buses going to the wrong golf course. There were endless lines where people
were leaving. Our own megat Cans covered this very well, and this was a big subject earlier in the week, so I'm sure that people have already heard about it. But I think the incompetence here on the part of the LPGA Tour, and I'll put this at the doorstep of the Commissioner, Molly mark Us Sammon. This is their responsibility to make sure that fans who are enthusiastic about the product can actually get on site and have a
great experience. And there at the first tee when they're hitting the first t shots, I mean, it was like, you know, half empty, So just a ridiculous display there. And then the coverage by NBC predictably at this point, it's been a really bad year for NBC golf. This has been well covered, but it was strikingly poor how NBC was covering the Solheim Cup, missing a lot of shots, just not getting a grasp on the narrative of each day, especially on Sunday. They were just lost and it was
really hard to keep track of. They did not find a storyline, they didn't have cameras in the right places, they weren't following the right groups, and they just didn't have an idea of how to lay out the narrative of the day. And those were really really disappointing things because to me, it really felt like there was there there was potential for this event to kind of blow up, and in a sense it it sort of did, at least in my little world of the Internet and social media.
It seemed like people were excited about it, and there was a lot of coverage of it and genuine enthusiasm, but I think that was that was tempered by the LPGA Tours and NBC's lack of preparedness.
I thought the first Tea coverage was outstanding. I mean it was. It was for like two straight hours, and they just neglected all the matches that went out on the because you know, the most consequential shot of every match is the first T shot. I'm being starcastic here.
You really appreciated the thoroughness of the first tea.
Coming, Yeah, I mean, like you talk about, literally the least consequential shot in a golf match is the first T shot, and I think, like we need to address this with like team competitions. I get there's a lot of fans there. I get the golf and have a stadium feel. Very often. I understand why it's like this spectacle.
It's like this shiny object, but when it comes to showing a golf match, it's literally the least important shot of the day is the first te shot, and I just can't It's like now a pet peeve of mine, because like it's just like running for like the thirsty social impressions it's run. It's like the coverage just being
like trying to make golf cool. Like you know, what's actually way cooler than the first tea is when somebody hits like an unbelievable chip to save par and have a hole and throw the kind of throw the momentum of a match on its head. We miss that because we're showing people walking up to the first tea and a crowd cheering, like to me, like this is I guess this is what I'm out on. This is what
I'm out on. I'm out on Golf's constantly to water down the product and like think that we need stuff like a cool first t atmosphere to appeal to people, like show the sport what's exciting about the sport is when players hit miraculous shots in match play that that somehow square matches, or hit unbelievable shots that you know, flip a hole when it looks like they're going to lose a hole, they hit a great recovery shot and
win a hole. Show those shots. That is what's exciting about the sport, especially match play, and it gives you this awesome opportunity to show these shots and follow these matches that hinge on like these micro moments. That is what's amazing about the sport. It's not watching somebody walk
to the first tea box and people cheer. That's actually extremely dull and it gets repetitive after like you know, show the matches go out, but like we didn't get to see any of the beginning of the Harley Hule Nelly Corda match, like two of the most marketable players. We're not getting to watch the match because we're watching, you know, Lily Avou walk from from the from the tunnel to the first t Like this is insane. Like
imagine like the NFL, the greatest TV sports product. You know what they show about ten seconds of players walking out of the field. You know what they never miss a play. They never miss a play because that's what matters. They don't water down the product. It's not like, hey, like maybe they water down the product a little in Taylor Swift's in the stands. Okay, maybe they they do do that.
It's like after Travis Kelcey makes makes a play.
That's like the only time I water the product down. But anyways, my point is like, show the matches, lean into the beauty of the sport. To stop andering, stop trying to think that golf needs something outside the product. It is an unbelievably captivating, complex sport and by just showing the action that's in talking at about it in like not worry not worrying about trying to make it cool. You're you're gonna make it cool.
Can you imagine if if Taylor Swift were dating a PGA Tour golfer, how much of her they would they would be showing during the telecasts. I mean it would be insane, it would be it would be remarkable. All right, Sorry you were going to say something, Joseph, go.
Ahead, No, I think the first team build out is important for the on site experience.
You got to. You got to. It's a matter of ratios, though, right.
Right, absolutely, I think the way that they missed the opening shots and you couldn't see a lot of the whole court of match, like you've lost the plot at that point, And the same thing happens with the Ryder Cup. Exacting as a hardcore go to not see the opening few holes of some of the coolest, most high profile matches,
and you're missing. Oftentimes the best players are sent off first, so the longer they dwell on the first team build out, you're missing the most high profile match, like the entire front nine. So I'm with you on that. What I'm out on, I think is a combination of both things that Garrett and Andy, you both said, I'm out on a lot of what's happened on the LPGA tour this year. I think you could make the argument that it was
a successful year. Nelly Korda had an unbelievable year, and there's a Salheim Cup that had some enthusiasm for it. But I think the alternate view, and the one I subscribe to a little more is, yeah, you had Nelly Korda, like a generational, very marketable young American star, have a good year, and a Salheim Cup year, did you capitalize on it? And it feels to me like they did
not capitalize on it in any way. The turning off of a lot of fans with the shuttle bus situation is one incident, but I think it's emblematic of larger leadership issues to an extent, and I think you have to question after this year if it's moving in the right direction, like why is twenty twenty five going to be a more successful year for the LPGA Tour than twenty twenty four was, Because, at least from my perspective as somebody who doesn't watch it every week but does
engage with the high profile LPGA Tour events, I certainly was not greeted with a great viewing experience at any point this year, and I think enthusiasm for the LPGA Tour is low. I think it's reasonable to question if this was a successful year despite some of the windfalls that they could have had.
They could have had, Yeah, tell me if this is an unfair comparison. It is at an unfair comparison. I know that, But look what's going on with the WNBA right now, And obviously Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are rare superstars.
I'm glad that you acknowledge the Chicago sky Superstars.
Oh god, oh god, no, thank.
You, thank you for acknowledging Skytown. We're very proud of it in Chicagoans.
Thanks Sandy, this has been this has been your your daily word from Chicago. Man. Clearly, clearly those are are are a rare breed of athlete. But the w n b A has done a really great job of channeling the organic enthusiasm for these players and for the league. And it just seems like the LPGA Tour is not similarly situated to deal with the breakout popularity of any given player where whether that's Nelly Korda or to an extent, Charlie Hole.
Right, Rose a couple of years ago was a disaster.
The rollout was was not great. And you know what, like Roseaning has done some remarkable stuff in the past couple of years now, I will say that that Rose's personality is low key, that's just who she is. She doesn't kind of sparkle in interviews and so maybe that element isn't there. But she won her first event as an LPGA Tour player. She has kept winning and she hasn't been impressive in majors, but this is still an
exciting developing storyline in women's golf. And clearly what Nelly Corda did this year, especially in the first half of the year, was remarkable and I think probably could have been capitalized on a lot more effectively by the LPGA Tour. The LPGA Tour, I believe, needs to have the attitude that we're trying to lift up and promote our star players and try to get them to resonate in the
culture as much as possible. The strategy is different than you know, the PGA Tour, which can allow things to kind of just unfold, but the LPGA Tour really needs to kind of pounce on these moments, and it just doesn't seem like the current leadership is really into that. Right. For a while when Mike Wan was commissioner, there was a feeling of energy like we're going to make this happen. But things have calmed down during the reign of the current commissioner, and I think that's a problem.
The difficult part of the comparison is that the WNBA, I think this warrants being said, doesn't go head to head with the NBA and with the golf men's professional calendar basically spanning year round. In it being an outdoor sport, it's a little bit difficult. The Kaitlin Clark isn't playing at the same time as Lebron James and Steph Curry. It's really hard for the women's game to earn its spot in the certain television window.
But I don't know.
Maybe there's a streaming option. The WNBA has their own league pass set up, and I don't know if it's the LPGA Tour is going to build out a whole league pass, But I think the availability of watching it on television has been a huge problem for the LPGA Tour this year. It's very difficult to find where it's going to be, so a lot of issues. I'll cut on some slack on that, but it doesn't feel like they capitalized. Andy, What were you about to say?
I just think in general it's a tough situation. I think like there are a lot of aspects of the LPGA and I think we could this probably can parlay us into Live a little bit. But I think when you look at the organization, how they view the sport, what they allow to happen on the golf course, how they go about selecting venues like these are all major issues that hold the LPGA back. I mean, I've been thinking about the the idea of how you could get
the PGA Tour playing premier venue after premier venue. It's very difficult because, like there just aren't a lot of venues that are capable of hosting the modern male professional who hits the ball three hundred and fifty yards. Like you start to like it's just like wow, Like as great as Royal County Down was this week, there was it was not really a driver test, you know, there was from that standpoint, like you could like say, hey, is it a complete test if it never really challenges
somebody's driving ability. Now, with the women's game, the number of potential great venues that you could go play is got to be close to five hundred. I mean, it fits in just about just about anywhere. And of those five hundred, they might visit three per year. I mean, there is an unbelievable opportunity. I think, like we've we
saw this this week at the Irish Open. And sure the ratings aren't gonna be good, but guess what you have to go to NBC Sports app to watch it like, yeah, the ratings aren't going to be good, but with the with the LPGA, you have an opportunity, unlike men's professional golf, to get week in, week out, the best players playing
some of the best golf courses in the world. And I think that that pairing is part of what is going to propel the sport and too, like you need to figure out ways to get more people interested in watching the golf and by going to local market's best known golf course, that is a way to get more
people interested in the sport. So if you're going to big markets in their best golf course, more people are going to watch the sport because they're gonna be like interested golfers that want to just go to the event to see the golf course to like, Oh it's being held at Medina, I'll go watch that. Oh it's being held at Blue Mound in Milwaukee, I'll go. I'll go see Blue Mount, I'll go walk around Blue Mount. Like
this is a way to capture a bigger audience. Also administering pace of place so so that your product is better. It's just a better watching product. I went to a baseball game for the first time since the since the new rules, Like in person, it's incredible. The innings just go so fast, and it's like, why isn't golf looking at this stuff? It's it just like kept my attention so much more. Even with a four year old, I felt myself watching more pitches because they were just coming
in succession, you know. So anyways, I think just in general, the LPGA like needs to take a good hard look at the mirror and say, like, what what are we? How do we differentiate ourselves from other tours? And how do we become the best tour we can be because right now it seems like they're just kind of very content being you know, the second or third biggest golf tour in the world.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. And I have low confidence right now that the leadership of the tour is kind of on top of this, that they've wrapped their arms around this issue and are ready to push the tour forward. And you know, if I were an LPGA tour player, I would be beginning to get a little bit frustrated with it.
I mean, right, I mean, there's a real opportunity for them, this is not There's a real opportunity for them to be the most popular version of professional golf.
Men's golf is in chaos right now. Clearly there's an opportunity and it doesn't seem like they've really moved on it.
But all right, is it easy to get there? Absolutely not. But in order to get there there have to be some wholesale changes with the way they do their business, and that to be seems like the thing that it seems like they're almost going the opposite way.
Before getting into lives, we're going to discuss the state of live in a moment. Here, let's talk a bit about Goodwalk Coffee. So Goodwalk Coffee is in my Goodwalk mug right now. This is the fried Egg golf blend from Goodwalk. This is our own blend. It's a bright and vibrant organic coffee roasted to a medium light level. We also have a Shotgun Start blend that's more of a medium dark thing. So Goodwalk is a great company and we're very proud to be to be working with them.
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for Live. But there would be those out there who would argue that Live doesn't need any fixes, that it's doing great, that everything's wonderful, that it's changing golf in that you know, in just a couple of years it's going to be the dominant golf league in the world. You know. This past week we saw Live Chicago at at Bowlingbrook Golf Club.
I think maybe a major championship.
As Bryson Deshambo said, right, well, look, I mean the winning score was what minus eleven or something like that. Clearly, clearly it was administering a an examination of golfing ability, certainly acquitted itself better than Valhalla. But in any case, I'll start with you, Joseph. I mean you watch them live this past week. I know, do you do you think? Do you think the product needs to fix? Needs to be fixed?
Can I just throw something out there?
Ok?
Real quick, go ahead to set the table here. Sure, you know we're at this point with the PGA Tour and everybody involved, how the how the players seem to be just running in opposite directions of each other, and it's become like extra, it's spent. It's at a point where it seems like nothing can get done. So like, if they want to make changes, there's no way both
sides of players are going to agree on them. You know that, it just seems like they're at this place where they're at a stalemate where nothing can happen because everybody's at odds with each other, and the setup of the tour is such that you have to get everybody rowing in the same direction, and that seems to be a herculean task right now. I think the unique thing about Live is if one person decides that they're going to make months massive changes to the tour. They can
do it because it's run by one person. It is a It is not run by the players.
And Norman or it I don't know.
I think I think.
It's Andrew Waterman is not quite as visible.
So anyways, I just think when you talk about this framing this discussion, if one tour has the ability to actually make a wholesale changes and be fixed right now, I think it's actually Live. I think Live has a much greater potential of making changes that improve the product. I think the tour, the PGA Tour right now is
years away from anything changing. So I would say I wanted to just preface this this conversation with of all the tours that exist in golf, Live is the one that has the most opportunity to evolve, to iterate because of the structure it has. The players are contracted, They don't really have a say it is. It is run by Yasser and Greg Norman. Maybe not Greg for that much longer, but who knows.
Well we've been saying that for a couple of years now. Greg, he's hung on the guy is the guy is tenacious.
Him and Jay could could have a survivor contest, they WI should get him both on survivors who lasts longer.
Cut from the same very tough cloth. Clearly all right, well with the table, so set, Joseph, I want to get your impressions of Live Chicago this past week, just to get a sense of where we are right now with the product.
So I think there are actually a lot of things that Live does well. And straight up, I think the model if you're going to build a golf tour from scratch or a league from scratch, it would look more similar to Live than it would look to the PGA Tour,
where the members approve of every decision. As Andy's alluding to, I think it has a real problem shaking some of the stink of its foundation and it feeling like a bunch of players who are past their primes took a lot of money more or less to exit the competitive environment. It doesn't feel particularly competitive. And maybe we'll get to some of the stuff that some of the honorable mention fixes like, I think everything should be geared towards creating
as a competitive of an environment as possible. One of the things, so my big fix, A lot of contracts are expiring or apparently at the end of this year. I think it is notable that most of the good golf being played right now, in this era of speed youth, is being played by players who are ages twenty six
to thirty three ish. Live is significantly older than that, and it's not because they have all these legends like Sergio Garcia who are hanging on similar to Adam Scott like, there are some very talented players who can continue to compete into their early forties. But the average age on Live is thirty six, which is past the window of when you see players playing at their peaks. I just was looking at the Tour Championship. The average age is thirty one.
Right, and Live wants to get a young audience too. That's their big thing. They want to so younger.
What I would do if I were running Live is I would sign a bunch of these twenty two to twenty four year olds who show some upside. They may not be the highest profile names, but they maybe they've got power, they have some amateur excellence that they've demonstrated. Give them a couple of years to develop, and by the time they're twenty six to twenty seven, they're playing in qualifiers to get into majors. You're investing in them, getting them into as competitive of shape as possible and
giving them some time to grow. And you need to shed all of these Cameron tringalle type contracts, These thirty six year olds, these thirty seven year olds, who we know what they are. They provide no value. No one cares about watching Cameron Tringgalley play. We know what he is.
Even Carlos Ortiz right.
Thirty three, murdered Charles Howell.
Charles Holl's forty five, right. They have so many of these golfers who are past their competitive primes. And again, Carlos ORTIZI thrice thirty three, He's not going to turn into a world beater next year. If I'm them, I shift the narrative. We keep some of the legends, the pills, the DJs, obviously Ram who's playing at his peak. Keep Patrick west Wood, you know leave West's fifty one.
Dick Plans was one of the best players on the tour this year. If you want to wait a couple of them.
A banner year for Dick Bland.
How many guys can just go down to the Champions Tour and beat up on everybody and then then finish fifteenth in live events.
You know, you get my point. I think you need to bring in you can keep some of those legends to mentor this new wave, and then I think you bring in a bunch of twenty two to twenty five year olds with a bunch of promise, and one of your benefits is that you lock them up for a few years, give them time to develop, and don't put pressure on them to compete in year one. That is probably the right way to make this whole thing feel a little bit more competitive.
I want to push back a little here. Golf is an extremely fickle game and it's extraordinarily hard to pick how what young players are going to pan out. Like we're reminded of this all the time. Norman Jong. One of their young superstars big splash signings was Matt Will. How's that gone? I think they're young guys that they've signed. They've signed like promising young players, Turk Pettitt, James Piatt, the NCAA champion, a USAM champion, your Chikara these, Yeah,
they have not worked out. They haven't worked out. So I think the the smarter path here is that Live needs to invest in a robust feeder Tour, and I think they've like done a little bit with the Asian Tour, right.
That's it isn't that their idea for their feeder tour. That's that's what they want it to be.
But if your live you could put together like the way the corn Ferry Tour works, it is not a like a fun place to be if you're on the corn Ferry Tour because like, sure I have a chance at a PGA Tour card, but I'm not making any any money like whatsoever. I think what is the total I think the total prize perse for the corn Faery Tour it like very very low. I mean it's like effectively like one point two million dollars per tournament, twenty
five tournaments. So you're talking about a small investment, a smaller than Lee Westwood investment, and you could have the most lucrative feeder tour in the world. And that's how you build it, because it can't be We're going to sign ten young players because the reality of pro golf is that eighty percent of them aren't going to be very good. Ninety percent of them won't be a superstar. Even if you sign the ten best players from next year. You know, like one of them might turn into a superstar.
So that's kind of that's my point though, right you want to hit on one or two of the big ones, and that's way better than taking your chances on Cameron Tringale.
So if LIV wants to have the best tour, they need to also have the best feeder tour because that's what's going to ensure you long term sustainable success. It is not giving out these contracts to Carlos Ortiz overpaying for Graham McDowell. You know, like these are not the right answers. The right answers is how do we build a sustainable future and that has to be through getting the best players in the world at a young age
to play in your system. And I think like that to me, for you know, with all the you know, this sounds crazy. For a meager one hundred million dollars a year, Live could have a great, great feeder tour where you have the most promising players playing and a real opportunity like you could say to college kids like right now, it's it's an interesting time with uh with the PGA tour you which is like promoting staying in school like you are there are massive benefits to staying
in school. But if you could present a opportunity for the best college players to go make a couple million dollars a year playing on this on their on your smaller tour, I think that it would give a lot of people a reason to jump over there.
Well, I think there's a bigger question here for Live than getting the right players and the right talent, and that's whether it's ever going to be on TV in a meaningful way. The CW deal has been kind of a low.
Key I think that deals up.
That deal is up this year, Yes, it is up right now after the team championship, and the team championship week is usually the week when Live officials convene a few of their their favorite media figures, get them in a room and lay out kind of their strategy and their thoughts about where the league is going next, and that would include media rights deals. So maybe something will come out this week about Lib's plan for getting on TV and getting in front of people. But the CW
thing hasn't worked out. It doesn't seem like either side is happy with how it has gone. The ratings, of course, have been legendarily abysmal. They've been abysmal at the PGA Tour level as well. But you know, like we're talking about what three hundred thousand viewers or something like that for certain days, maybe maybe less than that, maybe more.
Maybe it's like one hundred and fifty lot of final rounds.
So that's really low. It's really low even for the CW. So it just doesn't seem like people are are following the league to the CW. Now there are people who would say that we've got a lot of viewers on the Live Golf Plus app. We don't know who's on the CW app. Look at YouTube. Well, we can look at YouTube. It's you know, the final rounds generally rack up views in about one two hundred and fifty thousand by a few days after the tournament, which is not
terribly significant, I would say. And then there's the global scene, but they don't really have huge media rights deals in Australia or other countries. They don't have anything in the UK right now, people in the UK are being asked to watch live on YouTube. They have a deal in Spain with movie Star Plus. I believe it's called which is a streaming service that I think is fairly big in Spain, but it's a streaming service.
It would have seen Caffeine collapsing.
And then yeah, they have the caffeine thing, Caffeine TV, which was short lived. And then in Australia they have another streaming deal with a major network I believe it is in Australia seven, but it's not on TV. It's not on linear TV in Australia. It's purely streaming. And so the linear TV deal that they struck with the CW which is not a traditional media deal, it was
more of a revenue share kind of situation. They didn't initially get fayed paid a rights fee for that, which is kind of remarkable, but you know, that was kind of an accomplishment because now they were on linear TV, they were on a network in the US that could be also viewed in other places in the world through DirecTV or whatever. But it hasn't worked out, and I'm not sure where they're going next. I can't think of
the network that they're going to land at. The obvious solution would be kind of a TNT TBS kind of thing with Warner Brothers, because Warner Brothers just lost the NBA and they're desperate for new sports, and so that would seem to be the obvious landing place. But according to John rand, who I trust on these subjects, formerly of a sports business journal, now writing for Puck, he says a deal with Warner Brothers is a big long
shot for Live. I don't know why it's such a long shot, because it would seem to be an obvious partnership. But again, you know that's those are cable news cable channels. Those aren't network channels. Live is not gonna land at NBC obviously, it's not gonna land at CBS. Fox does not seem interested in golf right now, and then it's probably not gonna land at ESPN or ABC because ESPN has that relationship with the PGA Tour through ESPN Plus, so that they're kind of blocked out of all of
these places where their product could be seen. And I just don't think this is anything until there's a major media rights deal that involves some presence on linear TV. People will say Phil Nicholson will tell you, oh, we're pursuing the digital strategy that's going to be the big wave of the future, but we're not there yet. Maybe maybe in ten years that would be a great strategy for Live to focus on digital, focus on YouTube and streaming, and find a deal that would get them out that way.
But right now, linear TV is still where the big bucks are. That's why the NBA and the NFL have have still been lining up for those deals and Live hasn't gotten there, and it doesn't seem like they're going to get there in a meaningful way. Not again, something may come out this week, but it's a strange situation, and I think that all of this is more or less moot in terms of Lift's popularity until they figure that part of it out.
Yeah, the TV, the visibility of it is a huge problem. And everybody will say, oh, you could just go to YouTube, or you could do live golf. Plus you're doing that. That's not the way. What works is when you turn on like I'm going to go bodered here, I have YouTube TV. When you turn on YouTube TV and it pops right up here, you know, it suggests it, and like Live isn't there. It's not there on my TV. I watch golf like it knows I like golf. It
doesn't pop up. I think it's because like the CW is just I don't know how the algorithm works, but like it's just not there. And I think, like in general, I think it makes it like it's kind of stuck in the middle. I think in a way too, like it is. From a product standpoint, it hasn't. They like to say they innovate, but they don't really. You know, They've like done a couple things, but like if you're gonna go off the wall and try and like appeal the youth, like really go for it, And I don't
think they have. Like I think that's like the tricky thing with it is like they've done a few things that are different, but for the most part, it's the same golf, right, you know. Like I think it's an interesting question with with live is is what could you do with the format to improve from that standpoint outside of the players, outside of this visibility, what from the format,
product venue selection could you do. I think like one thing that they've done that I'm impressed with that I respect the shit out of So they're not afraid to dole out pace play penalties.
I like that sluggers just out there whipping guys.
Well, he's not worried about those guys. Kids college funds like.
They're already taken care of. Yeah, that's right, he's been
freed up. Yeah, I mean, I I don't I don't really know what you could do to to to improve the product to a degree that would be more appealing for say a network to pick up, because you've just you've got to have in order for the product to be appealing, there has to be a large audience that is excited about it, and then people will start to be attracted to that like a moth to a flame, right, And without the visibility, without the you know, establishment of
a large audience in the first place, that momentum just can't get going. And so it just seems like to me, everything is irre irrelevant until they figure out the media rights, until they figure out how they're delivering this product to people at home. Because you know, the live event seems to be going well. I was impressed by the live event that Live put on in Portland, and that was
their second event ever. I'm sure they've improved it and it seems like people are showing up to these tournaments and having fun. They report attendance numbers occasionally, when the attendance numbers are from their perspective good. They're not at this point anywhere near a popular PGA Tour event in terms of those numbers, but it seems like people are having a good on site experience.
I had surprise that went to the Bowling Brooke event and said it was genuinely good.
Yeah, like on site. I think that's been the case from the beginning. They've always been pretty impressive with their live product. But again, I don't think that carries this league. I mean, think about it. Think about the salaries that they're paying these guys. You know, Phil Nicholson got a four year, two hundred million dollar deal. He's getting paid an average of fifty million dollars a year. Who gets paid fifty million dollars a year.
I'm sure producer Golf.
I'm sure PJ could correct me on this, but I think it's like Patrick Mahomes. I think it's like I think it's like Devin Booker and Steph Curry. That's that's the that's what they're getting. And so they've laid out this money to these guys and they're just not on not on TV. It doesn't work right now. It's so asymmetrical, and obviously we know that the Saudi piff is floating. This is keeping this going for the time being. That's
that's why it exists. But at some point it just seems like these this imbalance has to be rectified in some reasonable way.
I'll throw out one in a little different direction as somebody who watched a decent amount of Lived this past weekend. One thing that has to change, and Live fans will probably shake their fists at this. But the shotgun start is stupid and one of the I understand some of the advantages of it and keeping everyone on the course at the same time tightening that window at the end of the round is when a lot of the excitement happens on players' final holes and it's scattered throughout the course.
It makes no sense to have those finishing the climax of a lot of people's rounds all happening simultaneously. It made no sense to me, as if you were watching it and you have a couple of golfers fighting this relegation zone, this open zone, all while John ram is trying to win, and like they're doing it on holes two and three, some of them are finishing their rounds there there's not a big crowd around that eighteenth, around
their eighteenth green, the second green. I get some of the advantages of it, it is stupid, and I also think you play certain holes for a reason.
What if you went to like a structured like star a little bit on the last day where you had like a kind of like a half shotgun, but then the last four or five groups went off one.
And they currently do that with the last two groups. Yeah, sorry if that's wrong, because that's how it was toward the beginning. But yeah, I mean the shotguns start, wouldn't you say? Josef though that it's sort of integral to the concept that they've proposed so far, Like it's absolutely part of the core structure of what their proposal has been for what golf should look like.
But does it have to be It doesn't seem like you would actually compromise on much of what they're doing to just change it to where players play the holes in order, like Saint Andrew's walking over the bridge on eighteen, Like when that's your final hole. There's something special about playing the holes in the order that they were designed. Like, I know that that's not priority number one, but it doesn't make sense to me. To have players finishing on the fifth and sixth holes and.
All that action.
That could be cool, player going for course record or something like that happening in all these disparate locations at the same time, and then having a bunch of sleepy you know, their wholes thirteen through fifteen are all sleepy at the same time doesn't make sense to me.
Yeah, okay, So we've proposed some fixes here. We've got the Team Championship coming up this week. Overall, I want to put this out there as kind of a final question for this segment. Do you think Live is in a better place now at the end of this season than it was at the end of the last season, or do you think it's in a worse position.
I think it's in a better spot. And I would say I think it's in a better spot because of the PGA Tour is in a worse spot, and they also have John Rahm and they didn't have John rom before. And when you start to look at it, you have John Rahm who's seemingly playing really good golf again, you have Bryson de Shamba who won a US Open, and you've got a slew the biggest names like I think from in terms of star power. They have a significant
amount of star power. That's important. And I think the general you know, the PGA Tour doing nothing every day that the PGA Tour sits in this limbo, live gets in a better position. So I think it is in a better position. I do think like the thing to think about is like if liv decided to overhaul what it's doing, if they wanted to try something new, maybe it's not even overhaul. If they want to make significant tweaks to what they do, it's actually feasible. The PGA
Tour could not do that. We have seen this, like they're trotting out the same schedule they had last year this year, despite fans wanting something different. It is reported that it's likely going to be the same next year, and that gives like live this weird, like live in a way like they've got like two years knowing with what's going on with the PGA Tour to really make
a dent. And if you think about two years a long time to continue to pick up fan interest, I think there are genuine people that will never go to live and I think, like I have a hard time taking it seriously. I'm just gonna like I just have a hard time. I think, like in general, I have a hard time taking it seriously. And they have you know, the Saudi money thing that is like always going to turn people off. It turns to be off.
Now that has always remained a problem, by the way, with with sponsorships. Yeah, Live, which is a major thing that really hasn't come through yet at all for the league.
I think it has a problem. It's it's part of its network problem. Also, Yeah, without a doubt, like that's why you don't have the blue chips.
Or feel about it.
Yeah, you don't have blue chip networks jumping to get behind it because of that. And I think I don't know if the PGA Tour continues to drag his feet and all of a sudden Live partners with the European Tour, I think we would probably feel a lot differently about Live in the future of Live.
That would be a big one. Now, what you're saying just brought to mind something that would be a really interesting possibility for Live. What if the League just said the fifty four holes the shotgun start, all of that was Live one point zero, Live two point zero is seventy two holes with a qualifying system, not a shotgun start, and we are designed to get OWGR points to force
the OWGR to give us points. What if they did that, and maybe that would take down one of the last barriers that is preventing some major PGA tour players from coming over, and then there would start to be maybe that critical mass that would lead to a TV deal
and the big sponsorships and all that. They just haven't hit that critical mass point with Rom and Phil and Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith, and that maybe has been a bit of a surprise that the clout of those players isn't quite as big as maybe all of us thought it would be in terms of getting the sponsorships and forcing the league's way onto network television and all of that. That it hasn't been enough so far. The star power has not yet overwhelmed the system to gain
the league legitimacy. But maybe if it started to get OGBGR points, maybe if they changed their format enough so that all of the concerns of the rating system were allayed, then maybe you'd start to see way more players come over, and then it would just be inevitable.
One of the other things is what if their feeder tour. I think like one of the things that it hasn't done is free agency trades. Those things have never materialized. Like the one of the things that people were excited about with Team Golf was that like is their player movement interest? Is there that not?
According to lives in House journalists, trade season is full of event and moment for the for the paid live journalists.
Well, I think like, here's the thing is if you had team relegation along with player relegation, and you had a again a feeder tour that promoted teams and as well as made players and options to sign. If you had a feeder tour with teams in it, it would make it more interesting. It would make the managers more engaged because they wouldn't want to get rele gated. Like relegation is one of the finest forms of getting people
to care. And I think like one of the things is like a lot of players there, they sign up and then they just like, well, I got my check, I don't really care. Public embarrassment is something as a guardrail to players getting fat and happy with their contracts.
I guess one other point on the public embarrassment as a good motivator slightly different angle, Andy, but I think one of the most one of the biggest reasons to be bullish on LIV is that I think the twenty twenty five PGA Tour season is going to.
Be a disaster.
That this year was not exciting and you had Scotti Scheffler on a once in a ten twenty year season winning at a prolific rate, and the ratings were still bad, and I don't know that sponsors are overly thrilled with where they are, and next year they're running back the exact same stale schedule. I think you could see those same ratings going down even less enthusiasm for the PGA Tour than there was this year, and that's something to
capitalize on if you're a competitor. So that is for me, like the one of the top reasons to be optimistic about LIVE if you're a LIVE fan, that I think the PGA Tour is set up for massive failure in twenty twenty five.
Ironically, I think if you had a couple of billion dollars laying around right now, the space that these two organizations have created, it's actually created the perfect opportunity right now to start another competing golf tour.
Wouldn't that be Hila premiere Golf League rises from the coffin like in a soap opera.
I think, like you've gotten to the point where they've like created this golf and I don't know if, like, I don't know if anybody's ever going to be able to get behind live. I don't. I think that like that's a legitimate question, was the start of it and the kind of like is there such a bad taste in golf fan's mouth that it will never be popularly adopted. I think there's a real likely answers yes to that. The PGA Tour has also gotten to the point where
it's so unlikable. I think if I think that right now is would be the perfect time to start, as as crazy as this sounds, third competing tour thread the needle and you could that it could be a winner. Takes all proposition. Now, it would probably take a lot of capital, But I do think like right now would be the perfect time for a third tour to launch and potentially win this space.
We've we've almost run out of people to fund this kind of endeavor because you know, John Henry and his sort of you know, Boston area private equity guys have already thrown in their lot with PGA tour enterprises supposedly, though there seems to have been scant development of that of that idea in the past few months.
Sounds like they might be frustrated.
Yeah, I would. I would as venture to say that they probably are.
I would just point out that it seems like anybody who has any business acumen that that finds themselves into in the PGA tour globe and in the circle, then shortly leaves after extraordinarily frustrated and confused.
Yes, like what the hell is this?
Yes, it's often is a comic. The reaction, it's one could almost we've almost reached a stat level, Joseph, you could correctly, we've almost reached a statistical relevance number here where this you could say that this is correlated.
This is this is not just to random occurrence. There There must be must be some cause for these departures.
Well, I think what you guys are forgetting is that on the very beginning of June, Golf Week released a Q and A with Joe Ogilvy that said, four months from now, it's going to be a completely different stories, and that's coming up in a couple of weeks, So that four month deadline, apparently the future of golf is going to have been sorted out in that time period. That's what was pledged.
Well, yeah, the deal is coming.
Since June, I up until maybe last week if they did the nine to eleven meet with the Saudi's in New York City that happened that that was the first time they'd talked since June.
Yeah, there can't have been much progress. Given the likely complexity that this deal would would have, it would take far more than kind of that one meeting to work everything out. All right, Well, on that note of confusion and despair, let's wrap up our segment on the condition of live and the competitive landscape of professional golf. I do like the idea of another league suddenly emerging. That would be an amazing wrinkle in this But I'd like
to wrap up with some recommendations. Let's go to a positive place and let me go to Joseph first. Joseph, what are you recommending this week? What is something that you like and that fills you with joy?
Easy one for me this week? A Frida Egg listener and friend sent me this, I'll always check out what people send me. There's a YouTube channel called the QB School and now that it's NFL season. This is a former LSU quarterback Jto Sullivan. He goes through quarterback breakdowns in the NFL. Maybe he does it for other levels as well, but takes you through. They're like twenty five
to hour long videos taking you through quarterback play. It's really cool, great example of the use of YouTube and really shows you what's going on schematically, like takes you through the these quarterbacks are doing. So as we get into NFL season, some content for like pretty hardcore fans who want to understand what's happening on a deeper level, kind of within the Frida Egg ethos of understanding golf
at a deeper level. I can't recommend it enough. I think I'm gonna watch every video he puts out this year.
Nice QB School, all right. My recommendation is on the musical end of the spectrum. I'm really liking the album Manning Fireworks by MJ. Lenderman. This came out within the past few weeks. I believe a lot of really good indie rock songs on there. If you're approximately my age if you're saying, you know, forty ish years old and it kind of grew up. It came of age in the early two thousands. Listening to in guitar driven indie rock. This music MJ. Lenderman stuff will will hit you right
in the sweet spot. He's a young guys, he's not an old dude like me, and so he's to be deriving some influences from before his time. But very very good album Manning Fireworks. I'm not sure exactly where that name comes from. Maybe it's spelled out in the lyrics of the album, which I haven't really listened to, honestly, Maybe from watching the UT football game on see Yeah, it's it's very possible that Manning Manning Fireworks happened this past week. We have a running Manning.
I didn't so amazing. It can't be a Manning.
Well, apparently his dad, Arch Manning's dad, Cooper, is a little bit more athletic, right, And you know, when I saw Arch Manning running for that down, just did a double take and I cracked myself up because I remembered how Peyton Manning used to run, how like sort of vertical had and short his steps were and just imagined how he would negotiate that that same play. But in any case, m J. Lannerman Manning Fireworks may or may
not have something to do with the Manning family. Andy, do you have any recommendations for us to close out here?
I traveled a lot of cities, and you know, I'm frequently looking for like restaurants, and I think, like listen, like Google reviews and Yelp are awful, They're terrible. Something that I've found that I really like is this company called Infatuation. Have you guys heard of them before?
Yeah? Yeah, they have like a good website, right.
Yeah, well they do so like they're like legit reviewers. They are employees of a company. And the way that they do food reviews is like they do not tell the restaurant they're coming. They pay their own bill like a lot of reviewers, like they'll let them know they get comped, like they pay their own bill, and then they write these reviews. They have them for like almost every major city in America. And I just find I like the the idea of somebody tell like an individual
telling me like about restaurants. I like that I don't like what I don't like is like if you go on Google or Yelp, like pretty much everything gets between four and five stars, right like this, this website has
a really nice curation of restaurants it has. They have different categories you can click on for like different occasions you can like they have recommendations for like sub ten dollars meals, They have recommendations for date nights, They have recommendations for big groups like it is uh, and then they also cover like new restaurant openings really well. I
think this is a great website if you are into food. Uh, if you travel and you're going to do areas and you're looking for restaurants, this is worth They have a map that shows where everything is, so it's like easy to curate. It's way better. It takes a little bit more time than doing like the Google like maps like restaurants.
To hear me, it takes a little more time. But if you want to plan out like a good inner, get a good meal like and want a little bit more inside look like you know, it's funny like I've used I've used this in like people like that. No restaurants in areas are like how do you know to go there? And I'm like, well, I use this infatuation. So this is a great way to avoid kind of tourist traps and find like really good local spots in my opinion.
All Right, Andy and Joseph, thank you for coming on the pod today. Thanks Gay. This episode of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you like what we're doing on the Frida Egg Golf Podcast, I think you would really like CLUBTFE. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership to see everything that we're offering at clubtf which includes a lot of exclusive content. One thing the Club TFE members get
is access to some great golf courses. Sometimes we just come up with some tea times at certain golf courses and people get pretty excited about that, and so those offerings come to you if you're a Club TFE member, and I think it's a really great benefit of membership that a lot of people maybe didn't expect when they initially signed up. So Club TFE, we're doing a lot of fun stuff in there that we're very excited about. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode.