GOLF
PGA Tour merges with LIV Golf and DP World Tour: How will it affect calendars, format, money?
Finally putting to rights the animosity generated by the LIV Golf dispute, the PGA agrees to a merger deal. We look at how it will play out.
There is nothing so bad for business as a turf war. Al Capone knew it. Mafia bosses know it. And now, it seems that the PGA and LIV Golf have figured that basic truth out as well.
Amidst all of the hyperbole-strewn media was a basic truth. The PGA may be the old-guard, the respectable face of world golf, but LIV paid better. And in the end, that is a trend in sports, and the wider world, that is unstoppable.
The NFL, MLB, and NBA no longer “own” their players in any meaningful sense, with free agency putting paid to that Victorian workhouse concept. And now, the PGA has followed suit.
A merger announced between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and LIV Golf has stunned the sports world, and it amounts to much more than the PGA simply absorbing their competition. The new deal will see “a collectively owned” entity replace them all.
Recognizing the gap that LIV and DP World filled, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said, “This transformational partnership recognises the immeasurable strength of the PGA Tour’s history, legacy and pro-competitive model and combines with it the DP World Tour and LIV - including the team golf concept - to create an organisation that will benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners and fans.”
This means that fans can expect more team events, more shotgun starts, and for the players, more guaranteed money.
Largely seen as a defensive response by the PGA to their pending anti-trust lawsuit filed by LIV Golf, this will now see once-shunned players accepted back into the fold and all legal action halted.
Monahan went on to say, “The parties have signed an agreement that combines PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity to ensure that all stakeholders benefit from a model that delivers maximum excitement and competition among the game’s best players.”
Initially, PIF will be the exclusive investor in this new entity, alongside LIV Golf, the PGA Tour, and DP World Tour, but going forward, the PIF will have the exclusive right to invest further in it. To balance this out, the PGA Tour will hold a majority of the board and a majority of voting interest. Additionally, they will maintain their US tax exemption status.
Each of the three entities will exclusively oversee their own events within this new partnership. While it is not yet clear which dates, if any, will have to be altered by either LIV or the PGA to make room for the other, it is clear that they are all working together for the first time in over two years.