The Framework Agreement of June 6, 2023, was supposed to unify the warring leagues, but golf's disruptor is continuing with business as usual.
The man who first reached out to make a deal with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has since resigned from the PGA Tour Policy Board in frustration over the ensuing negotiations.
But the idea that LIV Golf would be shuttered, diminished or marginalized—all surmised or suggested in the aftermath of the deal—has not materialized. But negotiations with the PIF have, by most accounts, been sporadic. Woods and the other player directors on the board did not meet with Al-Rumayyan or anyone from the PIF until March. Player directors such as Webb Simpson and Peter Malnati said as late as that meeting in March that they were not even aware of what the PIF wanted as part of a deal.
The idea that LIV is “additive” as Norman has said on several occasions is counter to the scheduling. LIV’s tournaments on the CW Network are played in the same 1–6 p.m. ET time zone regardless of location and on tape delay when overseas. That is the traditional time slot for PGA Tour events as well, and forces those who might want to watch both to either choose or switch back and forth.
LIV has also announced numerous sponsorships in recent months including an official cap with New Era and a technology partner in Google Cloud, plus more than a dozen team partnerships. Clearly that has been more of an appetite for LIV Golf in overseas, underserved markets. The event at Valderrama in Spain last year was popular and promises to be even more so this year with Rahm’s presence.
LIV proceeds as if it will. Of the 13 teams, 10 have general managers that run their affairs, with smaller sponsorship deals used to shore up finances in addition to the team purses. Those GMs, such as Jeff Koski, who is Rahm’s agent and now also in charge of his Legion XIII team with LIV, run the teams as they see fit, with input from the captains.
LIV also hired a chief financial officer, David Phillips, who came from Equinox Group; EVP, head of events, Ross Hallett, who most recently worked as head of golf events EMA for IMG; EVP, head of team business operations Katie O’Reilly, previously the chief revenue officer for the Philadelphia 76ers NBA team; LIV also hired a head of human resources and a new executive vice president to run its London office.
“How great would it be to have these signature events have a team aspect on it?” DeChambeau said. “It increases the value of those tournaments. You create a 50-50 partnership on the split of the team stuff and call it a day. We have certain events outside of the PGA Tour, we have events that are on the PGA Tour. We come together at the end of the season like the NFC-AFC. It’s not a hard fix.”
There was considerable pushback about that, especially when it was viewed that if the PIF would be putting in the majority of the money, why wouldn’t Al-Rumayyan have a bigger say? Well, for now, he’s not part of it at all, and if he is, what will happen?
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