jk, LIV Large
Workin' at the sportswash, yeah!
Well. That was quick.
Forget détente; we’ve got ourselves a full-blown truce. An accord, dare I say! Better yet: a merger.
After alllllll that — all that righteous indignation, the public sniping, the “blood money” refrains, the punitive legal warfare — we have peace.
The war is over. It’s VG Day, and Victory in Golf goes to the Saudis. Long LIV Golf!
No? Nobody? Why is no one cheering?
Mission Accomplished
The dramatic conclusion you’d be tempted to draw — watch, I’ll do it right now — is that the Saudis have now successfully bought the game of golf.
Before, all the rhetoric around LIV was qualified. They were trying to buy golf. LIV was an attempt to elbow in, but they were losing. Nobody watched it. It drew more rebuke than praise. It would never work.
This just in: it has!
The PGA Tour has agreed to set down its weapons, and along with its European counterpart, the DP World Tour, it’s reached a deal to join forces with the artist formerly known as LIV under a new corporate entity.
It’s hard to imagine the Saudis drawing up a better outcome than this. While coexistence had started seeming more likely, there was never any guarantee that this day would come, let alone so soon. Now, that day is here, and the clearest winner sits in Riyadh.
At the head of this new joint venture is one man: Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the golf enthusiast who governs PIF, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund that has backed LIV from its inception.
He has a couple other odd jobs on his resume, like chairman of both the EPL club Newcastle United and oil giant Saudi Aramco, one of — at times the — richest company in the world.
So he was already one of the single most powerful people on the planet, and though the full terms of the PGA-DP-LIV partnership remain unclear, let me direct you to a few lines from the announcement, emphasis mine:
“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…
In addition, PIF will make a capital investment into the new entity to facilitate its growth and success…
PIF will initially be the exclusive investor in the new entity…
Going forward, PIF will have the exclusive right to further invest in the new entity, including a right of first refusal on any capital that may be invested in the new entity…
Under the terms of the agreement, the Board of Directors of the new entity will oversee and direct all the new entity’s golf-related commercial operations, businesses and investments…
The Board of Directors of the new commercial entity will include Al-Rumayyan as Chairman and Monahan as Chief Executive Officer…
Allow me to TL;DR that for you. Al-Rumayyan has added a sparkly new title to that resume of his. It’s the overlord of golf. He’s the guy. He’s Thanos in Sunday red.
Making The Turn
Al-Rumayyan sat next to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan — a hypocritical half-winner in this arrangement — on CNBC this Tuesday and nodded as his rival-turned-partner said the following:
“There’s been a lot of tension in our sport the past couple of years. And what we’re excited about today is coming together to unify the game of golf. And to do so under one umbrella.
We recognized that together we can have far greater impact on this game than we can working apart. And I give Yasir great credit for coming to the table, coming to the discussion with an open heart, an open mind. We did the same. And the game of golf is better for what we’ve done today.”
That much-tempered Monahan — whose position as CEO of the combined entity can’t possibly have anything to do with his new outlook — stands in stark contrast to the incorruptible crusader we heard from circa June 2022.
What a difference a year makes:
“Let me be clear. I am not naive. If this is an arms race, and if the only weapons here are dollar bills, the PGA Tour can’t compete. The PGA Tour, an American institution, can’t compete with a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in an attempt to buy the game of golf.
We welcome good healthy competition. The LIV Saudi golf league is not that. It’s an irrational threat, one not concerned with a return on investment or true growth of the game.’’
Gone is the man who, around the same time, didn’t shy from questions about Saudi links to 9/11.
I am not naive either, and my guess is a hefty helping of dollar bills helped convince Monahan to change his tune. We never got the number Norman was making, and I doubt we’ll get Monahan’s, but I’d bet the over.
Speaking of: Norman is a notable loser here, given he’s reportedly out of a job now. Tough break, but The Shark has no place in peacetime. He knows only war and wholesale. It wouldn’t have been a good fit, not unlike his performance pants.
Other losers, albeit for very different reasons, include the many prominent golfers — like Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Jon Rahm and others — who trusted the PGA Tour to stand for principle over principal.
Rory referred to himself as a “sacrificial lamb” this week, and the turn of phrase is apt. The wolves were at the door, and now they’re staying for dinner. At least they’re picking up the tab.
Remember when we wondered a few weeks ago whether Saudi’s sportswashing campaign would work?
This also just in — wow, big news week! — yeah, it’s working.
In the end, the PGA Tour — who preached loyalty above all, and urged golfers not to take dirty money — took the very same money.
And they did it in secret, knowing full well how their players, and the world at large, would react.
“Shameful” is not a word to use lightly, but here, it fits.
That doesn’t mean the move wasn’t also pragmatic, rational, and strategically sound. Out there in the real world, it can be all of the above, and it seems it just might be.
The PGA Tour is concerned first and foremost with its own future, as well as golf’s. Saudi funding shores up both.
So yes, several adjectives apply. But it’s awfully tough to get past that first one. Shameful indeed.
No Hard Feelings
All the pending litigation between the parties is hereby settled, leaving the curious resolution of an ugly antitrust dispute being two competitors merging. It’s entirely likely that the new partnership will draw antitrust scrutiny itself.
The DOJ was already investigating the PGA Tour, and after golfers and later LIV accused the PGA Tour of acting as a monopoly, there’s a distinct irony to this merger now bolstering that case. You thought they were the only game in town before? Check them out now.
What’s more, this is one of those win-some-easy-points stands that any number of our fine elected officials might happily take, which could kick up some additional political dust. Capitol Hill runs on sound biteable fodder like this. Bet on a couple of those making the rounds in the weeks and months to come.
Those are all among the reasons to wonder whether this deal will get through Kanter & co. at all, but since we’ve already established our lack of naivete, let’s not slip right at the end. It could go the other way too.
Sometimes, domestic policy is at the whim of its foreign counterpart, and this could end up being one such occasion.
If Riyadh were to (continue) toggling oil production as a carrot and/or stick, the White House could make a neighborly suggestion to the DOJ along the lines of: How about we look the other way on this one?
In global relations as in golf, money talks.
And that means we’re faced with a few sad facts.
The news cycle’s been tough on Monahan, who deserves that and more, but when he says he did this to assure the growth of the game of golf, I’m inclined to believe him.
It’s a bad thing to be right on, and not a bet I’d ever want to place, but the game will likely benefit from the ample Saudi investments.
Frankly, that sucks. But you know what they say, don’t you? This is a business.