Board 8 > PGA/LIV/DP Tours all merge

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/37805785/pga-tour-liv-golf-dp-world-tour-announce-merger
Very curious how players will react to this from all sides. Do they just stop fighting now? I wonder if they will rebrand or just remain the PGA?

This means the Saudi PIF owns a good chunk of the PGA now, right?

I guess? it's as yet unclear what the split in stuff looks like, but if they really do all just become one and not "PGA acquires the other 2" then probably

To me it basically looks like PGA / DP only objected to the fact that they were not getting a cut of the Saudi money and their own money printer was threatened rather than any moral objection they tried to hide behind

I thought the Liv Tour was supposed to grow the game by separating from the PGA

https://twitter.com/JonAlba/status/1666085702000611330

Absolutely shocking news that came out of nowhere. Most of the players didn't even know this was coming.

Hard to know exactly what this all means without all the exact details. My guess is that the rich will get richer, everything will cost more, and there will be less choice.

Does this mean the LIV golfers come out ahead? Like when Ninja signed that exclusive streaming deal with Mixer and then Microsoft shut it down and the he could go back to whatever he wanted?

Pretty much

The ones who got fucked by this are the ones who stayed loyal or stuck by their morals over where the money was coming from. LIV players got paid, PGA / DP got paid, Saudis got their cut of the PGA. The losers are the players who were against LIV

Yeah, if I'm Rory in particular, I'm furious because he was repeatedly trotted out to be the PGA spokesman against LIV, only to be backstabbed out of nowhere.

Also he just got dinged like several million for missing a mandatory tournament and he took it like a good soldier

https://twitter.com/JoePompliano/status/1666118686594220032

Sounds like LIV bought out the PGA

wooooooow

Guess they really didn't want to go through the discovery process in court

https://twitter.com/acaseofthegolf1/status/1666092033868701697

If that players meeting was televised it would be ratings

redrocket posted...

https://twitter.com/acaseofthegolf1/status/1666092033868701697

Never forget this guy invoked 9/11 over players moving to the LIV Tour

Shattered posted...

If that players meeting was televised it would be ratings

Would it be too much to hope for players literally throwing rotten tomatoes at him?

Its harder to find that many rotten tomatoes on short notice than youd think

This really sucks for the players who really did have strong moral issues with the Saudis and now have to either betray those morals or end their career.

Maniac64 posted...

This really sucks for the players who really did have strong moral issues with the Saudis and now have to either betray those morals or end their career.

Yeah I'll be curious to see if anyone quits over this

This is extremely sad. LIV was not going to be a huge success because nobody was offering them TV time and weren't willing to get into bed with Saudi Arabia.

Now it's get in bed with Saudi Arabia or nothing if they want to have golf.

I always felt bad for the players who accepted the contracts when the media would question them about taking money from Saudi Arabia, and they always looked so conflicted and would just say they have a family they want to provide for. None of the players actually playing for LIV were happy about it.

This is just so deeply unfortunate.

Well Phil was kinda happy about it

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/5/4/AAAOt_AAEiyO.jpg

Nothing deeply unfortunate about it. The PGA Tour thought they had a monopoly on the game so they treated their players like it was a dictatorship. A successful revolt happened with LIV....so successful that it forced the PGA Tour to surrender.

guffguy89 posted...

Nothing deeply unfortunate about it. The PGA Tour thought they had a monopoly on the game so they treated their players like it was a dictatorship. A successful revolt happened with LIV....so successful that it forced the PGA Tour to surrender.

It's deeply unfortunate in that you've replaced one dictatorship with a worse one.

guffguy89 posted...

Nothing deeply unfortunate about it. The PGA Tour thought they had a monopoly on the game so they treated their players like it was a dictatorship. A successful revolt happened with LIV....so successful that it forced the PGA Tour to surrender.

It's true - when I think of heroic revolutionaries I think of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

And now the PGA has a monopoly again, but this time a significant part of its funding is the Saudi government.

Ok, I suppose that is unfortunate when you put it that way. It all could have been avoided though if things had just been handled differently from the start.

Maniac64 posted...

And now the PGA has a monopoly again, but this time a significant part of its funding is the Saudi government.

It seems more like PIF now has the monopoly, if anything

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

None of the players actually playing for LIV were happy about it

Lol i cant believe anyone would eat this up.

bababooey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuGpOk6Rh9k

https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1666272021263572992

Woof

Yeah I mean the stance everyone involved has always taken in this is "It's about the golf so that makes it okay. The saudis want to grow golf and we can't help any of that other stuff."

UltimaterializerX posted...

Genuine question whats the statute of limitations on international incidents like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor? How long before people try to patch things up and work together?

Maybe if the Saudi government showed any indication that they wanted to change their behavior

Which I don't expect to happen under the current leadership

Emeraldegg posted...

Yeah I mean the stance everyone involved has always taken in this is "It's about the golf so that makes it okay. The saudis want to grow golf and we can't help any of that other stuff."

everyone involved in the LIV you mean?

So Phil comes out as the freedom fighter against the PGA by siding with the Saudis.

Sucks for Masuyama and Rory but greed trumps all.

Saudis have already made big moves in sports Europeans care about like Football, Golf and F1.

If they took a genuine interest in taking over American sports, would NBA/NFL/MLB owners say no to 10, 15 or 20bn USD offers?

voltch posted...

So Phil comes out as the freedom fighter against the PGA by siding with the Saudis.

Sucks for Masuyama and Rory but greed trumps all.

Saudis have already made big moves in sports Europeans care about like Football, Golf and F1.

If they took a genuine interest in taking over American sports, would NBA/NFL/MLB owners say no to 10, 15 or 20bn USD offers?

Well nfl is worth about 143bn

And the Saudis' have trillions.

It's definitely concerning, but I don't think it will happen.

Right but the Commanders are going for "only" 6 or 7b.

Saudis can outbid that p comfortably for a few teams.

Qatar hadn't even bought PSG yet and had the World Cup in the bag.

If Saudis gave a shit about American sports, there would already be a Saudi owned team imo

Golf is a rich persons sport so I'm sure to stupidly rich people there is value in having a level of control over it beyond the inherent profitability of ownership of a major sport.

voltch posted...

Right but the Commanders are going for "only" 6 or 7b.

Saudis can outbid that p comfortably for a few teams.

Qatar hadn't even bought PSG yet and had the World Cup in the bag.

Didn't the group that buy the Commanders have some Saudi backing?

UltimaterializerX posted...

Genuine question whats the statute of limitations on international incidents like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor? How long before people try to patch things up and work together?

For major atrocities like this I think the rule of thumb is something like, until no one is still alive who actually remembers it happening.

Of course there are potential mitigating factors that can come into play, the offending party actually owning up to the act and making a genuine attempt to make amends goes a long way

Saudi owning stuff won't be ok until Saudi are ok, and they aren't even close to that. They likely won't be in our lifetimes.

Also during this whole thing PIF had acted like they were a branch of the state, while their ownership of Newcastle is dependent on them not being a branch of the state ( https://tlblog.org/pga-v-liv-golf-discovery-immunity-and-pif-the-saudi-arabian-sovereign-wealth-fund/ ). The whole thing is beyond insulting.

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/37845835/pga-tour-jay-monahan-says-congress-left-pga-tour-our-own
Blame the government