You can see these on YouTube already.
Agreed.
Agreed, it’s just tough to do because there’s a competitive imbalance.
@sweetsummerchild
Morally questionable oil money already owns the biggest and best soccer clubs on earth. Manchester City can buy any and every player they want, win domestic and European trophies and all the good press that goes with it.
CW is right. This ends with oil money owning NFL/NBA/MLB teams. And there’s nothing the consumer can do about it besides turning it off. Seems far fetched that the same people that overlook the CTE / pissing your pants and forgetting your children’s’ names before blowing your brains out consequences of football will suddenly find a morality out now.
It is all so fucking depressing.
This is a slam dunk antitrust violation, btw, but I don’t expect that to matter.
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LIV is less than worthless, brand has massively negative value. Should have just shut it down and then bought the PGA Tour separately.
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That’s debatably what happened. LIV didn’t buy the PGA Tour, PIF did. Technically they “invested” in it, but we all know what’s going on. LIV technically still exists but almost certainly won’t in a year or two, at least not in its current form. There will likely be a handful of team events, remains to be seen how those teams are formed and how it’s branded.
When Merrick Garland is your only hope…
I do think there’s a small non-zero chance of some kind of breakaway tour. I’m guessing Rory and Tiger are discussing it, but Tiger mainly cares about preserving his legacy in all this, and his legacy is tied to the PGA Tour.
For the golf history buffs, you’ll recall there was a time when being a professional golfer was seen as shady or sleazy, and the guys more respected were the top amateurs. I almost wonder if Rory somewhat disappears from pro golf for a while. Like, imagine going through what he went through and now you’re just supposed to go play for Saudi blood money in the same events you’ve been playing? While Phil makes snarky Tweets about what a chump you are, and douchebags who root for Bryson yell shit at you on every hole?
The Tour stars have been noticeably silent.
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That’s… basically what happened.
Mt guess is Rory and Tiger could still get a bag of money and ownership of an LIV franchise if they’re willing to publicly come out in favor of the move. I doubt they will, but somewhere they have to have a business advisor telling them “It’s inevitable at this point anyway. Grab your piece while you can”
I imagine in some cases it’s because they’re fucking furious and pursuing options, in others because they realize silently going along is in their own best interest. I think the only two who can actually do anything about this other than negotiate for a payout and go along are Tiger and Rory. Mainly because they already have the net worth where they can take the financial risk to threaten a breakout tour and go for it.
Tiger is worth a blilion+ and Rory is probably worth about half that. Maybe they can get Phil Knight involved and recruit a few other multi-billionaire backers and start a breakout Tour? Or fight a coup d’etat against Monahan and blow this deal up in favor of an injection of capital from those backers into the PGA Tour that keeps Saudi money out?
For sure they could and at this point, I’m not sure I’d blame them. They fought the good fight and capitalism is unbeatable in 2023. But if they have the stones to go for it, God bless them and I hope they win.
If tiger cared about money at this point he would have gone to LIV - but he’s gonna do what’s best for Tiger, which is not necessarily the correct or moral thing always
you know the worst part about this is all the twitter chodes who are now like “TOTAL VINDICATION!!!” at LIV’s “success” here but none of these people even watch golf or LIV, and I know that by the fact that almost NO one watched LIV!
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I suspect that Rory will continue to show up at the places where he can make a couple million bucks a weekend (same as everyone else).
Could have never guessed this guy turned out to be a massive psycho who secretly sold everyone out and skipped town.
https://twitter.com/BrendanPorath/status/1666442151234883585
“Whether you like it or not, the PIF are going to keep spending money in golf. At least the PGA Tour now controls how that money is spent, you know? So if you’re thinking about one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world, would you rather have them as a partner or an enemy? At the end of the day money talks and you’d rather have them as a partner.”
https://twitter.com/SkySportsNews/status/1666445349165096961
Rory is going to put it all down to a technicality. He is okay with the blood money flowing into the professional golf system as long as the PGA Tour has control over how it is spent and what the end goals of the Tour are.
That’s a technicality that in theory makes some sense but in reality we all know the PIF isn’t pumping billions of dollars into pro golf just to improve the game of golf and grow the game, they want access and sportswashing and future opportunities.
I can’t blame him at this point, though. He took a principled stand, passed on half a billion dollars, got absolutely rolled by the people he was supposedly fighting with and realized that money is everything in this world.
He’ll probably get a bag, not as big as the guys who paved the way here, but something to make him feel a little less used in it all.
Soccer but belongs here too for the fact that Messi is better than all of the PGA, given he turned down a $1 Billion offer to play in the Saudi league.
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How is he not prepared for this question!
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