Thursday, April 22, 2021

These Guys Are... Impactful

A crazy week has thrown our blogging schedule asunder, so let's start to pick up the pieces.  Today I'll focus on one story, a unique window in The Global Home.  Tomorrow I'll blog the rest of the golf news, though you'll have to do without the typical Weekend Wrap on Monday.  

Ulster-born Eamon Lnch has been much in evidence in recent times, even doing the talking head thing on Golf Channel.  On Tuesday he broke a story that has consumed the golf world since:

Exclusive: PGA Tour to create $40 million bonus pool for stars like Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau

Of course they did, because those guys are notoriously underpaid.... But, exactly what kind of fund are we discussing?

The PGA Tour has created a lucrative bonus structure that will reward golf’s biggest stars regardless of how they perform on the course, Golfweek has learned. The new system is designed to compensate players who are judged to drive fan and sponsor engagement, like Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau and Rickie Fowler.

Known as the Player Impact Program, the concept is seen as a direct response to Premier Golf League, a proposed splinter tour funded by the Saudi Arabian regime that has tried to lure golf’s biggest names with the promise of a massive guaranteed pay day. PGL has spent years trying to gain traction but seems no closer to signing a sufficient number of elite players to be viable. The stuttering PGL effort nevertheless forced the PGA Tour to devise a means to reward stars for the value they add to the overall product rather than solely for their on-course performance.

A PGA Tour spokesperson confirmed to Golfweek that the Player Impact Program began January 1 to “recognize and reward players who positively move the needle.” At the end of the year, a pool of $40 million will be distributed among 10 players, with the player deemed most valuable receiving $8 million.

Regardless of how they perform on the course?  OK, I can certainly see how Rickie would be a fan...

So, how will this work?  You might want to refill that cup of coffee, because this could take a while:

The 10 beneficiaries will be determined based on their “Impact Score,” a number generated from six separate metrics that are designed to quantify that individual’s added value. According to a document the PGA Tour distributed to players, the contents of which were shared with Golfweek, the metrics on which players will be ranked against their peers include:

 (1) Their position on the season-ending FedEx Cup points list.

*Update: While FedEx Cup rank was included among criterion in the document players received, the tour tells Golfweek that it will not be used as a metric to determine bonus payments.

 (2) Their popularity in Google Search.

(3) Their Nielsen Brand Exposure rating, which places a value on the exposure a player delivers to sponsors though the minutes they are featured on broadcasts.

(4) Their Q Rating, which measures the familiarity and appeal of a player’s brand.

(5) Their MVP Index rating, which calibrates the value of the engagement a player drives across social and digital channels.

(6) Their Meltwater Mentions, or the frequency with which a player generates coverage across a range of media platforms.

Your eye will naturally attach to alliterative awesomeness of  Meltwater Mentions, which we'll get back to in a sec.

But savor for a moment, if you will the schadenfreudalicious putdown of former Tour golden child FedEx.  They only fund the biggest portion of the Tour's operations, but they're treated as shabbily as their run-of-the-mill sponsors, which only confirms that the check has cleared..  Not only are they dissed by exclusion from the final metrics, but the initial inclusion publicly emphasizes the disdain for FedEx Cup rankings... And really, who could argue with that?

Lots of reactions, first from that original Lynch piece:

“Tiger should be No. 1 on that list no matter what,” Koepka told Golfweek when asked about the new bonus plan. “He’s the entire reason we’re able to play for so much money, the entire reason this sport is as popular as it is, and the reason most of us are playing. Not even close.”

The entire reason?  Golfers apparently didn't get paid before Tiger...

More importantly, according to ESPN, Tiger's career earnings are $120,851,706, so is that insufficient?  And that doesn't include Nike, Bridgestone or Monster Mash, or whatever the name of that swill is.  This picture was included in the Lynch story, so I assume it was Tiger's reaction to learning about this bonus pool:

Good call to inform him on a Sunday...

We'll sample a range of reactions, though don't expect logic in the presentation order.  Here's Shack in his original post on the news:

Now, we’ve heard rumors of the “impact fund” to fend off players thinking of joining the Premier Golf League and a little extra bonus money for pimping product, sponsors or ad campaigns isn’t the end of the world.

But the $40 million program outlined by Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch and also creatively undercut in the same piece, seems like an odd solution to the issues raised by the PGL. Namely: none of this will make stars play more, deal with calendar oversaturation, or improve “the product” for sponsors, fans and TV. (Unless you come from a marketing mindset looking at spreadsheets instead of watching golf.)

Wait, you thought the players' interest in the PGL was about the team competition?  The only thing about the teams that excited say, Phil, was that he thought he was going to own his team...

 No, this is a very targeted response by Jay to an existential threat, real or perceived.  And very much about the Benjamins...

Next up, Shack did a Winners and Losers post, including this scene setter:

Politics had Watergate and Whitewater. Now golf has Meltwater. You know, for that marketing metric you’d never heard of until now and still can’t believe a brand tracker put melt in the title.

Lynch’s reporting may end up permanently branding the Monahan era as nothing more than a marketing operation offended it has to be associated with golf.

Winners

—FedExCup/WhateverTheyCallTheWyndhamRewards Now. You both look so cool now as almost-legitimate points races requiring players to play golf and perform for cash. It’s all so

sportsy and above-board compared to the “PIP”. Still, not interesting at all, but definitely merit-based.

—The Premier Golf League. You sought to make the rich richer AND make pro golf more interesting to watch. Nice contrast to relying on Meltwater Mentions and a company founded by el padre de Jordan Spieth. Plus, nothing you did failed as miserably as the Super League.

—Bots. Think of the prices they can charge players in pursuit of PIP Top 10 money? “So if you finish 8th it’s a $3 million bonus? Okay, at that price we can do 800k searches that’ll set off alarm bells at The Google. Spell your last name again? Is it R-E-E-D like the things in the swamp, or R-E-A-D like a book?”

—PGA Tour Coffers. A new $65 million Global Home. Kicking in millions in purse money each week during the pandemic as revenues decline? Then spending more than all of that combined on the new TPC Sawgrass entrance drive? I guess what’s another $40 million for ten special franchise-worthy guys who never cause any headaches? Take that rainy day fund, fellow non-profits!

—The One VP Muttering To Himself. “I told them the social media mavericks would mock the Meltwater Method!”

Feel better?  Wait'll you get a gander at the losers...

Losers

—Fans. This is what the PGA Tour brass came up with as a response to the PGL’s existential threat? This is what they’ve been spending time on to make players likable and get them to play more? Oh, and betting.

—Jay Monahan. This is what you came up with as a response to the PGL’s existential threat?

—FedExCup. You were included in the initial draft obtained by Golfweek, but a correction later in the day revealed you were dropped as the PIP success barometer came into focus. So all that money you pay and still not good enough for the Player Impact Program?

—Sponsors. The PGA Tour creates a bonus pool to reward stars but the reporting suggests sponsor-relations took a back seat to metrics. Players get points for Meltwater Mentions but not for showing up at the Pro-Am party and remembering the CEO’s name?

—Media Partners. A bonus pool without a single mention of outreach to big rights-paying TV partners or something rewarding a star for playing more often? This is how they use your rights money? To pay for Phil’s Jupiter home theater system and backyard coffee bar?

—Rory McIlroy. So that new Policy Board seat, does that earn you PIP Rewards? Because we know you’ll surely abstain from any votes on its future status or the bonuses of folks who devised a way to pay you for that shiny Q rating.

—Jordan Spieth. I’m sure Tour peers have no opinions about your vote on this matter and the invocation of your sire’s “MVPIndex”.

—Almost stars. Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay barely know about the program, suggesting the pool was directed at a very select group. Sounds like the PIP futures are bleak for these ones. That’s okay, we writers like you both for being good quotes and different dudes.

—Agents. I don’t know how the ten-percenters structure their deals these days, but I can’t imagine many had a clause for something as bizarre as the Player Impact Program. But if the client would like the office interns to spend all day Google searching “Billy Horschel Players Championship Food Drive”, the client will need to pay the appropriate commission.

—The 50 PGA Tour Employees Laid Off During The Pandemic. If you accounted for $5 million in salary I’d be surprised. That’s like third place money in this pool no one was supposed to know about. Those lame pandemic layoffs get even lamer.

 —The PGL. They see you as a threat and can’t even rip-off one of your many smart ideas.

—Athleticism. Not one metric rewards players for bicep size, how fast they run the 40, their bench press max, or even ESPN Body Issue appearances. Sad.

A little overdone, but it is quite the target-rich environment.  Combined with their embrace of gambling, the sad conclusion is that the PGA Tour doesn't much care about the golf any more.  That's just a delivery system for the riches from DraftKings and Meltweather...  

Now I hope you've read that original piece from Eamon Lynch in full by this point.  Both Geoff and I sensed an underlying skepticism in that reporting, but in a follow up piece Eamon goes full state media:

On social media (always a reliable indicator of the broader world), a remarkable number of golf fans who usually genuflect at the altar of Adam Smith were apoplectic at the idea of wealthy players receiving money for such nebulous reasons, dollars that could be used to benefit the greater good, whether boosting purses in the minor leagues, rehiring Tour employees laid off during the pandemic or otherwise growing the game. In short, anything except further swelling Rickie Fowler’s already tumescent bank account.

Who knew it was so easy to convert the “up-by-the-bootstraps” brigade into Bernie bros?

Ummm...Eamon, did the grape Kool-Aid go down well?  Socialism is best understood as a protection racket for the elites, and this very much comports with that primary function.  Heretofore, the protection previously manifested itself in the allocation of playing privileges.  Now it's more of a direct deposit model...

For all its charitable endeavors, the PGA Tour is a business and businesses everywhere incentivize those individuals deemed to deliver value. That value isn’t always easy to define and
often harder to quantify. Much of the head-scratching about the Impact Fund centers on the metrics used to determine a player’s impact, a waggish assortment of measurements that achieve what any child in a schoolyard can do with the point of a finger: identify the cool kids people want to hang with.

Given the scale of the Tour’s new TV rights deal, $40 million is a small sum. There is ample left to boost purses in the minor leagues, underwrite the European Tour and otherwise gild the lily.

Wow, logic clearly isn't his thing.  The comparison to normal businesses is amusing, because there managers do have difficulty measuring performance and understanding its linkage to profitability.  Of course, the PGA Tour has a money list and used to be a meritocracy....

The logic used to be a limited, meritocratic approach.  The Tour runs the tourneys and the guys are compensated based on their individual results.  There have always been those with higher Q-scores, but the Tour never felt obligate to reward Arnie for his social media activity...  Why is that?  He got compensated for that through a combination of endorsement deals, appearance fees at non-Tour events and other business opportunities that would come their way.

But let's take a hard look at the gist of Eamon's argument:

Whatever criticisms are aimed at the Player Impact Program, it incentivizes players to engage more with fans, media and sponsors. That might be an awkward exercise for those ill-equipped for socialization, but it’s a worthy goal.

Ya got that?  These are amongst the luckiest souls on the planet, playing for seven-figure purses every week.  Yet they need to be further incentivized to engage with those paying the freight?  I don't know, I'd be inclined to throw less money at them if that's really the case.... 

Here some inconvenient facts need to be noted, including this from Shack:

Let’s just say as a nice way of not suggesting someone else runs their accounts, a lot of people have their passwords. Several of them have publicly made clear they have no use for the same engagement stuff the pool supposedly rewards. We’ve even had high profile resignations from social media in this group when the engagement grew to be too much.

Though, now that I think of it, I'm concerned that Justine Reed won't be eligible...

In fact, this might be the most frightening aspect in this story:

A PGA Tour spokesperson said that as part of the program the Tour is providing extra resources to help all players manage their social media and branding, including charitable foundations, and to maximize their off-the-course business opportunities.

Which means that they expect to control the content.  So, we'll have thousands more tweets like this:

And this gem:

Think I was joking about the Tour controlling content?  In another context, we had this update of the Hank Haney litigation yesterday:

Haney’s contention that the Tour interfered with his contract stems at least partly from a call from Tour commissioner Jay Monahan to Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM president and chief content officer, the day after the incident.

Monahan told Greenstein that Haney’s comments were “completely unacceptable, indefensible.” In his testimony Greenstein said Monahan “was clearly upset” but that he “did not threaten Greenstein.”

The Tour also argued in its motion for summary judgement that the circuit has a “supervisory interest” in SiriusXM as a result of the license agreement between the two organizations and that “programming was required to be agreed upon by the parties in advance of distribution.”

That's how Jay reacts when the LPGA is involved....  Of course, it might be that he was more motivated to settle a grudge on behalf of Tiger.... Yanno, that guy with the off-the-charts Meltlather Mentions.

Jay seems to be forgetting that social media and the like tends to be generational.  There are exceptions, as Phil has built some SM chops, but left out are the actual social media stars on Tour.  Shall we see what they're saying?

And this guy:

One more:

No soup for you, Wesley.

They will be promoting and rewarding state controlled social media engagement, and we know how enjoyable that will be.  They will do so using vague and unauditable metrics, so Jay can ensure that the money goes where he wants it to.  The bonus pool goes ten deep, so Nos. 11 through infinity will be screaming... What's not to like?

Kyle Porter at CBS has seven reasons to support the move, though it's curious salesmanship at best:

2. This was the right move

I agreed with No Laying Up on Tuesday that this is an easy thing to mock -- because anytime you get SEO scientists involved with a sport that was originally predicated on whether the sheep would clear the field, mockery is going to flow. However, I also agreed with them that this was the right move for the Tour. It was actually the only move for the Tour, and probably one that is several years behind where it should have been. The Tour's hand has been forced in a lot of different ways over the last year, and this was a reasonable (and possibly even somewhat cheap) outcome.

3. It's also going to be a mess

Anytime language like "calibrates the value of the engagement a player drives across social and digital channels and the frequency with which a player generates coverage across a range of media platforms" is used to distribute money within any organization, there is going to some manipulation of the system. It seems unlikely that this manipulation will severely affect the intent of the program itself, but there will be some truly incredible moments over the next few years.

We're supposed to like it because the manipulation of results likely won't affect the intent?  I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, but I sure know that it's bat guano crazy.

This isn't working for me either:

4. Response to ESL, not PGL

There was a lot of chatter this week about the Premier Golf League and about how this was another bucket of water on those fading embers. That might be true -- it's probably true -- but because of the timing of this, it actually felt more related to what's going on with soccer's European Super League fissure. If you missed it, the top clubs in Europe tried to break away to form a 20-team super league. It did not go well. To oversimplify it, the clubs probably overplayed their hand instead of just leveraging their position for more resources from their current leagues as well as UEFA and FIFA. This news of the Player Impact Program was the Tour's way of getting out in front of the top players leaving to form their own super league in golf. There are a thousand parallels here, but the best golfers are also the smartest ones, and they will see both how the Tour responded and how badly the European Super League has gone for Manchester United, AC Milan, Arsenal and other European clubs.

Isn't this the same logic that got us Olympic golf?  Who cares what soccer does...  This is Jay protecting his sinecure, but why should we root for that.  In fact, why should we care if the PGA Tour monopoly is broken up?   

Like Geoff, I find it an amazingly off-key view of their business and its participants.  As I noted above, it's all marketing driven, a distraction from, as opposed to an enhancement of, the underlying competitions.  It all makes me pine for those more innocent days of Nurse Ratched....

The one thing golf had going for it was a primal, eat-what-you-kill ecosystem.  What gets rewarded gets repeated, and Kubla Jay wants to reward hack social media engagement.  It can't be anything with an edge, just check with Hank Haney if you have any doubts, and rigid conformity to social justice will be required.  Media partners will be forced to comply, which will render broadcasts even more unwatchable....

They are headed towards the seemingly impossible, turning your humble blogger off golf.  But it's all for a great cause, making Tiger and Rickie richer.

See you tomorrow with the rest of the news from the golf world.

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