Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Midweek Musings - Bob Hope Edition

The event formerly know as the Hope kicks off in the Palm Springs area tomorrow.  Ironically an event for which I've had little, well, hope, it seems to have somehow garnered a respectable field.  Of course, now comes the hard part, they need to actually be in the mix on the weekend, not that anyone will be watching.

Dispatches From Planet LIV - All sorts of news to come, but first a characteristic Eamon Lynch defenestration, in which he cryptically sets the scene:

Positives aren’t plentiful in Greg Norman’s world these days, unless you count the commensurate savings in Kool-Aid orders every time another of his hapless executives bolts for the exit. The LIV
Golf schedule remains incomplete just weeks ahead of its start, no new star player signings have materialized, and the offseason brought none of the promised trading frenzy between teams. And those aren’t even the most pressing issues that imperil LIV’s long-term viability.

More acute difficulties include: the failure to sign enough quality players; the failure to attract corporate sponsors; the failure to garner fan support that isn’t manufactured in a bot farm; the failure to retain senior executives, three of whom have unceremoniously quit; and the crippling failure to secure a broadcast deal, which has reduced LIV to discussing paying The CW to air its events after even Fox Sports passed.

It demands a particularly potent Kool-Aid to recast all of that as something other than humiliating.

He's not wrong, although there's news on one of these fronts, embarrassing yet a box will be checked, but I would just wave a caution flag on the larger issue of player signings.  We're in a fallow period for LIV, and therefore the absence of evidence may, in fact, not be evidence of absence....  Say you're a PGA Tour player looking to jump in time for that late February event at Mayakoba.... is there any reason not to go to Kapalua and cash a few more of Jay's checks? 

I get the sense that those who want to go have already done so, but I just think we need to wait until then to be sure.  Unless, Jon and Patrick would like to clarify for us....  Excluding Mito, of course.

But Eamon has other aspects on his mind:

For those minded to think beyond the confines of golf, another risk to LIV — perhaps its most formidable — is playing out in a Northern District of California courtroom. That’s where LIV filed an antitrust suit against the PGA Tour and where the Tour countersued. The proceedings have detoured into an intriguing cul-de-sac as the Tour seeks to compel discovery from the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which is bankrolling LIV, and the Fund’s governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

The Tour argues that LIV is owned by the Saudi fund and that Al-Rumayyan is the league’s ultimate authority, making discovery from those parties key to its case. The Saudis have been frantically trying to evade any discovery. The Fund is claiming foreign sovereign immunity as an organ of the Saudi state, while Al-Rumayyan submitted to the court an affidavit saying that he would be exposed to a possible 20-year prison term under Saudi law if he were to disclose classified information. Somewhere Salma al-Shehab is crying him a river. She’s the Saudi student given a 34-year sentence in August for tweets critical of Al-Rumayyan’s pals in the regime.

Twenty years?  I'd be awfully disappointed if it weren't a public beheading, but isn't this why we have discovery?  Eamon has an expert telling him what he wants to hear:

The PIF arguments are piffle. Having directed LIV to file an antitrust suit—initially through 11 patsy players before later joining the litigation itself—the Saudis now claim they’re not subject to the jurisdiction of the very courts whose protection they sought. As noted by Professor Jodi Balsam of Brooklyn Law School, there is a “commercial activities” exception to sovereign immunity claims that grants the court authority based on the Fund’s control of LIV. That control is indisputable: in a January 13 hearing it was revealed that the Fund owns 93 percent of LIV and pays 100 percent of the costs associated with its events, rendering laughable any defense that it’s a mere bystander to the antitrust litigation.

Since LIV requested an expedited court process and promised Saudi co-operation, it’s likely the judge will compel discovery from Al-Rumayyan and his Fund, a ruling that would have unappetizing implications for LIV players who might hope to avoid having their affairs spreadeagled for lawyers. The court may also draw negative inferences from a Saudi refusal to comply — potentially ruinous for LIV’s antitrust lawsuit. But co-operating with discovery — even if the court sets strict parameters — is a considerably worse option for the Fund and Al-Rumayyan.

Your humble blogger certainly hopes that to be true, but I'd also remind you that we're talking the infamous Ninth Circuit here, so I don't understand the relevance of the law.  The next time they faithfully apply the law to a decisions will also be, checking notes, the first.  The more relevant consideration is how does this make them feel?

Eamon is here making an issue that has much bene on my own mind:

The Public Investment Fund — which is ultimately controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — invested $2 billion in a private equity company owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, over the objections of its own advisors. The LIV project was thought inviable by the Fund’s consultants, McKinsey and Company, yet another couple of billion dollars has been torched there. If the Saudi fund is making investments that are economically irrational, discovery might unearth motives that are grounded not in profit nor sportswashing, but in politics.

The concept of antitrust law inevitably is organized around profits.  To wit, an illegal monopolist would be deemed to have garnered profits that a competitor might have seized for themselves if not for said monopolistic behavior.  In this case, the PGA Tour's position is somewhat complicated, but LIV's position is quite bizarre.  As I've long said, if you're paying Phil Mickelson $200 million to play golf into his mid-50's, I've no clue what your game is, but I'm pretty sure we can safely exclude making a profit from consideration.

 Here's Eamon's rousing coda, which i think only hits at LIV's bigger issues:

The extent to which Al-Rumayyan and his Fund co-operate with the proceedings in California’s Northern District will have an enormous impact on LIV’s lawsuit against the PGA Tour. The degree to which they fear scrutiny could have a decisive impact on LIV’s entire existence. Judge Beth Labson Freeman set a trial date of January 2024 for the antitrust case. It was always a wildly optimistic schedule, but the delay tactics of the Saudis — and their determination not to have the dealings of their wealth fund made public — raise the question of just what will be left to litigate one year from now.

It's certainly true that discovery disputes could seriously delay that trial schedule.  But complicated antitrust lawsuits are measured in decades so, having been stiffed on injunctive relief, it's never seemed likely that such a suit could realize results in the timeframe they need.  Their alliance with Trump is in this regard quite ironic, given that USFL vs. NFL seems to most apt comparison available.  Has anyone ever asked Trump how he spent that $1 in damages?

But I promised news:

LIV Golf finally (!) has a TV partner

The exclamation point is a lovely touch, but is "partner" the right word?  You make the call:

The upstart league is nearing a TV rights contract with the CW, sources told GOLF, granting
media rights for LIV’s second season to the network with one of the country’s youngest viewing audiences.

Details of the agreement have not yet been announced, but one person with knowledge of the matter indicated that LIV will be on the paying end of the transaction. Such an agreement would mark a switch from the traditional business of sports television, in which a broadcaster pays a fee to a sports league for the rights to its live events and handles most of the advertising on its own.

Do we typically call those that cash our checks "partners"?  If so, that means Phil  and Greg are partners with MBS, that scary mofo.

This 'graph is just precious:

Networks will spend close to $16 billion on the rights to the five major professional sports and golf in 2023, but the proposed structure of this agreement makes it unlikely that LIV will receive a comparable financial windfall from the CW to the PGA Tour’s broadcast agreements (which net some $600 million for the Tour annually), even if the agreement allows the league to earn a portion of advertising revenues. Still, the bottom line likely matters very little to LIV, which has acknowledged in recent months the importance of a true broadcast partner to its long-term efforts.

So, $16 billion large on offer, but no soup for LIV!  Although, to be fair, the single funniest bit is that "Five major sports plus golf".  has anyone told the Saudis that no one watches golf?  The reader can insert their own McKinsey joke here...

The author had this tweet of note:

Yup, chase those millennials.... They're paying for carriage because their offering has been deemed by all networks to have insufficient value to pay for the rights.   here's more on the CW:

In the CW, LIV finds what it hoped for all along in a broadcast partner: a national TV network (the 21st-most-watched in the U.S. in 2021 by average primetime viewership) with a young audience and schedule flexibility. The agreement will bring the league’s 14 events to some 100 million U.S. homes in 2023, a massive potential audience as LIV seeks to further entrench its legitimacy in the golf world.

What legitimacy is being furthered?  But Mr. Colgan confuses the availability of a program in a home to having anyone watching....

There is this one additional bit of weirdness relating to Tour media partners, the significance of which I haver nothing to offer:

One particular ripple of the agreement is sure to raise some eyebrows at PGA Tour headquarters: two current PGA Tour broadcast partners, Warner Media (Discovery) and Paramount (CBS), own minority stakes in the CW. The two media giants — and longtime former CW owners — retained 12.5 percent stakes in the company as part of the sale to Nexstar. It was not immediately clear if either company could see their ownership situation affected by a potential LIV agreement.

Awkward.  As matters now stand, do we think the Mayakoba event will garner a measurable Nielsen rating?  If I were a betting man, I would take the under.

Harry Higgs recently bemoane4d the Tour's loss of it's a*****es, but this item, which comes with as spit-take warning, might just have Harry reconsidering:

Patrick Reed's attorney demands on-air apology from CNN's Jake Tapper, Bob Costas; threatens $450M lawsuit

Like your humble blogger, I assume your first reaction is, why so little?  

This is as effed up as you might expect, and who doesn't relish another opportunity to bash PReed, although the linkage here is quite tenuous:

During a segment on CNN last week, studio host Jake Tapper chatted with longtime announcer and reporter Bob Costas about the court battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. A letter from Larry Klayman, the attorney representing Reed, is demanding an on-air apology from the duo for what it calls a “highly defamatory piece.”

If not, Klayman’s letter says his group reserves the right “to sue Tapper, Costas and CNN pursuant to Florida Statute 770.01 for damages well in excess of $450,000,000 dollars which includes compensatory, actual, special and punitive damages.”

It should be noted that the piece didn’t include a mention of Reed, who has fallen down to No. 80 on the Official World Golf Ranking since moving to LIV Golf.

Pray tell, Golfweek, why do you then have Reed in your header and in the accompanying photo?  Because you can....

Netflix Nation - None of us know quite what to expect from Full Swing, though Sean Zak takes an interesting.....well, swing at it:

Which only begs the point that they are in cookie-cutter mode, trying to recreate their success in Formula 1 racing in both tennis and golf, which should disabuse us of the notion that they see something special in golf.

 Sean sees four aspects of interest, so let's see what we think of it all:

The minutia

Every major sports broadcast has progressed over decades, but these days, only minor changes take place in how sports are presented. There are fixed cameras, broadcasters stuck in specific positions. There’s only so much you can see. But “Break Point” shows there are more cameras to be used — like the sky cam above tennis courts — more space to roam about, and tighter, granular details to pay attention to.

I’m talking about the arc of a slicing tennis ball from one corner of the court to another, at net level. The pained faces of family members when defeat is imminent. The ball halting to a stop on a drop shot. Hell, even the slow churn of the retractable roof is entertaining as it ushers itself in the way of the sun.

“Break Point” captures so much of it in slow motion, which only brings heightened respect for the athletes and awareness of everything playing out in full speed on our televisions. We’re going to get a lot of slo-mo in “Full Swing.” Player reactions, fan reactions, a Scottie Scheffler bunker shot at 240 frames per second. The sexy shots, if you will, make binging a pleasant experience. This is sports as art.

Yowzer, Sean actually thinks these are selling points.  Perhaps so, but only for those that a CBS golf broadcast is too fast-paced.  I think both of those guys will love the Netflix series.

The background

For a long time, only players were allowed in PGA Tour locker rooms. Perhaps a journalist could talk with them after rounds were complete, but for the most part locker rooms were sacrosanct.
Caddies weren’t even allowed access until just recently. “Full Swing” is going to show just how interesting locker rooms are (or are not!).

One of the delicious scenes of “Break Point” takes place in a private area outside a locker room at the French Open. Casper Ruud waits to be introduced in the final while Rafa Nadal lurks in the background like the boss character of a video game. Nadal whips around the room in a frenzy to stay warm. Ruud stays put, perhaps nervously, occasionally watching Nadal’s movements.

When the PGA Tour released a video from the Sunday of the Canadian Open of Tony Finau, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy moving around each other in the locker room, it was widely praised as the kind of content and access golf fans want to see more of. “Full Swing” is bound to share plenty of that. Netflix shared a screen grab of Scheffler in the workout trailer during Tour Championship week. A quick clip from the trailer showed Ian Poulter launching something at a wooden locker. We might find that what goes on in these areas is more boring than we previously thought. We also might find that’s exactly where the nerves kick in. The lonely calm before the raucous storm of contention.

Of course, with Harry Higgs and Joel Dahmen disrobing on the 18th green in Phoenix, what does a camera in the locker room add?

More importantly, they've captured a moment of gladiatorial tension before the two guys join the battle, though golf is far less confrontational.  I'm skeptical that our golfers will provide a similar level of dramas, but the who knows?  Though Netflix can't be happy with this morning's header from Down Under:

Defending champion Rafael Nadal ousted from Australian Open

He's injured, but still....

See if you think this makes you more likely to tune in:

Don’t expect thorough play-by-play

One necessary aspect of shows like these is time spent on character development. You may know everything there is to know about Scheffler, but viewers new to the scene only know him as That Guy Who Won the Masters. Box to Box has to tell people who is on screen as if they’ve never seen them before. And with a limited number of episodes, there’s only so much time they can spend on, say, the third game of the fourth set in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.

“Break Point” focuses tightly on specific players in each episode, like Nick Kyrgios in the first. They spent time in Kyrgios’ childhood home, walking through his bedroom as his mother surveys his broken rackets from past tantrums. In golf, that’s going to be great fodder for understanding the players who don’t share everything in press conferences. We’re going to get an introduction into the deeply analytical habits of Matthew Fitzpatrick. And while we relish in the craziness that was Sahith Theegala contending at the Phoenix Open, it will take plenty of time to explain his rise to that moment. The payoff of both is a better understanding of what’s going on in their heads directly before and after triumph and failure, and how it affects their families, who were filmed by producers throughout.

All of that is to say there are unlimited angles to capture these sports from, and a lot of those angles just result in players making putts or winning points and fist-pumping. These shows are about people first and then the action that defines them. Trust the producers to deliver the good stuff that mattered around the stuff we already know.

Isn't this about 60% of a CBS broadcast?  

One last bit:

The parents, the WAGS, the children

The people behind the people take on an important role in “Break Point.” We watch as Kyrgios and his best mate break down what it was like early in Kyrgios’ playing career as he battled mental health struggles and abused alcohol and drugs. We listen in as Taylor Fritz questions where he’d be without his girlfriend, and then get choked up reliving his win at his home tournament in front of his father.

The PGA Tour version of that, until now, is mostly just wives and girlfriends running onto the 18th green after a tournament finishes. With “Full Swing,” we’ll better understand the bedrock relationships that keep the best golfers in the world sane. And the people who keep them pushing. Or the people they crash back in to, mentally broken after a brutal loss.

We’re going to find out if Alayna Finau is as cool as she seems on Instagram. We might get Brooks Koepka’s parents talking about raising their four-time major-winning son. It might include Joel Dahmen’s thoughts on impending fatherhood and a glimpse of his caddie, Geno Bonnallie, when he’s back at home on dad duty. All of it adds depth to the people we watch play this silly sport so well. Sign us all the way up.

Let's see, the WAGs are paraded at the Ryder and Prez Cups and the families are further exposed at the PNC, so what new ground is being broken?

I'll stipulate that Tony and Alayna Finau are likely very nice people raising a wonderful family.  But are they interesting?  I guess we're gonna find out....

A Cold Open - these are allegedly good times for the LPGA, including a depth of young talent and a joint event with the men in the Fall.  But their season has opened amid controversy, including this:

Some top LPGA players skipping season-opening Tournament of Champions are now subject to $25K fine

It's the tour that can't shoot straight:

A couple of top-tier LPGA players are subject to a $25,000 fine for skipping this year’s Hilton
Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. The LPGA’s 1-in-4 requirement stipulates that players in the top 80 of the CME points list compete in a domestic event once every four years.

Both Minjee Lee and Jin Young Ko have been absent from the TOC field in recent years and would need to compete in 2023 to avoid penalty. Tommy Tangtiphaiboontana, VP of tour operations for the LPGA, said that both players have the right to appeal, and the decision would go to the commissioner. Ko had signed up for the event but withdrew.

This year’s season-opening TOC is on an island on the 2023 schedule, with a full month off before the second event of the season in Thailand. For players like Ko and Lee, it’s much easier to take more time to rest and prepare for the upcoming season near home before starting the Asian swing.

 A long discussion of the applicable rules that you'll not care about, but these apparent rules-breakers are not the only ladies MIA:

Lee and Ko aren’t the only players skipping this year, though other top players have competed in recent editions. The field will be missing World No. 1 Lydia Ko, who has been on her honeymoon. Ko also happens to have a house at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club, where the tournament is hosted.

In Gee Chun won’t be there. In fact, seven of the top 10 players in the Rolex Rankings won’t be in Orlando this week. Atthaya Thitikul, last year’s Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year, didn’t sign up. Neither did No. 9 Hyo Joo Kim.

Lexi Thompson, currently No. 6, didn’t qualify for the event as she hasn’t won on the LPGA since 2019.

What a mess.  Though, and I'm quite sure this is misogynistic, perhaps we have an explanation:

There’s no locker room for players here at the LPGA’s season-opener, an event designed to celebrate those who have hoisted trophies over the past two years. Don’t be surprised to see players at the Hilton Grand Vacation Tournament of Champions changing their shoes in the parking lot.

Lake Nona Golf and Country Club has a men’s locker room that would’ve been more than suitable for the 29 players in the field. LPGA players can use the bathrooms and showers in the women’s facility, but there’s no place for them to store anything while they’re on the course. That area is also not private.

I'm sorry, but Annika and Lydia own homes there.... How can there be no women's locker room?

But that will allow more time for these great athletes to hone their craft, right?

Castren was as shocked about the locker room situation as she was about the player fact sheet that came out on Jan. 14, laying out restrictions for when players had access to practice facilities at Nona. In the memo, players were informed that they “may not use the practice facilities more than one hour prior to their practice tee times. Use of the practice facilities is not available unless playing a practice round.”

M-I-C-K-E-Y......you know the rest.  It's Orlando, so if the ears fit...  But I was under the impression that the ladies have a commissioner and isn't this, yanno, her job?

If you read further, and I'm not quite sure why you would, apparently that practice limitation may have only applied to last Sunday, though even there it is curious in the extreme.  But, if you'll recall that dust-up with CME, the title sponsor of their season-ending event, this will catch your eye:

An LPGA official confirmed that Marcoux Samaan was unaware of either situation prior to Tuesday.

There seems no shortage of important matters about which Marcoux Samaan is unaware.

Folks, that's it for today.  We'll have more as the week unfolds.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)