Another day of light, low-impact blogging.... Just a few odd notes on LIV and a shout-out over an inspired venue choice.
LIV Your Best Life - Still amused that the reveal of the Framework Agreement is being classified as a leak. The significance is that a leak is presumably something they don't want us to see, whereas this falls into that other category, that which they want us to see but faux-begrudgingly.....
Sean Zak had this helpful primer, though he comes across as quite credulous:
7 things we learned from leaked PGA Tour-Saudi PIF agreement
Not least with his summary of key details:
1. One through-line of the document, as previously reported by GOLF.com, are clauses that ensure power for the PGA Tour. The PIF is making an investment and bringing its golf assets to the table — one of which is LIV — but the PGA Tour will maintain voting control of the NewCo board. Additional investment from the PIF — and/or actions under its right of refusal on new capital raised — will not increase its presence beyond a non-controlling voting interest.
Through-line? Isn't it cute when golf writers apply golf terminology to other contexts and, well, four-putt?
There's no question that they have a document that says those things, though Sean seems to have missed that the entire document is non-binding.... Mostly, though, he seems to buy the premise that, because there are certain words in a document, that those arrangements are sacrosanct.
Then they hide behind...checking notes, science:
2. LIV Golf’s future, as well as that of team golf, is unclear. It’s not dead, but it’s certainly not guaranteed to survive, either. When PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan repeatedly mentioned an “empirical evaluation” would take place on the prospects of LIV Golf, he was simply quoting the agreement:“NewCo will be provided access to all information requested to facilitate this evaluation and assessment … so that the NewCo Board, with recommendation of its [CEO] Jay Monahan, will determine the ongoing plan and strategy regarding all NewCo operations…”
My sense is that folks are over-invested in this detail, though the parties are likely buying themselves some time before committing on this one. But to me one just needs to understand that DJ and Brooksie will have a place to play in 2024, and that will either be LIV or back on the PGA Tour. The latter might sound like a bridge too far, though all it requires is that the Saudis write a check for the benefit of all those lads that stayed behind....Then all those principled objections will dissipate just as quickly as Jay's concerns about the source of the money....
There was a certain confab Tuesday in Detroit:
Sports Illustrated reports a “person familiar with the discussion” revealed that the entire 10-person PGA Tour Policy Board met in person in Detroit to discuss details of the deal, including McIlroy and fellow players Patrick Cantlay, Webb Simpson, Charley Hoffman and Peter Malnati. Jay Monahan was not present, but in his place were “Chief of Operations Tyler Dennis and Chief Operating Officer Ron Price, who are leading the Tour in Monahan’s absence.”
That header is a bit of a howler, given that the meeting was just of the Policy Board. But that's more than a minor quibble, because people keep talking about player approval, misunderstand that all Jay needs is Policy Board approval.
One assumes that those five outsiders are all loyalists, though I don't know whether he needs any kind of supermajority. Look at those five players and consider where they sit on the Tour food chain.... The first two listed easily fit into that terrific penis mode, clearly they are among the elite that executed that coup back in Delaware. Rory will have his defenders, though he seems to me well along the road to welcoming his new Wahabi masters.
The next two names are more interesting, both featuring diminishing performance that should, in theory, render them sympathetic to the needs of the Rabbit Class, but with longstanding ties to the elite players and Tour management. Hard to know how they'll react, but Malnati is the only guy on that five-person list that is any kind of outsider, but it looks to me like he'll be shouted down pretty easily.
Following the meeting, the PGA Tour released a statement saying the focus of Tuesday’s meeting was to begin “a new phase of negotiations to determine if the Tour can reach a definitive agreement that is in the best of interests of our players, fans, sponsors, partners, and the game overall.”“If future negotiations lead to a proposed agreement, it would need approval by the Tour’s Policy Board, which includes Player Directors. In the meantime, we are all committed to the safeguards in the Framework Agreement that ensure the PGA Tour would lead and maintain control of this potential new commercial entity. We are confident that the Tour’s mission will continue to focus on showcasing the game of golf while serving local communities.”
This Golf Digest piece goes even further on the note:
he PGA Tour’s policy board issued a statement Tuesday night following a players meeting in Detroit regarding the proposed deal between the tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, signaling a “new phase” of negotiations have begun while indicating the deal may ultimately not come to fruition.
That seems a significant change of tone. I assume the key bit is above, that they're doubling down on the assurances that the Tour will maintain control regardless of future Saudi funding..... I keep waiting for them to offer to sell me some swampland as part of this great deal....
Geoff had some reactions over at The Quad, though I think he buries the lede here:
The funny-if-it-weren’t-so-absurd “framework” agreement between the PGA Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia made its way to multiple media outlets, with The Athletic first revealing the May 30th agreement.Besides the horrifying signatures and the repeated use of His Excellency to describe Yasir Al Rumayyan—new chairman of non-major championship professional golf—two elements stood out.
“The Parties will cooperate in good faith and use best efforts to secure OWGR recognition for LIV events and players under OWGR's criteria for considering LIV's pending application.”
For a framework light on details, they still found time to include specific language about the world rankings. Notably missing was boilerplate stuff about working with the governing bodies or the major championship organizers or, don’t laugh, within the Rules of Golf for those perhaps looking to detect competition-squelching tendencies. Instead, there was a “best efforts” priority to get LIV players earning those points ASAP.Perhaps the language was designed to quiet LIV defector anxiety about their future, but the rankings issue ultimately speaks to the greater importance of the majors over the week-to-week “product” these two sides will put together.
That actually makes sense to me. At best they have some profound timing uncertainty, especially as relates to the Justice Department antitrust review of the final agreement. Given that the final agreement isn't close to existing (not sure the impact of the PGA Commish being on walkabout), one assumes that this matter can't be resolved this year, which leads back to my point above. DJ will be playing in 2024, I just think they've got too many moving parts currently to know where.
Phil actually gave an interview in conjunction with the LIV event at Valderrama, in which he had quite the amusing appeal to authority:
Still, the tour essentially now controls LIV’s future, raising the question if there is a future forLIV. But in Mickelson’s estimation, those writing LIV’s obituary are premature, pointing to similar criticisms at LIV over the past two years."Everything over the last couple of years that we've been told by Greg and everybody on LIV has come to fruition, so we have a lot of confidence in what they have been saying to us," Mickelson said. "We don't really feel the need to publicly posture our position. There's really no need for us to talk about things publicly but to just let it play out."
Except that I'm old enough to remember when Greg told you that the PGA Tour couldn't suspend the players..... As good a howler as that is, Joel Beall might have outdone him with that first sentence, given that, in the absence of a signed agreement, the tour certainly can't assert control of LIV. After an agreement is signed? Well, then they can assert that they have control, though we're not required to believe them.
Phil, like other LIVsters, is being coy on this issue:
So when it comes to going back to the tour, Mickelson wanted no part of the question."Rather than saying yes or no, I know that from a player experience, all of the difficulties and challenges and things that take a lot of excessive energy and output throughout the week have been fixed at LIV," Mickelson said. "So the player experience here is incredible. I just can't envision a better scenario for me as a player than playing out here on LIV."
Of course, Grayson Murray will be livid when he sees that this guy gets parachuted into those big money events:
Mickelson, 53, enters this week ranked 39th in LIV’s individual standings.
That's out of 48.....
Matt Stoller is not previously known to your humble blogger, but has some expertise in antitrust matters. You'll want to read this post for sure:
The merger or alliance between the PGA Tour and the Saudi's LIV Golf is comically illegal, and it will not happen in its current form. Something about this deal smells off.
Not just illegal, but comically so.....
There's a lot here to mull, not least this:
If you read the antitrust complaint filed against the PGA Tour last year, it seems pretty clear that the PGA Tour has been a problematic organizer of golf. “Members of the Tour receive a substantially lower percentage of the Tour’s revenues than professional athletes in other major sports,” players argued. When LIV began challenging the PGA Tour, it “threatened lifetime bans on players who play in even a single LIV Golf event” and “threatened sponsors, vendors, and agents to coerce players to abandon opportunities to play in LIV Golf events.” As Ted Tatos wrote, this is consistent with the history of competition in sports leagues, where rivalry pushes up compensation for players, and consolidation does the opposite.
Much of that is quite obviously true, although courts both in the U.S. have upheld the Tours' right to enforce its rules against its members. It's hard to see where, absent those rules and remedies, you'd have much of a tour at all....
But this NY Times excerpt is a good reminder for us all:
The Saudis think they're winning..... Shouldn't that give us pause?
This is an interesting premise, but misses an important point:
But I’m just baffled. There is no way this merger happens in its current form, as it’s obviously creating an illegal monopoly. There is a lot of grey area in antitrust law, but when two companies want to merge to a monopoly, and announce it as such, that’s a violation of black letter law. In fact, this deal is so wildly and comically against the law that I actually don’t think it is intended to close. If I had to guess, I would say it’s a desperate move by the Saudis to keep their dirty laundry out of an American courtroom in a separate but related case. Indeed, the more I look into it, the more baffled I become.
Yeah, they have reason to avoid discovery, but all that requires them to do is to abandon that antitrust case....
I agree with him here, although I think he's overstating the importance:
For that, I’ll go to the head of the PGA Tour, Jay Monahan, who said that this merger is good for his organization because it allows them to “take the competitor off the board.” When a corporate leader publicly says the point of a merger is to monopolize a market, I can only imagine what’s in the private emails. Antitrust scholar Herb Hovenkamp, who is generally monopoly friendly, said this merger would be problematic in at least three markets: (1) live attendance, (2) TV broadcast rights and advertising, and (3) golfer compensation and terms. Given that LIV Golf and the PGA Tour have been bidding aggressively for the services of golfers, it seems pretty obvious that this deal will monopolize at least one of those markets.
On the one hand, a stupid thing to say... But, on the other hand, what else was he going to say?
This is an amusing tangent:
Former White House competition chief Tim Wu, for instance, tweeted that “While many facts missing, more I look more I doubt the proposed PGA Tour - LIV merger will survive serious antitrust scrutiny, not to mention potential CFIUS review.” Libertarian antitrust lawyer Josh Wright mocked the combination, saying, “Friends don’t let friends merge or contract, combine, or conspire with rivals without antitrust counsel.” He also pointed out that “there is a lot here that is unusual.”And Kostya Medvedovsky, who coined the term ‘hipster antitrust,’ was in disbelief. “I am a bit confused how they could have plausibly done this without antitrust counsel, given they're currently in antitrust dispute/investigation? Feels a bit too incredible.” Senator Richard Blumenthal has already asked for the DOJ to intervene.Katie Van Dyck, an antitrust lawyer and colleague at my organization, made a couple of relevant points, noting that “this deal is one of the most brazen mergers to monopoly in recent history.” Van Dyck also pointed out that it’s not just the Department of Justice with jurisdiction, but the U.K. and European Union enforcers. Unless Congress grants an antitrust exemption, as it did for the merger of the AFL and NFL football leagues in 1966, this deal is just crazy.
But only a tangent....
The bigger problem with Stollers post is his rousing coda:
By ending the antitrust fight between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, Saudi PIF emails will remain private. It’s true that there will be a merger challenge, so bad emails could come out if they bring this merger to a trial. But a more likely path is that the DOJ investigates the PGA Tour-LIV deal, the Saudis drop their merger attempt before a trial, and LIV Golf shuts down. There could be some sort of Saudi investment in the PGA Tour later. Meanwhile, everyone gets the headlines now, which obscures the reality that the Saudis don’t want emails made public, and they can blame the Antitrust Division for the collapse of LIV Golf.
There's much to ponder and I agree that the antitrust review is a potential serious hurdle, but the premise in the 'graph above is just not credible. Look again at that Times header above, they think this is a win (and I agree with them) and will do everything to get it done.
I think Stoller misses a couple of key bits. First, and this is a place I'm on less solid ground, but sports and antitrust is quite the awkward fit, as Stoller implicitly demonstrates with his references to the NFL-AFL merger (and funny that the USFL antitrust action doesn't come up). Sports leagues are and almost have to be monopolies, and perhaps a reminder that monopolies themselves aren't illegal in and of themselves, it's only the use of such monopoly power to drive out a competitor.
An associated issue is the involvement of the Saudis.... Not only are they a highly unsympathetic party, but the underpinnings of antitrust law are the allocation of monopoly profits among the parties. The application of that in the context of sportswashing is just a bewildering concept, whereby the entire ecosystem is flooded with money to burnish a human rights record might be something we've not seen before.
Lastly, Stoller hints at this in his penultimate 'graph, but this deal will hit in the middle of an election cycle in the U.S., and there it could get quite interesting. I'll remind that the Justice Department decided last year to open an antitrust investigation of the PGA Tour, the only explanation for which I can see is Biden's appeal to the Kingdom to pump more oil. Why that investigation continued after MBS told Sleepy Joe to pound sand doesn't fit into that very well, but is it so hard to imagine that a sitting President would be sensitive to gas prices as part of his reelection campaign? Can we imagine Merrick Garland's Justice Department doing what Joe needs done? Yeah, that was a rhetorical question....
Many interesting days ahead....
Venue News - The venues selected for team competitions is Dickensian, presenting us with the best of times, as well as the worst. The Ryder Cup might be the worst offender, with the Euros selling it to the highest bidder (Hello, Marco Simone). The best of the bunch has been the Walker Cup, which was last seen at Seminole and whose next two installments will be at the Old Course and Cypress Point. Lest you think the former is same old-same old, I'll remind you that you've likely never seen a match play event on the old girl, and that there is not a golf course on the planet better designed for match play than that one.
The Presidents Cup has a mixed record.... For every Royal Melbourne they force us to endure a liberty National. But this we like:
Royal Melbourne has enjoyed the honor three times.Now, a famous neighbor will get its turn.The PGA Tour announced Monday that the 2028 Presidents Cup will be held at Kingston Heath, a celebrated course, less than 20 miles south of Royal Melbourne, in the golf-rich Australian Sandbelt.Ranked 22nd on GOLF Magazine’s list of Top 100 Courses in the World, Kingston Heath is no stranger to headline competitions. A seven-time host of the Australian Open, it has also staged the Australian Masters and the Women’s Australian Open. In 2016, it welcomed the World Cup of Golf. Gary Player, Greg Norman, Tiger Woods, Karrie Webb and Adam Scott are among the notable champions who have won on the course.“The Sandbelt region is home to some of the game’s most iconic venues, and Kingston Heath has proven to be a world-class host for a number of golf’s biggest tournaments,” Matt Rapp, PGA Tour senior vice president of championship management said in a statement, noting that the Presidents Cup would “further cement the history and future of this event in the great city of Melbourne.”
It's not one of his designs, though the Good Doctor did make one house call:
Built in 1925, Kingston Heath was designed by Des Soutar but also bears the imprint of Royal Melbourne architect Alister MacKenzie, who reworked the bunkering as part of his effort, a few years after the course first opened for play. Among its many strengths, Kingston Heath is regarded as a masterpiece of routing, and is revered for the artistry its designers teased from a relatively small and flat site.
Given the era, you'll understand that MacKenzie only made it to Australia the one time, but this will prove a great venue. Of course, we have to survive a return visit to Medinah in the interim, so perhaps plan to be out of the country for that one.
Proposed Penalties - Just a giggle before we go, as The Loop staff at Golf Digest try to amuse us with proposed penalties for the LIVsters returning to the fold. Comedy is hard, especially when we all know by now that there won't be any penalties, just boatloads of cash to make the guys that stayed feel respected.
But this one reminds of the guy that must not be mentioned:
+ LIV lockers decorated with framed photos of Greg Norman's ESPN Body Issue shoot. These will be bolted down to prevent removal.
Hey Ladies! The first photos are out from Greg Norman's ESPN 'Body Issue' shoot and here they are.
— Mr Topes Golf (@MrTopesGolf) June 23, 2018
photo credit Robert Lusetich pic.twitter.com/vGeekPsdAF
Hey, we haven't featured the Shitless Shark for quite some time. More importantly, has anyone seen Norman since June 6th? I keep checking my milk cartons....
That's it for this installment. Tomorrow smells like a day of leisure, but who knows what might propel your humble blogger to the keyboard....
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