Thursday, October 10, 2024

Midweek Musings - Back In The Saddle Edition

So, how do we do this blogging thing?  Gonna work my way back in with some open browser tabs and see where it all goes...

Scenes From The Auld Grey Toon - Much ado about nothing, from Monday's Tour Confidential panel:

There were some curious pairings at last week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, as PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Rory McIlroy all saw time playing together during the first three rounds. We’ll take a guess and say pairings like this don’t happen by chance. What do you make of them? And does it give you any clues about the state of golf’s current merger?

James Colgan: It was the continuation of a unifying theory I first learned as a local club caddie almost a decade ago: Golf is a powerful social lubricant. It would benefit these dudes to share some
common turf every few weeks for the sake of golf, and a pro-am is one (high-profile) way to do so. It means nothing — nothing — for the pace of the merger. But that’s okay.

Josh Sens: It’s optics. No more, no less. Zero impact on the merger itself. On the other hand, imagine how it would look if they all showed up at the same high-profile pro-am and didn’t spend time together on the course? There was really no other choice.

Dylan Dethier: Those photos don’t lie: these are men who know it’s in each of their best interests to be in business together. Also, this appearance represents something of a victory for Al-Rumayyan, who seems to have achieved full assimilation at one of golf’s highest-profile parties just a couple years after his LIV startup ripped a hole in the middle of pro golf. Something is coming. Very slowly.

Optics, eh?  The reader should feel free to insert their own tree-in-the-forest analogy: 

As Ian Faith predicted, golf's appeal is becoming increasingly selective....  And given the ongoing efforts to turn the PGA Tour into LIV, I'm confident they can drive those ratings even lower.

Whose role is most important in dealings like this? Rory McIlroy as a middleman? Al-Rumayyan as the man with leverage? Or Monahan as the commissioner who’s under pressure to bring the sport together?

Rory?  Man, just about spit out my coffee at that one....

Colgan: It’s definitely not Rory, who is, it should be remembered, a golfer and not an expert in
M&A. The pressure on Monahan to keep his Tour and golf afloat is tremendous, but secretly, so is the pressure on Al-Rumayyan, whose hopes of Saudi legitimacy in golf still very much remain in question.

Sens: Ultimately, it’s about money, so in that sense, Al-Rumayyan has the most sway. But Rory has an interesting role as a former Tour hardliner who now stands as the game’s highest-profile globalist, inclined toward striking conciliatory tones. You can throw all the money you want at a product, but in the end, you need interesting performers to make the show work. And Rory is the game’s most powerful figure in that regard who is still competitively relevant.

Dethier: Jay and Yasir need each other for their respective organizations to realize long-term success, but there are also short-term incentives for them to be at war. Rory is crucially important as a high-profile peacemaker who can bridge that gap ASAP. But that doesn’t mean everybody on both sides will like it.

 Monahan has been neutered, so the real answer is undoubtedly Cantlay.  

Both sides have weak hands, but we're missing one critical piece of data, to wit, the PGA Tour's burn rate.  How long does that $1.5 billion large last?

So, what was the point?  There really wasn't much of one:

Indeed, something of a huddle developed, one joined at various times by Horschel, Rory McIlroy and various others eager to say hello.

“We didn’t talk about what’s going on in the game,” shrugged McIlroy, who opened with a three-under 69. “We talked about Newcastle United [the Saudi-owned English Premier League soccer club]. We talked about some of the other stuff Yasir owns. It was all very cordial. Other than that, I obviously didn’t see much of what was going on in the group ahead, but it’s not as if we don’t all know each other. We’ve been doing this dance for a couple of years now. I’m not sure we can take much from today. They were behaving like golfers, which is what we are here to do. Who knows? I keep saying time will tell. And there’s only so many ways I can answer the same question.”

Though I did like this image:

So what exactly was being said between the two main protagonists in their many private moments must remain something of a mystery. Neither had anything to say publicly at the conclusion of their rounds. Monahan turned down a request from the waiting media. And Yasir? One look at the grim-faced henchmen in the golf cart following H.E (His Excellency) was enough to discourage even the bravest journalist.

Still, Johann Rupert, the billionaire businessman whose “toy” this tournament is, did offer some background as to how Monahan and H.E. conveniently found their way into the 9 a.m. group on Carnoustie’s 10th tee. Long a proponent of a Neville Chamberlain like “peace for our time” accord, the South African owned up to being half of the duo behind the pairing.

Remind me, how did Chamberlain's efforts work out?  More importantly, how would H.E. feel about that Neville call-out?  Because the genocidal dictator that was appeased in no way resembles the Saudi monarchy....

A couple of other notes from the Dunhill, a great event that no one actually watches (great because of the venues).  Here's one guy channeling his inner humble blogger:


"Yeah, I don't think they are going to decide the future of golf in five hours around Carnoustie," Fitzpatrick said. "I know Carnoustie is pretty bloody hard. Not much time for talking.

"I think in terms of bringing the game together this week, I'm past the point of caring. I just don't care. Me saying things to the PGA Tour board, me saying things to the DP World Tour board, it's not going to change, so why am I going to waste my time talking about it."

 You and me both.

This was the other amusing bit, from a Scot no less:

Robert MacIntyre is the best Scottish golfer in the world, but he’s not a fan of one of the game’s most famous holes in his home country.

MacIntyre tied for 25th at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on Sunday at St. Andrews, but he could’ve placed higher if not for stumbling in both weekend rounds at the Road Hole, the par-4 17th. He made a double on Saturday and then had a bogey on Sunday, after which he had plenty to say about the hole.

“Blow it up,” he grumbled. “I don’t think there are many worse holes in world of golf. It needs to be a hole you are able to hit a golf shot into and not one where you just hit it onto the green and try to get up and down.”

Tell us how you feel, Bobby Mac.

You know how these things go.  Cue the walkback in 3, 2, 1:


I'll take a moment o of my all-encompassing hatred for all these guys, and suggest we give Bobby Mac a warning for his intemperance.  We do actually want these guys to care, so a little frustration is to be expected, and perhaps even encouraged.  But while in detention, we should require him to write an essay on the architectural merit of the hole, just so it should be a learning experience.

On That Cup - We've all solved the existential issues of the Prez Cup, confident that the solution is, checking notes, Lydia Ko.  I've expended some pixels to note that the SSG investment might be an impediment, but Eamon Lynch has his own personal fever dream:

Lynch: The PGA Tour’s best fix for the Presidents Cup? Sell the International team and get out of the way

Sell it to whom?  Yasir?

If nothing else, Eamon's ledes always amuse, this being no exception:

Some storylines recycle through golf’s ecosystem with the dreary predictability of a Patrick Reed lawsuit filing. The now annual Tiger Woods comeback is one, with attendant speculation about whether a man more compromised than, well, a Patrick Reed lawsuit, can actually win again. Rory McIlroy’s yearly tilt at the Masters is too, invariably followed with commentary about pressure and perspective (neither of which is induced by a Patrick Reed lawsuit). Another tried-and-true narrative has been making the rounds again this week: What can be done to salvage the Presidents Cup?

That's so unfair, as it's been hours since the last frivolous Patrick Read lawsuit....

Debates over how to address the imbalance can be as animated as the actual matches. Suggestions include reducing the number of points contested to accommodate the lack of depth on the International bench (that has already been tried, going from 34 points to 30 in ’15); shortening the duration (from four days to three); changing the format (by making it a co-ed event with top women golfers); and binning it entirely.

One potential change that hasn’t gotten due consideration is this: ownership.

The Presidents Cup belongs to the PGA Tour. It was created in the waning hours of Deane Beman’s tenure as commissioner and first staged under his successor, Tim Finchem, who was eager to mooch whatever revenue he could from the enthusiasm around team golf generated by the Ryder Cup. The Tour decides who captains both teams, who is eligible to play on both teams, and where the competition will take place. Golfers who defected to LIV — like Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann and Abraham Ancer — are ineligible, making what was a tough task nigh on impossible for the International team, though to be fair they were waxed with even more impressive line-ups before LIV.

Which only highlights how weak the Tour is, not controlling any of the actual events about which golf fans care.  

I love columns like this, but let's not pretend it's remotely feasible, as this excerpt confirms:

Last year, the ex-player and now board member of PGA Tour Enterprises, Joe Ogilvie, sent his fellow Tour members a letter outlining the impact of accepting private investment, which happened months later. He listed a number of assets the Tour owned and mused on their worth and growth potential. He included the Presidents Cup and mentioned it again in a subsequent appearance on Golf Today. The event, Ogilvie seemed to be suggesting, had unrealized value. Which raises a delicate question: In whose hands?

But, Eamon, where do we think that $12 billion valuation came from, and does the model work if you give away half of it?  I know he's talking of selling it, but the key word is unrealized value, so how much could they get and. more importantly, from whom?

He does even consider that guy as a buyer:

Perhaps the Strategic Sports Group chaps have run the numbers to arrive at a valuation of the Presidents Cup’s International component, but it’s surely nine figures and with better potential for long-term returns than any nine-figure LIV contract that expires after a few years. So who could buy it?

The most obvious candidate — and least appealing for those concerned with mundanities like human rights — is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. But there are plenty of alternatives who are invested in golf and who preach a gospel of global growth.

One such man, South African billionaire Johann Rupert, is hosting the Dunhill Links Championship in St. Andrews this week. There’s Pawan Munjal, CEO of Hero MotoCorp and a familiar figure to fans through his relationship with Woods. Or Mexican tycoon Ricardo Salinas, who brought a WGC tournament to his homeland. Perhaps Abdullah Al Naboodah, an Emerati investor deeply involved with the DP World Tour, or Korean industrialist Jin Roy Ryu, who underwrote the ’15 Cup in Seoul. Heck, even Chinese-Thai businessman Chanchai Ruayrungruag, a colorful eccentric who purchased Wentworth Golf Club a decade ago and proceeded to oust many of its members. (I once attended an evening at which he elbowed China’s premier opera soprano aside on a Beijing stage so he could sing himself, the sound of which surely had every cat owner within earshot wondering if their pet was being garroted.)

What a hot mess we've created, though it seems strange to carve the various Asian and Down Under tours out of the process, no?

Not gonna happen, but I still think this doesn't address competitiveness, leaving the ladies as the more logical strategic move.

On Ratings -  Via Geoff, the latest from Sports Business Journal's Josh Carpenter:

Digging into the numbers, the tour averaged 2.2 million viewers for its Sunday telecasts (no majors) in 2024, a drop of 19% from 2.7 million in 2023. With majors included, that Sunday number in 2024 jumps to 2.8 million. On Saturdays, the tour earned 1.5 million viewers, down 17% from 1.8 million last year.

On NBC, the tour averaged just more than 2 million viewers for all tour events (no streaming included), down 5% from last year’s weekend rounds on NBC (which did not include the playoffs, as those were on CBS in 2023).

On Sunday only, NBC in 2024 drew 2.35 million, down 2% from 2023. Removing the three FedEx Cup Playoffs events from NBC’s average this year, that average goes to 1.98 million, which would be 6% lower compared to last year on NBC.

Hemingway, in a quote often attributed to Mark Twain, described the process by which companies go bankrupt as "Gradually, then suddenly".  I'm not sure which applies to a 19% loss of viewers....

But Geoff has me flummoxed with what comes next (he is as well):

According to Nielsen, when implementing big data, the tour’s weekend broadcast coverage in 2023 would see a 17% increase. In 2024, those numbers jump to a 20% increase, the spokesperson said, which would be among the largest for a major stick-and-ball sport.

I don't suppose anyone would care to tell us what the heck "big data" means?   Here's Geoff's musing:

This all seems a tad strange.

Let’s start with here: if Nielsen is so sure the current numbers are not up to snuff, why are they waiting to unveil the updated metrics?

And given how tiny golf streaming numbers are whenever overall viewing figures are released after Nielsen overnights, what is it they are purportedly tabulating to increase viewership so significantly?

Perhaps the new “big data” will include other elements beyond pure telecast streaming numbers like social media views and YouTube views?

We’ll see in 2025.

Even if the numbers go up 15-20%, the Tour’s reach via Golf Channel continues to deliver unfathomably low audience numbers as the Comcast-owned network bleeds homes and viewer loyalty. According to Carpenter, viewership for last weekend’s Sanderson Farms Championship (won by Kevin Yu) saw a Sunday audience of 136,000 (133K in 2023), while Saturday’s third round drew just 95,000 (115K in 2023). Those are incomprehensibly low viewership numbers even if they’re boosted by 20%.

More than a tad, I'd say.... I'm guessing that noise in the background is goalposts being moved.

That will have to satisfy you for today and this week.  I will likely see you next on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

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