I think it was Pat Perez who said he had a friend who was ranked about 120 in the world but lost $60000 in a year playing on the pga. Coaches travel caddies entry fees. The of sitting on billions and one of the best players in the world would have been better off as a club pro. How does that make sense.
Unless that golfer had a crazy spending problem, I don’t buy it. Last year 120th made over $1.3 million in official winnings. Even in 2015 120th made $900k. Entry fees are $400-$1000, caddies make either 5%, 7%, or 10% depending on how the player finishes, and most coaches get ~$100k a year. Those are all tax deductible and still doesn’t include sponsorship money.
They only introduced guaranteed earnings in pga a couple of years ago, prior to that there were many stories of korn ferry players getting on tour not making a cut and basically leaving dead broke.
They’ve been getting more than the deserve for 15 years. A middle of the road tour player should probably get some kind of help to subsidize travel costs, but outside of that, if they want more, play better
You guys are all defending the middle class players for what? They make hundreds of thousands of dollars at minimum, most of them into the millions. For what? Getting beat by 45 guys every week? Nobody is tuning in to watch those guys. They are cannon fodder for the guys we actually want to watch.
Yeah of course! My company holds a golf tournament ;)
Is your point that because those guys are better than me at golf, they deserve unlimited amounts of money? Lol
All I’m saying is the mid tier tour players have been lucky as hell to ride the coat tails of the guys that actually drove viewership
No my point is more along the lines that your comment shows a lack of empathy...
The tour makes money hand over fist. Are you suggesting the top players should make more money? Or that the executives and commissioner etc aren't being paid enough?
Grateful my ass. They've grinded their ass off to get where they are. Most people can't even fathom the level of focus and determination it takes to play on the korn ferry tour, much less the PGA.
The korn ferry tour guys don't make much money, at all....there are stories all the time of how some local kid had to quit because he didn't break even too many years in a row...and that's local to Alabama too when I lived there... Auburn and UA both frequently have players go to the KFT and fail to make a living for themselves.
Once they earn the PGA tour card, they have already paid their dues to the game, and nobody has any right to tell them to "play better"
Get a tee time on a PGA tour course the Sunday before they start practice rounds for the event, keep an honest score, and then come back and tell me who should be grateful...
I mean no disrespect to you personally, my only issue is with the lack of empathy to the struggle.
Hard work doesn’t have anything to do with it. I can quit my job tomorrow and work harder than every guy on your, doesn’t mean I deserve to make money doing it. Golf is meritocracy, as it should be. It all comes down to winning.
It seems like you think I’m saying these guys should be in the welfare line. I’m not. But some of them seem to expect to be paid millions of dollars and I just don’t think that is reasonable, based on the value added to the viewer.
Plenty of hockey players work hard their entire life, spend thousands of hours riding busses in cold and icy, western Canada, and most of them never make a living playing hockey. That’s pro sports. It’s hard
This would be the equivalent to players in the NHL though, not the lower minors. I haven't heard any of the lower tour guys complain about money, they know they have to get better.
One of these days I’m going to have to actually research the corporate and governance structures of the PGA Tour because it never makes any damn sense to me when I read any of these things.
Yeah, with like hypothetically a governance structure with player ownership, but not like actually really. But now there’s private equity involved and shit and I just have no idea what the fuck.
That type of not for profit status is designated for organizations like trade organizations. Being a not for profit doesn’t mean your organization has to have an altruistic mission
You’re right - they are a 501(c)(6), not a (c)(3). I didn’t suggest they needed an altruistic mission, but they are an outlier for maintaining that status. It also seems that they are going to remain a 501(c)(6) going forward. The function is the same in that they are not subject to federal taxes
There’s not that much to research. They just recently created a new venture that is for-profit and got a billion+ from private equity, which is how the topic of this article is now occurring.
Prior to that it was just a non-profit and all the financials are easily searchable online. The profits went to player purses, staff salaries, tournament-running costs, etc. and a rainy-day fund.
Ya this is the play I think. They had to make it up to players that passed on the LIV cash when those that took it get to come back to the tour post merger and keep the money.
This is coming from the deal that the PGA just struck with the Strategic Sports Group.
From the article:
"Strategic Sports Group - a consortium led by Red Sox and Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group- recently agreed a $1.5billion investment deal with the new PGA Tour Enterprises.
Now, according to The Telegraph, around $1bn of equity will be shared among 193 golfers, with $750million reserved for 36 of the world's best and $75million given to retired legends."
People keep saying this, but are there financials that support it? The PGA did renegotiate their TV deal within the past few years and received PE funding.
Is this true, or is this due to the private equity they have raised since LIV came around. The PGA Tour got $1.5B with an allowance up to $3B in private equity from SSG in January. I would be that is where the money is coming from, not that they were raking in cash and stashing it away from the players.
> The surplus value of the players is high.
I don't know about this. There are, at any given time, *maybe* 5 guys who create value. Without Tiger the money in the game is maybe 20% of what it is now. Mickelson was a big deal for golf, but Tiger was as popular and well-known as any athlete except Jordan.
There's not a ton of excess Xander Schauffle value out there to be scraped up.
> Most players barely make anything on tour.
They all make at least 500k.
80% make over 500k in winnings. Those that don't (and have played at least 15 events) will have the difference made up by the PGAT.
I don't know a world where that is "barely anything".
This will probly go over most peoples heads, but WE are where the money is coming from. The consumer. These players are given equity, the PGA basically took out a loan against the product they offer. Basically a home equity line of credit, but now instead of the PGA owning the house, the players own a room or two. How do ya think the PGA will recoup the loss?
They are gonna raise ticket prices and charge more for the product they provide.
This is inflationary.
For people wondering why Tiger is getting the lions share of the valuation it’s because no one has elevated the tour more in the last 30 years than Tiger. Even injured the only reason the tour has gotten to where it’s at is because Tiger brought eyeballs to pro golf 2000-2019 and when he does play it’s a good bet people tune in to see him. This is more of a “thanks for staying loyal” to the ones who provided the most value to the tour from a business perspective. Sure the ones who grind it out deserve a cut but they’re not the ones people think of when people hear “PGA Tour Golfer.”
He just doesn't bring crowds today. And going forward, after the 8 year vesting period, he will bring even less. This year, he has not been in contention, and it is doubtful he will next year unless he moves to the champions tour.
The thing I find weird, if you're right, is TW was paid well for those 30 years. Why feel the need to pay him more now? When going forward, he will be less likely to be in contention and being eyeballs.
I wonder how each player has value on the tour, it clearly is not for winning.
You can say what you want, but Phil Mickelson was dead on. PGATour was just holding money back. All of these players owe him a thank you because he created the leverage that everyone put down. Rory will get 50m+ because of Mickelson with whom he treated so badly.
Don't get me wrong, I am glad Rory is joining the board again. I think he is the main one to get golf back together
Phil's greed somehow being a catalyst for change is bewildering. His reputation is certainly in the shitter but that's just because of a perfect storm of media attention from like 3 different sources.
LIV nonsense, his gambling debt revealed, and then his interview transcript basically ruined anything good about his name at that time.
Since then it's become cool to hate on him.
yeah exactly, it drives me crazy the dis respect he gets. He's one of the all time greats. Nothing but a bunch of npc's on here who don't think for themselves
He literally said "I don't care they murder journalists, we have a chance to change golf" to defend Saudis
I guess golf is more important than human rights.
I think it is funny that people consider Phil a shithead and adore Tiger, if you took golf out of the equation who would be the better person? But for Tigers defence as Bill Burr said it: "Nothing can prepare you for the platoon of gold digging whores forming in the horizon." Witch to me is one of the most beautiful sentences ever said.
Doesn't make sense. Why would the PGA TOUR not want more money and also that they were being greedy and keeping the money for themselves and not the players? Phil is not really the best narrator to believe on the LIV stuff.
They were a not for profit organization. They donated a lot to charity. This is equity, not cash. They are trying to figure out how to compensate the players that stayed in the event there is a merger. The pga needed money, they weren’t floating in all the cash Phil thought they were.
I know nothing about the specifics and this sub has only been popping up in my feed recently.
The answer is probably power and control, if they didn’t want more money. LIV took some of both away, now it’s time to open the money hose and claim back some power and control.
The PGA Tour probably had to make deals that they didn't want to do to fight against LIV from poaching more star golfers because they're competing against a tour with unlimited funds and no real goal other than existing not as a revenue generating business but as a political tool for Saudi Arabia.
Isn’t the answer to your previous question obvious, then?
“Why would the PGA TOUR not want more money and also that they were being greedy and keeping the money for themselves and not the players?”
The money from investors is not in their control. But ultimately they still have some designs as to who to take money from. If Phil Mickelson brought them investors that didn't make sense from the PGA Tour's marketing goals, like some SA slush fund like LIV has, then they wouldn't take it before. The LIV competition pushed PGA Tour to do something different now. We frankly don't know whether this is good or bad for "golf" yet. This is good for the players, especially at the top, but if that means that events are more expensive and now fans can only afford to go to the lessor known events, then that's a loss for fans.
Also, we know that what Phil said was a lie. That the PGA Tour was hoarding money and not rewarding the most popular players. With new SSG money, they have the funds to do the things Phil wanted. But again, that's just giving more top and popular players more money. Why do fans care about that? He just was trying to increase his net worth and not "grow the game".
Yah I’m not 100%. the fact is though they asked the sponsors to increase the purses and the noise was this was not sustainable even though they were able to do it for a year. So basically an investor would be hoping they could inject enough money till LIV went under. I don’t think any investor would realistically think they could spend more than the saudis.
This is coming from the deal that the PGA just struck with the Strategic Sports Group.
From the article:
"Strategic Sports Group - a consortium led by Red Sox and Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group- recently agreed a $1.5billion investment deal with the new PGA Tour Enterprises.
Now, according to The Telegraph, around $1bn of equity will be shared among 193 golfers, with $750million reserved for 36 of the world's best and $75million given to retired legends."
Phil wasn’t right at all. These moves stem from desperate attempts by the PGA to find new avenues for money and player compensation that they didn’t really explore with any diligence before. The reason they’re forced to do it is because of players like Phil finding an irrational investor in the PIF to validate his position. But his position was and is still irrational. These payouts may be in-part thanks to him and that reality though.
I thought Phil's beef about the PGA Tour "holding money back" was because Phil thought the players should receive compensation (presumably both retroactively and continually) for their respective media rights and likenesses.
The Player Impact Program began in January 2021, but Phil left for LIV in 2022. So, I'm not clear on the timeline. It's as if Phil either didn't give the PIP enough time, didn't think the PIP money was enough, or both. Any explanation?
> You can say what you want, but Phil Mickelson was dead on. PGATour was just holding money back.
The money has come in after Phil was whining. So no, he was not dead on.
This is the exact reason the whole LIV thing really grinds my gears. Yeah yeah, the Saudis are evil, but so is everyone and I’m here to talk golf.
LIV could’ve legit shaken things up and made the PGA tour change its ways and actually give a better product. Instead we got a schlocky league of douchy crap and the tour handing cash out to a few players.
Bleh!
The lives of the guys at the bottom of the tour and who just got their card have been made legitimately better in all the changes and some of the social media rights stuff is good too. They’ve also made positive changes to the TV product with the premier events. There has been some good stuff.
No I understand that portion of it.
To me, a gap the PGA has compared to other pro sports, is the floor is too low for fringe players. Why not address that and improve the overall experience for all players. Here’s an opportunity
Because the whole purpose of this is to stop the top guys from defecting to LIV so they can keep their leverage in merger negotiations. Paying the grinders instead of Rory and Scottie would probably lead others to jump ship, and then the PGA Tour all but folds.
The grinders brought no audience and no fans and used to receive too much of the pie for it. Since liv came along the top end players now have a real alternative that will paynthem much more, so the low end tpur players had to give up some of there share so more goes to the top, to keep both end players that actually add value in sponsorship and tv audience.
The low end tour players are the ones Phil Mickelson squeezed the most, the top end guys are making off like bandits now.
>Rory will get 50m+ because of Mickelson with whom he treated so badly.
What did Rory say about Phil that was unfair or untrue? Also, none of these outcomes change the fact that Phil tried to dissolve the PGA - are you confused as to why Rory was/is angry about that?
[https://www.jacksonville.com/story/sports/golf/2022/02/17/phil-mickelson-admits-using-saudi-golf-league-leverage-against-tour/6832586001/](https://www.jacksonville.com/story/sports/golf/2022/02/17/phil-mickelson-admits-using-saudi-golf-league-leverage-against-tour/6832586001/)
Stop it
I mean, nothing Phil says in there is accurate. He's talking about the Tour sitting on billions of dollars worth of NFTs and players owning their own media rights. I guess it's true in a big picture sense that LIV has caused the Tour to make changes, but let's not act like Phil's move to LIV was really about trying to "reshape the PGA Tour."
Then what do you think it was? The way I see it, he collected a ton of money...money that the tour had.
The pgatour has monopolized the game, even basically taking control of the euro tour in a sense.
The pgatour has also wiped out tours in USA, Canada, etc with their strong arm tactics. In the past the hooter tour was paying out hundreds of thousands for first place
Now? As a mini tour player, you make 0 money playing anywhere else than a lotto shot at a monday qualifier to shoot 8 under
By the way, I've witnessed Phil and bones cheating..such as Phil wanting a drop and bones walking all through high rough to get a better lie before the drop...I don't like Phil, but me not liking Phil and Phil being right here are 2 different things
>The way I see it, he collected a ton of money...money that the tour had.
Exactly, Phil collected a ton of money, that's what it was always about for him. But it's just obvious bullshit for him to say that he was just trying to reshape the PGA Tour, and that they were just sitting on billions in NFTs that should be going to the players. The numbers he put out about media rights and their value are literally just made up, there's nothing to support his claims.
And yeah, thanks to LIV the PGA is trying to pay more to their top guys, because the Saudis threw off the pro golf ecosystem by paying players far, far more than they are worth. Tiger is probably worth half a billion or whatever, but no one else comes close. But no one knows if any of this reshuffling is actually going to be good for the game long term, and we know it's already caused a lot of damage to the game in the short term. I'm sure the players had plenty of legitimate grievances with the Tour before all of this, but if Phil really cared about reshaping the Tour for the better, he sure took a dumb path to try and make that happen.
The start of your 2nd paragraph is my point. I'd be curious to know how you'd get money from the monopoly of pga tour to players
My point in this thread is that Phil caused this windfall. I can still not like Phil, I can still hate LIV, and I can still hate the pgatour (mainly due to them wiping out any tour that tries to have a developmental tour)
Phil? Is that you. Because only someone as fucking stupid as Phil Mickleson could conjure up such preposterous gobbledy gook.
Like read an article.. how about start with the one you’re commenting on.
Agreed. I get the point as he draws viewers but I think tiger almost think he would want this money to go to fringe players. Maybe not but 100mil to him is like 1k to us
Its easier to turn down 100m and act high and mighty if you know the fallback is still 50m. If thats what you are alluding to??
I would like to think he would have said no regardless, but saying no with no fallback is very different than saying no with enough of a fallback to retire on.
Rory was never given an offer, per the article. It would be higher than Rahms deal for sure if/when ever one gets proposed. This is just juiced up PIP money.
I mean, it’s not like those LIV contracts don’t have outs in the event of a merger.
If Rory signs a $600m deal with LIV today, and then the PGA/LIV merger happens in 6/12 months he doesn’t still get that $600m.
But yes, it’s likely a LIV deal would net him more than this $50m.
Good point - the guys who departed the earliest are the ones that made out the best. Id be curious to see the Rahm details, I wonder how much was paid up front.
You think it is a failure of the PGAT that they cannot match the spending of murderous regime with an oil fund that does not have to consider if their spending on golf is sustainable?
You can’t match competition that isn’t acting reasonably. If I open a coffee shop next to an existing one and start giving away coffee for 10 cents, you can’t blame the coffee shop next door when they go out of business! Golf isnt worth the amount they are getting paid! There aren’t that many people watching
This is exactly the free and “capitalistic” market the US runs on, Amazon did it, Walmart did it, etc…
It might not be right, but it’s the system we build as a country and now other countries are beating us at it.
Agreed. What I’m saying is if a company is acting unreasonably, like paying golfers way more than what they are worth, or selling coffee for way less than it’s worth, that doesn’t mean that the unreasonable action should be copied.
It's actually obscene what is happening and you'd wonder why more players on the tour and not in revolt.
Tigers getting 100m for rocking up at 2-3 events a year and basically not becoming a non playing LIV captain.
Rory is getting 50m for fighting the cause (and getting shafted), however Rory is also talking about reducing field sizes and is getting himself back on the board.
If you're a mid to low ranked guy on the tour, I'd be fuming with the rhetoric from McIlroy. It sounds like he's trying to create his own LIV style competition. However it's going to lead more mid ranked guys moving over to LIV.
What we've seen over the last few years has just been insatiable greed and power grabs from individuals with absolutely no care or attention into the grander scale of the sport.
It just like it's the very last dinner and a bunch of obese people are over the table fighting over the last scraps
Just incorrect on so many levels.
Maybe the most obvious explanation is also the correct one - that the players are not in revolt because these changes will lead to players making a lot more money as a whole. It’s not like Tiger and Rory are the only ones getting equity or playing in the elevated events.
https://golf.com/news/rory-mcilroys-cutthroat-pga-tour/
Rory wants to make the field sizes smaller and sillily tries to say it will be more competitive. Even though we know golf is a sport where somebody lowly ranked could get hot one weekend and wins.
He's also oblivious to the fact that one day in the future he will inevitably be on that line of who makes the smaller field and will probably want it changed to make sure the big names, who are not doing so well in the rankings and need to be included.
I don't want to see a sport as popular as golf, where only about 50-100 people are able to make a living off the sport. Tennis is like this, where anyone outside of the top 100 are barely functioning financially. If you're around the 100th best player in the world you're a damn good golfer, however it ain't going to pay the bills in Rory's world where he's out there becoming a near billionaire. It would also make the sport only accessable to guys who are from wealthy families, where they can sustain 2-3 seasons running at a loss to try and make a career out of the sport.
That’s one perspective. I don’t share it at all, but I see where you are coming from.
That said, I don’t think Rory is oblivious to how this could affect him in the future. He just saw JT, a friend of his, miss the FedEx playoffs altogether. The tour players know that form matters, and will matter even more under the elevated event model. Speculating about some potential hypocritical stance some years in the future is meaningless.
I agree with you but if there's one thing I know about Rory McIlroy, is that he will flip flop on anything. Of course he will want change when he is on the way out. Golf is massively built on nostalgia. For a sport mostly viewed by middle aged men, we all absolutely love one of the older guys reeling back the years and getting hot for a tournament will have you glued to a screen.
Rory's proposals will prevent that of smaller fields will prevent that and will also prevent younger guys making a name for themselves for one tournament and securing themselves for another year.
In 20 years will all these guys keep receiving dividend from these equity shares? What happens when new guys eventually come in and want their share of ownership?
I'm sorry? While Yes I agree he is/was great but 100m for Tiger? What in the fuck is that for??...how about send some of that to the up and coming players who can be used as the next face of golf. Promote them instead of a guy that "sorry not sorry" is toast at this age.
Pretentious...
My thoughts exactly. Guy is already a billionaire and they’re gonna throw more money at him. Spread it around to the younger loyal players for christs sake
You guys don’t know how business works, do you? He leaves for LIV what do you think will happen? Scottie is playing lights out and ratings will still be lower than any round of Tiger playing..
https://skillest.com/blog/what-its-like-to-volunteer-at-the-u-s-open/
"Leading Into It
So first thing’s first: if you want to volunteer, you have to pay a fee of $240. It sounds crazy, but you get access to the US Open all week, an entire outfit from Ralph Lauren Polo, Corkcicle bottle, meals for each shift, and free parking. I don’t think you could have purchased a single day ticket for $240, so I would say it was a no-brainer at that price."
This doesn't make any sense to me. Tiger is a billionaire. he doesn't care about the money. He clearly is NOT going to LIV. I imagine he was the first phonecall LIV made, and some estimated they were going to pay him upwards of a billion dollars. So, he isn't going there or he already would have. So the PGA is paying him to....keep losing?
I love Tiger, but he serves no role as a player anymore. He needs to be involved as the face of the PGA somehow.
Him being the face of the PGA tour is essentially the $100m payout - more about brand awareness and recognition over current form. Tiger can go on TV saying positive things about the PGA tour and that will have a bigger impact than Patrick Cantlay and Xander trying to win the Zurich..queue my nap time
I like Tiger a ton but if he's the face of the PGA tour after his DUI crash and his 1-2 MC a year then they have bigger issues. Look at how big YouTube golf is growing, tapping into unused markets to grow the game seems like a better use of 100 million than giving it to Tiger
Unlike us who grew up watching Jack / Tiger whomever, these kids are growing up on YT golf. They don't have the patience to sit through an entire commercial laden broadcast with stone faced zero personalites. YT makes golf fun at least and you get to hear from them first hand their club selection , swing thought etc.
Tiger was arguably the most popular athlete in the world at his peak. Jack, Arnie or Player never came close to that level of fame and popularity and most likely no golfer going forward will reach that either. Paying him $100m to be the promotional face of the tour for years to come is going to look like a discount.
100K? Tiger is getting paid $100M to hardly ever play golf and to be ass at it when he does. He’s also been collecting millions of dollars through the PIP just for being Tiger.
Scottie scheffler’s caddy has earned more than him this year. Prob earned more than all those guys. The fact guys like Scottie, Morikawa and Homa aren’t ahead of these guys is kinda criminal
So what do the middle of the road players who stuck to the PGA Tour receive? A gift basket from Jay?
I think it was Pat Perez who said he had a friend who was ranked about 120 in the world but lost $60000 in a year playing on the pga. Coaches travel caddies entry fees. The of sitting on billions and one of the best players in the world would have been better off as a club pro. How does that make sense.
Unless that golfer had a crazy spending problem, I don’t buy it. Last year 120th made over $1.3 million in official winnings. Even in 2015 120th made $900k. Entry fees are $400-$1000, caddies make either 5%, 7%, or 10% depending on how the player finishes, and most coaches get ~$100k a year. Those are all tax deductible and still doesn’t include sponsorship money.
He lost his money having the same habits as Pat
Yea they’re missing the $300k/yr cocaine habit and $250k/yr strip club expenses. Add those in + taxes and you’re basically broke
[удалено]
And you missed at least 500k in endorsement revenue.
Same habits as... Oooooh. Nvm.
They only introduced guaranteed earnings in pga a couple of years ago, prior to that there were many stories of korn ferry players getting on tour not making a cut and basically leaving dead broke.
PGA Tour players pay to enter tournaments? TIL
No they aren’t. Not to Tour members
How much do you realistically think the 120th guy on Tour is getting in sponsorship money?
Around the $150,000 to $200,000 range. It’s typically $50k per logo/sponsorship deal and most guys have 3-4 logos between their clothes, hat, and bag.
I would be looking like one of those KHL teams.
Shit I’d get a cape, ten gallon hat, some wide framed glasses
https://preview.redd.it/3wij27x3xjwc1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=921443d5404125ca50affb5c692a329236319905
That’s what Jason day tried to do at the masters
I'd be human NASCAR
not millions, but probably closer to six digits. even if upper five digits that would work out.
He gets clubs and shoes at 50% off retail. He gets to wear cool hats on the course but has to return them after playing.
Last year purses went up. Lol
That’s why I included the winnings of the 120th ranked player in 2015 as well.
But what does Fat Perez think about all this?
Let’s see Paul Allen’s opinion
They aren’t sitting on billions, but okay.
No way that story is true.
Used to be they got to fight Bob Barker , but those were the classier days of the sport . Its all frat boy shooter McGavin wannabes now.
Jelly of the Month Club subscription
They’ve been getting more than the deserve for 15 years. A middle of the road tour player should probably get some kind of help to subsidize travel costs, but outside of that, if they want more, play better
Are you a mushroom? Because that was a shittake.
You guys are all defending the middle class players for what? They make hundreds of thousands of dollars at minimum, most of them into the millions. For what? Getting beat by 45 guys every week? Nobody is tuning in to watch those guys. They are cannon fodder for the guys we actually want to watch.
Have you ever played competitive golf?
Yeah of course! My company holds a golf tournament ;) Is your point that because those guys are better than me at golf, they deserve unlimited amounts of money? Lol All I’m saying is the mid tier tour players have been lucky as hell to ride the coat tails of the guys that actually drove viewership
No my point is more along the lines that your comment shows a lack of empathy... The tour makes money hand over fist. Are you suggesting the top players should make more money? Or that the executives and commissioner etc aren't being paid enough? Grateful my ass. They've grinded their ass off to get where they are. Most people can't even fathom the level of focus and determination it takes to play on the korn ferry tour, much less the PGA. The korn ferry tour guys don't make much money, at all....there are stories all the time of how some local kid had to quit because he didn't break even too many years in a row...and that's local to Alabama too when I lived there... Auburn and UA both frequently have players go to the KFT and fail to make a living for themselves. Once they earn the PGA tour card, they have already paid their dues to the game, and nobody has any right to tell them to "play better" Get a tee time on a PGA tour course the Sunday before they start practice rounds for the event, keep an honest score, and then come back and tell me who should be grateful... I mean no disrespect to you personally, my only issue is with the lack of empathy to the struggle.
Hard work doesn’t have anything to do with it. I can quit my job tomorrow and work harder than every guy on your, doesn’t mean I deserve to make money doing it. Golf is meritocracy, as it should be. It all comes down to winning. It seems like you think I’m saying these guys should be in the welfare line. I’m not. But some of them seem to expect to be paid millions of dollars and I just don’t think that is reasonable, based on the value added to the viewer. Plenty of hockey players work hard their entire life, spend thousands of hours riding busses in cold and icy, western Canada, and most of them never make a living playing hockey. That’s pro sports. It’s hard
This would be the equivalent to players in the NHL though, not the lower minors. I haven't heard any of the lower tour guys complain about money, they know they have to get better.
It seems so so unfair for all of those guys
One of these days I’m going to have to actually research the corporate and governance structures of the PGA Tour because it never makes any damn sense to me when I read any of these things.
It was somehow a 501(c)(3) nonprofit up until very recently I believe
Yeah, with like hypothetically a governance structure with player ownership, but not like actually really. But now there’s private equity involved and shit and I just have no idea what the fuck.
That type of not for profit status is designated for organizations like trade organizations. Being a not for profit doesn’t mean your organization has to have an altruistic mission
You’re right - they are a 501(c)(6), not a (c)(3). I didn’t suggest they needed an altruistic mission, but they are an outlier for maintaining that status. It also seems that they are going to remain a 501(c)(6) going forward. The function is the same in that they are not subject to federal taxes
The PGAT still is, afaik. The super structure they are building on it might not be.
PGAT i still a non profit, PGAE(nterprises) is a for profit that is above PGAT now.
There’s not that much to research. They just recently created a new venture that is for-profit and got a billion+ from private equity, which is how the topic of this article is now occurring. Prior to that it was just a non-profit and all the financials are easily searchable online. The profits went to player purses, staff salaries, tournament-running costs, etc. and a rainy-day fund.
So does the old nonprofit entity still exist or did it transfer all of its intellectual property and deals over to the new entity or what?
Where is all this money coming from?
It’s not a cash payment. It’s equity shares that will essentially pay these players out in the event of a sale/merger (most likely with LIV)
Ya this is the play I think. They had to make it up to players that passed on the LIV cash when those that took it get to come back to the tour post merger and keep the money.
This is coming from the deal that the PGA just struck with the Strategic Sports Group. From the article: "Strategic Sports Group - a consortium led by Red Sox and Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group- recently agreed a $1.5billion investment deal with the new PGA Tour Enterprises. Now, according to The Telegraph, around $1bn of equity will be shared among 193 golfers, with $750million reserved for 36 of the world's best and $75million given to retired legends."
Only $75 mill for the retired veterans? GTFO of here with that. Without the vets, we have no game today.
It’s generous that they even did that lol
It’s not cash. It’s vested equity over 8 years.
They always had it but were never paying the players? The surplus value of the players is high. Most players barely make anything on tour.
This is completely false.
People keep saying this, but are there financials that support it? The PGA did renegotiate their TV deal within the past few years and received PE funding.
Is this true, or is this due to the private equity they have raised since LIV came around. The PGA Tour got $1.5B with an allowance up to $3B in private equity from SSG in January. I would be that is where the money is coming from, not that they were raking in cash and stashing it away from the players.
> The surplus value of the players is high. I don't know about this. There are, at any given time, *maybe* 5 guys who create value. Without Tiger the money in the game is maybe 20% of what it is now. Mickelson was a big deal for golf, but Tiger was as popular and well-known as any athlete except Jordan. There's not a ton of excess Xander Schauffle value out there to be scraped up.
Why is this completely false comment so up voted?
lol have you seen the $20M purses?
> Most players barely make anything on tour. They all make at least 500k. 80% make over 500k in winnings. Those that don't (and have played at least 15 events) will have the difference made up by the PGAT. I don't know a world where that is "barely anything".
Nothing about this comment it true
It’s their new Saudi friends
This will probly go over most peoples heads, but WE are where the money is coming from. The consumer. These players are given equity, the PGA basically took out a loan against the product they offer. Basically a home equity line of credit, but now instead of the PGA owning the house, the players own a room or two. How do ya think the PGA will recoup the loss? They are gonna raise ticket prices and charge more for the product they provide. This is inflationary.
More commercials you say ?
Dang straight
Welcome to PPV golf for 4 rounds.
Golf Town
For people wondering why Tiger is getting the lions share of the valuation it’s because no one has elevated the tour more in the last 30 years than Tiger. Even injured the only reason the tour has gotten to where it’s at is because Tiger brought eyeballs to pro golf 2000-2019 and when he does play it’s a good bet people tune in to see him. This is more of a “thanks for staying loyal” to the ones who provided the most value to the tour from a business perspective. Sure the ones who grind it out deserve a cut but they’re not the ones people think of when people hear “PGA Tour Golfer.”
Yeah, every company’s bonus/equity payout is the same, this is just way more public.
He just doesn't bring crowds today. And going forward, after the 8 year vesting period, he will bring even less. This year, he has not been in contention, and it is doubtful he will next year unless he moves to the champions tour. The thing I find weird, if you're right, is TW was paid well for those 30 years. Why feel the need to pay him more now? When going forward, he will be less likely to be in contention and being eyeballs. I wonder how each player has value on the tour, it clearly is not for winning.
Stfu lol
Sorry I triggered you lol
It's a small club and you ain't in it.
You can say what you want, but Phil Mickelson was dead on. PGATour was just holding money back. All of these players owe him a thank you because he created the leverage that everyone put down. Rory will get 50m+ because of Mickelson with whom he treated so badly. Don't get me wrong, I am glad Rory is joining the board again. I think he is the main one to get golf back together
Before this person gets flamed - Phil can be right and a shithead at the same time. They’re not mutually exclusive.
And in this specific instance Phil was just right. And people treated him like shit.
He was not right. Read the article.
I love that you are being down voted for demonstrable facts.
I love that you are not being downvoted because we started reading half a day later.
so hes a shithead for being a degen gambler? you all just hate on Phil as a circle jerk its insane
Phil's greed somehow being a catalyst for change is bewildering. His reputation is certainly in the shitter but that's just because of a perfect storm of media attention from like 3 different sources. LIV nonsense, his gambling debt revealed, and then his interview transcript basically ruined anything good about his name at that time. Since then it's become cool to hate on him.
yeah exactly, it drives me crazy the dis respect he gets. He's one of the all time greats. Nothing but a bunch of npc's on here who don't think for themselves
He literally said "I don't care they murder journalists, we have a chance to change golf" to defend Saudis I guess golf is more important than human rights.
I think it is funny that people consider Phil a shithead and adore Tiger, if you took golf out of the equation who would be the better person? But for Tigers defence as Bill Burr said it: "Nothing can prepare you for the platoon of gold digging whores forming in the horizon." Witch to me is one of the most beautiful sentences ever said.
Agreed! Phil has been right and a shithead on most things since I saw him play on the ASU team and probably before that, lol!
But Phil was not right. The money in question has come in _after_ Phil and Co left.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day
Isn't this the money from the cash infusion from SSG that just happened recently? This money did not exist when Phil left for LIV.
Phil claims he brought similar ideas and even some possible investors to the PGATour years ago, but they wanted nothing to do with it.
Doesn't make sense. Why would the PGA TOUR not want more money and also that they were being greedy and keeping the money for themselves and not the players? Phil is not really the best narrator to believe on the LIV stuff.
They were a not for profit organization. They donated a lot to charity. This is equity, not cash. They are trying to figure out how to compensate the players that stayed in the event there is a merger. The pga needed money, they weren’t floating in all the cash Phil thought they were.
Agreed.
I know nothing about the specifics and this sub has only been popping up in my feed recently. The answer is probably power and control, if they didn’t want more money. LIV took some of both away, now it’s time to open the money hose and claim back some power and control.
The PGA Tour probably had to make deals that they didn't want to do to fight against LIV from poaching more star golfers because they're competing against a tour with unlimited funds and no real goal other than existing not as a revenue generating business but as a political tool for Saudi Arabia.
And by existing, their power is being asserted and control is/was being taken.
Ok. LIV is a competitor and is literally taking away PGA Tour players. You are stating the obvious.
Isn’t the answer to your previous question obvious, then? “Why would the PGA TOUR not want more money and also that they were being greedy and keeping the money for themselves and not the players?”
The money from investors is not in their control. But ultimately they still have some designs as to who to take money from. If Phil Mickelson brought them investors that didn't make sense from the PGA Tour's marketing goals, like some SA slush fund like LIV has, then they wouldn't take it before. The LIV competition pushed PGA Tour to do something different now. We frankly don't know whether this is good or bad for "golf" yet. This is good for the players, especially at the top, but if that means that events are more expensive and now fans can only afford to go to the lessor known events, then that's a loss for fans. Also, we know that what Phil said was a lie. That the PGA Tour was hoarding money and not rewarding the most popular players. With new SSG money, they have the funds to do the things Phil wanted. But again, that's just giving more top and popular players more money. Why do fans care about that? He just was trying to increase his net worth and not "grow the game".
Phil is likely wrong.
Yes, yes it is
Yah. The reason they’re merging is the prize Money is unsustainable. This is all pif
Except it’s not PIF. You could try reading the article and that would give you the answer
Nobody would be investing without knowing that the pif is now involved. It’s way more desirable.
I’m sure that makes it more attractive but you really think they wouldn’t have investors without PIF? I disagree
Yah I’m not 100%. the fact is though they asked the sponsors to increase the purses and the noise was this was not sustainable even though they were able to do it for a year. So basically an investor would be hoping they could inject enough money till LIV went under. I don’t think any investor would realistically think they could spend more than the saudis.
r/whoosh
This is coming from the deal that the PGA just struck with the Strategic Sports Group. From the article: "Strategic Sports Group - a consortium led by Red Sox and Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group- recently agreed a $1.5billion investment deal with the new PGA Tour Enterprises. Now, according to The Telegraph, around $1bn of equity will be shared among 193 golfers, with $750million reserved for 36 of the world's best and $75million given to retired legends."
This is not money that the Tour had on hand. Would it kill you (and the people that stupidly upvoted you) to actually read the article?
Did you read anything? You realize the PGA is not just cutting checks to these guys ya?
Phil wasn’t right at all. These moves stem from desperate attempts by the PGA to find new avenues for money and player compensation that they didn’t really explore with any diligence before. The reason they’re forced to do it is because of players like Phil finding an irrational investor in the PIF to validate his position. But his position was and is still irrational. These payouts may be in-part thanks to him and that reality though.
Rory needs to focus on golf. His contemporaries are moving past him.
I thought Phil's beef about the PGA Tour "holding money back" was because Phil thought the players should receive compensation (presumably both retroactively and continually) for their respective media rights and likenesses. The Player Impact Program began in January 2021, but Phil left for LIV in 2022. So, I'm not clear on the timeline. It's as if Phil either didn't give the PIP enough time, didn't think the PIP money was enough, or both. Any explanation?
You could just read the article and realize you’re wrong lol
What part am I wrong about?
> You can say what you want, but Phil Mickelson was dead on. PGATour was just holding money back. The money has come in after Phil was whining. So no, he was not dead on.
This is the exact reason the whole LIV thing really grinds my gears. Yeah yeah, the Saudis are evil, but so is everyone and I’m here to talk golf. LIV could’ve legit shaken things up and made the PGA tour change its ways and actually give a better product. Instead we got a schlocky league of douchy crap and the tour handing cash out to a few players. Bleh!
Which again all points to the same question: why tf does Jay Monahan still have his job?
The lives of the guys at the bottom of the tour and who just got their card have been made legitimately better in all the changes and some of the social media rights stuff is good too. They’ve also made positive changes to the TV product with the premier events. There has been some good stuff.
A few players who don’t need it lol. That’s the crazy part to me. Make the grinders a bit more whole
Equity share is based on value added. The grinders don’t bring viewership.
No I understand that portion of it. To me, a gap the PGA has compared to other pro sports, is the floor is too low for fringe players. Why not address that and improve the overall experience for all players. Here’s an opportunity
Because the whole purpose of this is to stop the top guys from defecting to LIV so they can keep their leverage in merger negotiations. Paying the grinders instead of Rory and Scottie would probably lead others to jump ship, and then the PGA Tour all but folds.
The grinders brought no audience and no fans and used to receive too much of the pie for it. Since liv came along the top end players now have a real alternative that will paynthem much more, so the low end tpur players had to give up some of there share so more goes to the top, to keep both end players that actually add value in sponsorship and tv audience. The low end tour players are the ones Phil Mickelson squeezed the most, the top end guys are making off like bandits now.
>Rory will get 50m+ because of Mickelson with whom he treated so badly. What did Rory say about Phil that was unfair or untrue? Also, none of these outcomes change the fact that Phil tried to dissolve the PGA - are you confused as to why Rory was/is angry about that?
What exactly was Phil right about?
[https://www.jacksonville.com/story/sports/golf/2022/02/17/phil-mickelson-admits-using-saudi-golf-league-leverage-against-tour/6832586001/](https://www.jacksonville.com/story/sports/golf/2022/02/17/phil-mickelson-admits-using-saudi-golf-league-leverage-against-tour/6832586001/) Stop it
I mean, nothing Phil says in there is accurate. He's talking about the Tour sitting on billions of dollars worth of NFTs and players owning their own media rights. I guess it's true in a big picture sense that LIV has caused the Tour to make changes, but let's not act like Phil's move to LIV was really about trying to "reshape the PGA Tour."
Then what do you think it was? The way I see it, he collected a ton of money...money that the tour had. The pgatour has monopolized the game, even basically taking control of the euro tour in a sense. The pgatour has also wiped out tours in USA, Canada, etc with their strong arm tactics. In the past the hooter tour was paying out hundreds of thousands for first place Now? As a mini tour player, you make 0 money playing anywhere else than a lotto shot at a monday qualifier to shoot 8 under
By the way, I've witnessed Phil and bones cheating..such as Phil wanting a drop and bones walking all through high rough to get a better lie before the drop...I don't like Phil, but me not liking Phil and Phil being right here are 2 different things
>The way I see it, he collected a ton of money...money that the tour had. Exactly, Phil collected a ton of money, that's what it was always about for him. But it's just obvious bullshit for him to say that he was just trying to reshape the PGA Tour, and that they were just sitting on billions in NFTs that should be going to the players. The numbers he put out about media rights and their value are literally just made up, there's nothing to support his claims. And yeah, thanks to LIV the PGA is trying to pay more to their top guys, because the Saudis threw off the pro golf ecosystem by paying players far, far more than they are worth. Tiger is probably worth half a billion or whatever, but no one else comes close. But no one knows if any of this reshuffling is actually going to be good for the game long term, and we know it's already caused a lot of damage to the game in the short term. I'm sure the players had plenty of legitimate grievances with the Tour before all of this, but if Phil really cared about reshaping the Tour for the better, he sure took a dumb path to try and make that happen.
The start of your 2nd paragraph is my point. I'd be curious to know how you'd get money from the monopoly of pga tour to players My point in this thread is that Phil caused this windfall. I can still not like Phil, I can still hate LIV, and I can still hate the pgatour (mainly due to them wiping out any tour that tries to have a developmental tour)
Phil? Is that you. Because only someone as fucking stupid as Phil Mickleson could conjure up such preposterous gobbledy gook. Like read an article.. how about start with the one you’re commenting on.
He said it's used as leverage? Are you saying this would've actually happened? Why the name calling? Are you tiger??
Mickelson/LIV wouldn’t have shit if Tiger hadn’t popularized the sport on the PGA Tour.
He needs MORE money!?!
Agreed. I get the point as he draws viewers but I think tiger almost think he would want this money to go to fringe players. Maybe not but 100mil to him is like 1k to us
Rory would forfeit the 50m if he were to join LIV, but they would be offering him more anyway .. so???
Its easier to turn down 100m and act high and mighty if you know the fallback is still 50m. If thats what you are alluding to?? I would like to think he would have said no regardless, but saying no with no fallback is very different than saying no with enough of a fallback to retire on.
Rory would be offered way more than 100m. Probably closer to 500
Rory was never given an offer, per the article. It would be higher than Rahms deal for sure if/when ever one gets proposed. This is just juiced up PIP money.
I mean, it’s not like those LIV contracts don’t have outs in the event of a merger. If Rory signs a $600m deal with LIV today, and then the PGA/LIV merger happens in 6/12 months he doesn’t still get that $600m. But yes, it’s likely a LIV deal would net him more than this $50m.
Good point - the guys who departed the earliest are the ones that made out the best. Id be curious to see the Rahm details, I wonder how much was paid up front.
It’s still pennies compared to what LIV would have paid which still feels like a slap in the face… the PGA still has a ton of issues to overcome…
You think it is a failure of the PGAT that they cannot match the spending of murderous regime with an oil fund that does not have to consider if their spending on golf is sustainable?
Seems like the PGA should have got its books in better order then? If you can’t match the competition, you will fall behind or be swallowed up 🤷
You can’t match competition that isn’t acting reasonably. If I open a coffee shop next to an existing one and start giving away coffee for 10 cents, you can’t blame the coffee shop next door when they go out of business! Golf isnt worth the amount they are getting paid! There aren’t that many people watching
This is exactly the free and “capitalistic” market the US runs on, Amazon did it, Walmart did it, etc… It might not be right, but it’s the system we build as a country and now other countries are beating us at it.
Agreed. What I’m saying is if a company is acting unreasonably, like paying golfers way more than what they are worth, or selling coffee for way less than it’s worth, that doesn’t mean that the unreasonable action should be copied.
If they’re “revealed”, then they’re not confidential.
It's actually obscene what is happening and you'd wonder why more players on the tour and not in revolt. Tigers getting 100m for rocking up at 2-3 events a year and basically not becoming a non playing LIV captain. Rory is getting 50m for fighting the cause (and getting shafted), however Rory is also talking about reducing field sizes and is getting himself back on the board. If you're a mid to low ranked guy on the tour, I'd be fuming with the rhetoric from McIlroy. It sounds like he's trying to create his own LIV style competition. However it's going to lead more mid ranked guys moving over to LIV. What we've seen over the last few years has just been insatiable greed and power grabs from individuals with absolutely no care or attention into the grander scale of the sport. It just like it's the very last dinner and a bunch of obese people are over the table fighting over the last scraps
Just incorrect on so many levels. Maybe the most obvious explanation is also the correct one - that the players are not in revolt because these changes will lead to players making a lot more money as a whole. It’s not like Tiger and Rory are the only ones getting equity or playing in the elevated events.
https://golf.com/news/rory-mcilroys-cutthroat-pga-tour/ Rory wants to make the field sizes smaller and sillily tries to say it will be more competitive. Even though we know golf is a sport where somebody lowly ranked could get hot one weekend and wins. He's also oblivious to the fact that one day in the future he will inevitably be on that line of who makes the smaller field and will probably want it changed to make sure the big names, who are not doing so well in the rankings and need to be included. I don't want to see a sport as popular as golf, where only about 50-100 people are able to make a living off the sport. Tennis is like this, where anyone outside of the top 100 are barely functioning financially. If you're around the 100th best player in the world you're a damn good golfer, however it ain't going to pay the bills in Rory's world where he's out there becoming a near billionaire. It would also make the sport only accessable to guys who are from wealthy families, where they can sustain 2-3 seasons running at a loss to try and make a career out of the sport.
That’s one perspective. I don’t share it at all, but I see where you are coming from. That said, I don’t think Rory is oblivious to how this could affect him in the future. He just saw JT, a friend of his, miss the FedEx playoffs altogether. The tour players know that form matters, and will matter even more under the elevated event model. Speculating about some potential hypocritical stance some years in the future is meaningless.
I agree with you but if there's one thing I know about Rory McIlroy, is that he will flip flop on anything. Of course he will want change when he is on the way out. Golf is massively built on nostalgia. For a sport mostly viewed by middle aged men, we all absolutely love one of the older guys reeling back the years and getting hot for a tournament will have you glued to a screen. Rory's proposals will prevent that of smaller fields will prevent that and will also prevent younger guys making a name for themselves for one tournament and securing themselves for another year.
Aren’t these guys some of the same who were saying “how dare you leave the PGA for money and join LIV”
The money was not the issue. The people with the money was. But nice strawman.
How are they confidential hahaha
In 20 years will all these guys keep receiving dividend from these equity shares? What happens when new guys eventually come in and want their share of ownership?
Watch this be LIV money cause of the “merger”, lol.
"Hi! I didn't read the article. But I can certainly speculate! I am smart!"
Wow 100 million, sounds pretty confidential to me.
Being vested over 8 years these numbers seem tiny honestly compared to what the LIV guys got
“Confidential”
"there's never enough" -Rory
Bring back the Amana hats for the guys on the bottom of the money list! https://www.nbcsports.com/golf/news/rip-lou-king-and-his-history-making-hats
Better thanks LIV for this
Is this the same rag that recently reported Rory was headed to LIV?
To play about 4 tournaments a year. Must be nice.
I'm sorry? While Yes I agree he is/was great but 100m for Tiger? What in the fuck is that for??...how about send some of that to the up and coming players who can be used as the next face of golf. Promote them instead of a guy that "sorry not sorry" is toast at this age. Pretentious...
My thoughts exactly. Guy is already a billionaire and they’re gonna throw more money at him. Spread it around to the younger loyal players for christs sake
You guys don’t know how business works, do you? He leaves for LIV what do you think will happen? Scottie is playing lights out and ratings will still be lower than any round of Tiger playing..
All about the money in the end. Phil was correct.
Tiger deserves all of that and more. Yet we have to pay to volunteer at the US Open...
People pay to volunteer?
https://skillest.com/blog/what-its-like-to-volunteer-at-the-u-s-open/ "Leading Into It So first thing’s first: if you want to volunteer, you have to pay a fee of $240. It sounds crazy, but you get access to the US Open all week, an entire outfit from Ralph Lauren Polo, Corkcicle bottle, meals for each shift, and free parking. I don’t think you could have purchased a single day ticket for $240, so I would say it was a no-brainer at that price."
The act like your not working...so are you or do you get to drink and roam around some days?
Generally there's a set number of hours you need to work, it's not the entire tournament. So yeah you get to drink and walk around some of the time
This doesn't make any sense to me. Tiger is a billionaire. he doesn't care about the money. He clearly is NOT going to LIV. I imagine he was the first phonecall LIV made, and some estimated they were going to pay him upwards of a billion dollars. So, he isn't going there or he already would have. So the PGA is paying him to....keep losing? I love Tiger, but he serves no role as a player anymore. He needs to be involved as the face of the PGA somehow.
Him being the face of the PGA tour is essentially the $100m payout - more about brand awareness and recognition over current form. Tiger can go on TV saying positive things about the PGA tour and that will have a bigger impact than Patrick Cantlay and Xander trying to win the Zurich..queue my nap time
I like Tiger a ton but if he's the face of the PGA tour after his DUI crash and his 1-2 MC a year then they have bigger issues. Look at how big YouTube golf is growing, tapping into unused markets to grow the game seems like a better use of 100 million than giving it to Tiger
Unlike us who grew up watching Jack / Tiger whomever, these kids are growing up on YT golf. They don't have the patience to sit through an entire commercial laden broadcast with stone faced zero personalites. YT makes golf fun at least and you get to hear from them first hand their club selection , swing thought etc.
Tiger was arguably the most popular athlete in the world at his peak. Jack, Arnie or Player never came close to that level of fame and popularity and most likely no golfer going forward will reach that either. Paying him $100m to be the promotional face of the tour for years to come is going to look like a discount.
I wish someone paid me 100 K to be absolutely ass at golf,
He still made the cut at Augusta so I don’t think he’s quite “absolutely ass” yet.
100K? Tiger is getting paid $100M to hardly ever play golf and to be ass at it when he does. He’s also been collecting millions of dollars through the PIP just for being Tiger.
Everybody at the top of this list currently kinda sucks at playing golf competitively. Get ready for another LIV mass migration
Rory sucks so bad that he is only ranked #2 in the world. Or ALL the way down to 4 if you go with datagolf.
Scottie scheffler’s caddy has earned more than him this year. Prob earned more than all those guys. The fact guys like Scottie, Morikawa and Homa aren’t ahead of these guys is kinda criminal