But most of the the time those smaller businesses aren't in lawsuits against another "business" who has a blank check funding their side. To the tune of BILLIONS of dollars at their disposal. I think you're underestimating how much money these lawsuits were costing the PGA Tour. The costs were expected to reach well into the tens of millions of dollars for each side.  The PIF probably could have bled the PGA Tour dry of cash if they really wanted to by dragging those multiple lawsuits out over multiple more years, especially considering that the PGA Tour was going to have to come up with money from somewhere to pay for the substantial increases in purses for the designated events. I highly doubt every designated event sponsor was going to be willing to double their investment for essentially the same product. Especially since the PGA Tour is a 501(c) (6) non-profit organization there's limits as to exactly where their funding can come from.  So I don't necessarily think it was a mutual desire to stop the bleeding of cash from the lawsuits, but rather the PGA Tour's desire to stop the bleeding of cash. I think the Saudi's/PIF were fine to continue to bleed cash until they ultimately got what they wanted.

I think once the lawsuits are dropped, they’re dropped. They could re-file but they can’t just say hey never mind.

It was Larry Laoretti I was thinking about. I remember cigars being a thing back then. Along with pleated Dockers and shirt sleeves down to your elbows. 

What doesn't make any sense to me is the claim that this merger is driven by the mutual desire to stop the bleeding and fallout from the lawsuits.   On costs, for example.  Lawsuits are expensive, yes.  But businesses smaller than the PGA Tour are in big lawsuits all the time.  You're telling me the PGA Tour can't afford 2 or 3 lawsuits that have been going on for a year or two?  Not only that, you're telling me they got into these lawsuits and what, were surprised that they'd have to pay their lawyers?  Monahan didn't first ask the lawyers, hey, so what do you think this is going to cost us?  Come on.   And even if you assume this is, in large part, about the costs of the lawsuits, it means that the CEO decided to file a lawsuit, then a year later came back and said to his organization that the lawsuit he started was bleeding them dry and the only solution was to let the group he sued buy a huge chunk of the organization?   Oh, and in this deal he negotiated, he's in charge of the new company?  That's either some extraordinary incompetence or a breach of his fiduciary duties to the organization or both.     And then there's the idea that something harmful would come out of discovery.  So again, we'd have to believe that these executives started lawsuits, not realizing there would be discovery, then realized they'd be embarrassed, and went back to their organizations and said, hey, my mistake, time for the organization to bend over otherwise I'll be embarrassed.  Or maybe its that discovery was going to cause them to lose the case.  Sure, that could make sense.  Until you tell me the solution to losing an antitrust case is to merge with your competitor.  Huh? I know that the PGA Tour only filed one of the lawsuits and the others were filed against the Tour and they didn't really have a say in that.  But much of this still holds.  The Tour still went ahead and filed a lawsuit it says it couldn't afford when already entangled in one.  And we have two orgs suing each other and then saying they have no choice but to merge (or whatever you want to call it) because....they sued each other?   New information could certainly change any of this.  We don't know a lot.  But based on what we do know, it doesn't pass the sniff test for me.  I think its more likely that Monahan and YAR decided this was an explanation the players and the public would accept without questioning.  Everyone will say, oh yeah, lawyers are expensive, risks, discovery, yada yada, IANAL, makes sense okay.   And you see a lot of the players saying that.   I realize its not some great revelation to suggest that this deal was driven by business reasons.  Maybe this was really just the Michael Scott Paper company deal--PIF wasn't going to stop, so the tour could either fight them forever or let them in.  But a lot of the players are saying its mainly about the litigation costs and I think that's a pretext to cover up the real reasons.        

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