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LIV Golf (Saudi PIF), "Mergers," and More


iacas

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This SI article has some interesting details about what's going on at LIV:

The thing that jumps out to me is $180 million of expenses that were unapproved.

-- Daniel

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32 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

This SI article has some interesting details about what's going on at LIV:

The thing that jumps out to me is $180 million of expenses that were unapproved.

So one of  the least liked duties of a golf pro, selling merchandise, marketing, is being bestowed on actual tour playing pros? Lol.

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1 hour ago, DeadMan said:

This SI article has some interesting details about what's going on at LIV:

The thing that jumps out to me is $180 million of expenses that were unapproved.

Weird article, each sentence it's own paragraph. Feels a bit like a bunch of informational statements on various topics provided by LIV for SI to publish. One copy edit fail, what is an "oil company company".

image.png.56194009b421f494401935f43bd1fe32.png

The unapproved expenses leading to the PIF ousting execs, teams having to sell their own merch, and 2-4x penalty for breaking contracts are interesting. Also what seemed to be described as players not understanding the 10-14 event commitment was interesting.

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https://www.golfchannel.com/news/world-wide-technology-championship-moving-mayakoba-tiger-woods-designed-course

I don't think this was posted yet, but the WGC announced its moving from Mayakoba to a course in Cabo after Maykoba hosted LIV.  We can speculate that maybe the two are related?  This article doesn't give any specifics though.  Maybe a coincidence.

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29 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

We can speculate that maybe the two are related?

I'm guessing they are. LIV's model right now really seems to be go to places spurned by the PGA Tour - Mayakoba, the Greenbrier, any Trump course, etc. It's stupidity. The article I linked above says the event in Australia is sold out already. Maybe bringing golf events to places that are golf crazy and have no PGA Tour event might be a better idea than what they are doing now. 9 of the 14 events this year are in the US or Saudi Arabia. Maybe more than one event in Australia would be good. What about South Africa - you have a team from South Africa and there's not really a big professional event there. Hell, in the US, they're going to Boston, Chicago, NY metro, Tulsa, West Virginia, Florida, etc. Why not have an event in Seattle? Or maybe Denver? There are lots of golf-crazy places without professional golf events that have a better chance of showing out. Instead, LIV is turning towards courses that have a beef with the PGA Tour. It really looks like it's based on spite rather than actually trying to get fans.

Look no further than the guy running it all for where this is coming from. Instead of trying to do something that might bring in fans, Greg Norman is doing this to spite the PGA Tour. It's a bad business strategy, and it does seem like the Saudis might be seeing that now.

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They like to boast about their attendance numbers while ignoring the fact their viewership numbers are dismal. It’s too bad the people attending these events are just going for a good time with beer and music and the chance to see Paulina while disregarding who’s running the event.

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50 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

They like to boast about their attendance numbers while ignoring the fact their viewership numbers are dismal. It’s too bad the people attending these events are just going for a good time with beer and music and the chance to see Paulina while disregarding who’s running the event.

The few times I had a curious check of LIV ticket pricing on stub hub, days before a US event, they were going for less than $10. Not sure if that's changed recently but that's abysmal. 

 

The Masters ought to be interesting. If a couple of big LIV studs don't finish in the top 10 it's a pretty horrific statement about the lack competitive level on LIV. 

Edited by BlackDiamondPar5
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2 hours ago, BlackDiamondPar5 said:

The Masters ought to be interesting. If a couple of big LIV studs don't finish in the top 10 it's a pretty horrific statement about the lack competitive level on LIV. 

Well, it’s golf. I don’t think one tournament will really be any indication for that. Hell Rahm was on fire then tanked pretty bad recently. It’s just the way it goes out there. But it will certainly be a good time for a little ribbing if the LIV players don’t do well….🙂

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3 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Well, it’s golf. I don’t think one tournament will really be any indication for that. Hell Rahm was on fire then tanked pretty bad recently. It’s just the way it goes out there. But it will certainly be a good time for a little ribbing if the LIV players don’t do well….🙂

FWIW, Rahm got sick and was still recovering this week. 

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2 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

FWIW, Rahm got sick and was still recovering this week. 

He was sick at the Arnold Palmer?

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10 hours ago, Vinsk said:

He was sick at the Arnold Palmer?

He withdrew from the Players IIRC. Buy you’re correct that it’s hard to keep top form for too long.

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"Players have expressed some concern about the payments going to the teams since LIV already owns 75% of the teams and they feel they may be getting shortchanged.

According to sources, the payments to individual players was never part of the business plan."

Wasn't one of the complaints about the PGA was player compensation?

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1 minute ago, Elmer said:

Wasn't one of the complaints about the PGA was player compensation?

In what way?

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1 hour ago, iacas said:

In what way?

I thought that was a Phil complaint. That the PGA should be compensating the players beyond winning or simply raising the purse.
 

but like most things golf related I could be wrong.

Edited by Elmer

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15 minutes ago, Elmer said:

I thought that was a Phil complaint. That the PGA should be compensating the players beyond winning or simply raising the purse.

but like most things golf related I could be wrong.

Maybe it was. A lot of Phil's stuff made no sense. He didn't like the media right stuff, I know that.

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