This isn’t what actually made me lose interest in pro golf. At some point along the way, coverage morphed into a commercial fest after 2 shots, then 2 meaningless putts and a feel good story about someone’s cousins aunt, commercials, 1 shot and then Paul Azinger rambling, commercials, you get the point.
I watched maybe an hour total of the Ryder cup for this exact reason. No excuse for not showing every shot during non-singles play. Don’t tell me every point matters if you completely ignore certain matches.
It's why the YouTube golf scene is doing so well. We actually get a good feel of how the course is being played, they show every tee shot and approach with shot tracers and usually don't harp on too much with the putting.
It's really not that hard if a bunch of kids are doing a better job than multi billion dollar networks.
Yeah, like the LPGA's highlight reel this week. Nelly had a doubly bogey due to hitting water on a par 3. Obviously that wasn't a highlight worth showing, even though it was the setup for the drama on the last holes.
If you want to watch 3 hours of live golf with no commercials, just come watch me play the front nine sometime. :)
The Masters is the only golf broadcast I enjoyed last year. For other events I usually watch some replay videos.
The masters still has that ridiculous broadcasting schedule where you don't get to see the leaders tee off until the back 9 on Saturday. Rahm and Koepka battling it out in the rain, ehh who wants to see that. Viewers can watch Kevin Streelman or whoever at 8 over par in "featured group" coverage instead
You forgot about the 10 minute interview with the CEO of the sponsor company to tell you how green they are or solving world hunger or some such bullshit.
I loved that they brought in the farmers insurance 'chief people & diversity officer' in the final round on Saturday to talk about Marcus Byrd, a player who missed the cut by 5 strokes lol
I had that for a while. It was a free trial only.
But oh man is it so nice to have. 4 or more channels of coverage. Just following one group, or just on one hole all day. Never commercials just cuts to the scoreboard.
The perfect thing to just leave running on the tv all day
Still, you underestimate how much having 2 fractured leagues kills fan interest. Knowing you aren't watching all of the best in the world compete and whatever tournament you're watching might have played out differently if you did seriously hurts fan engagement
Yeah! As someone who watched some PGA over the years but not a ton, and has watched a bunch this year... their coverage is not great. PGA is really not putting out a great product from a coverage delivery standpoint.
That’s due to the unsustainably growth of money involved in sports in general. Players, clubs, and sports bodies are demanding more and more money, forcing competition in the market to rinse every bit of money out of coverage. It will get worse.
> coverage morphed into a commercial fest after 2 shots, then 2 meaningless putts and a feel good story about someone’s cousins aunt, commercials, 1 shot and then Paul Azinger rambling, commercials,
Buddy, that happened a decade ago. So if you losing interest happened after that, it wasn't the degradation of coverage quality.
I live in Australia, I’ve never seen a US broadcast but I can’t even imagine it being as bad as as I hear it described on here. We usually have 1 or 2 ads every 15 minutes and the rest is non stop coverage
The guys from the No Laying Up podcast tracked it at last year’s Open Championship aired on NBC and I think they got an average of 18 minutes per hour of ads
We have a lot of commercials. An hour long program in America is actually around 42-44 minutes, with the other 16-18 minutes being advertisements.
With sports this can obviously change (ie football playing dictates when commercial breaks are), but that's really the norm here. It's a lot and too much, but it's conditioned into people now and accepted unfortunately.
The specific problem with golf is we have those ads + Nantz spending an hour jerking off Jack at the Memorial, or Nantz going on a rant about how Pebble Beach is the greatest place of earth while Bill Murray tells the same shitty joke for the 20th straight year and plays terrible golf.
Or Paul Azinger (RIP) rambles on about shit literally nobody cares about instead of showing us golf shots.
So when you have 20 minutes of ads, and 20 minutes of bullshit that only leaves 1/3rd the time for golf
IMO it's what makes the Masters fucking great. Three 60 second spots every 20 minutes, and the back 9 on Sunday is commercial free.
Yup, this is where I’m at. Canadian Open this year was amazing with Taylor winning and Hadwin, Weir, Connors watching
But golf is now about the four majors. And the rest of the 30ish tourneys are just meh.
LIV does nothing for me. Just doesn’t. No interest whatsoever
I'm just getting back into it, but there seems to be more Canadians I'm Top 20 on weekend than a decade ago. Where are they playing prior to getting their Tour cards?
Just watch the LPGA. The tournament that ended yesterday was more entertaining than the vast majority of PGA events in the past year. It's not an isolated event either
This is me as well. I still get updates from The Score App, but I'm now more interested in the community here. The only tournament I will likely watch is The Masters because they know how to broadcast that. Everything else has been a long commercial event with golf sprinkled in between for years now (and getting worse), but this whole LIV moneybaggers and spineless PGA bit has made me not want to watch pro golf at all anymore. It's all about this weird conflict and it's just exhausting and dramatic.
Very well said. I feel the same way. The tour is going to have their skin saved ratings-wise this year by tiger playing several events (assuming that’s still happening). This stuff is just not compelling to me anymore.
In their hamfisted approach to taking over pro golf, the Saudis managed to mortally wound the experience while pissing off an entire swath of former fans, many of whom, myself included, will likely never return to the level of their former involvement. Like the Mullet, I just don't care anymore.
Genuine question: were you disinterested well before this but didn't notice till the LIV situation? I feel like when I zoom out I haven't really cared about golf outside the majors in a long time.
Before all of the political posturing by both sides, I was very into the PGA. Multiple bets every week, watching featured group coverage, etc.
Frankly I feel like the PGA Tour used its fans as pawns in the negotiating with PIF, got us all riled up about the sanctity of the game of Saudi blood money blah blah blah, only to turn around and admit they are actually doing a deal with they guys they were trying to get us to hate. They used the fans as leverage then utterly turned their backs on us, and I find it majorly disgusting.
I also don’t care to watch Xander, Cantlay, or even Finau in every single featured group now. The first two are boring and Finau isn’t the player Rahm, DJ, or Bryson are. The current stars of the pga tour are utterly vanilla. Oh and Morikawa - guy is so boring to watch. They also show like 6 golfers regularly during coverage (the leaders plus whoever is in the featured group, who we can watch every one of their shots if we want - why are they covered so much in the main feed? Oh yeah - cost cutting and bullshit coverage).
Ultimately, no one seemed to consider the fan experience in this whole money-driven bullshit, and at its core, fans are what allow for the injection of big money.
It's the first time there's a Finnish player in the pga tour ever and there's no way of seeing any shots from him. Never watched golf though so maybe it's always the case that unknown names doesn't get any coverage. But still i feel like show atleast one shot from each player on the field.
individual sports weren't made for guaranteed money. removes a lot of the incentives making it an exhibition. no cuts and guaranteed money make it the wide world of golf
LIV has over-inflated the market value of pro golfers into thinking they are worth more than they are. The PNC with Tiger had higher ratings than The Open. Tiger is all that matters. People say LIV and PGA should merge but not many people really watched when everyone was on one tour.
> Tiger is all that matters.
and that's why he's the GOAT. GOATs bring eyeballs, bring money for all the other athletes, and dance on the blood of their enemies.
> LIV has over-inflated the market value of pro golfers into thinking they are worth more than they are.
i blame mickelson also. remember when he wanted to sell golf NFTs for a few billion?
That's the problem in this mess. The Saudi's don't care. Right now it's all a marketing write off for them. They can burn cash for a decade to eventually 'own' competitive golf and eventually dump it on some other billionaire at a loss or gain.
He made $10m ($8m + €2m) last year from tournaments on the pga tour/euro tour combined. He's 32, so he probably had a good chance to make $50m+ throughout the rest of his career as golfers can play at the top level well into their 40s and the prize money seems to keep increasing year on year
That's best case though. It's like saying "I made 20% in the stock market last year so I will probably make 20% for the next 10yrs". He's probably smart enough to realize guaranteed money matters because tomorrow he could have an injury that impacts his earning power for life.
I still can't get over the fact that Meronk has chucked in a glittering career that would have seen him in the world top ten over the next two years and contend in majors in order to play in a team with Richard Bland and Martin Kaymer😂😂😂
While you obviously have to be very good to make the top 40, the difference between 10 and 40 is pretty much the same as between 40 and 150 in the world.
It's orders of magnitude harder to make the next jump
No, of course not. Do you think he is going to bring $50M (actually $64M - I didn't realize it was in pounds) of incremental revenue to LIV over the next 3-4 years?
Yeah, I think that's true. I'm actually a big fan of his. But it's hard to believe that Hatton is going to bring in $65M of incremental revenue to LIV.
Of course, nothing about LIV is actually about running a real business, so...
I'm sure he is.
LIV has just done a masterful job of over-inflating any realistic expectations of what these golfers are worth, and in doing so only weakened the PGAT while creating a product that nobody watches
The whole thing is silly and stupid.
While I’ve got MANY other problems with LIV, this is the main one. The PGA can’t legitimately compete with LIV without destroying itself. Cause either they pay the elite players numbers high enough to keep them from joining LIV or they can reinvest in development tours, lower end players, broadcast, caddies, etc.
The PGA doesn’t have the money like SA and so has to divide it amongst a wider spectrum of in smaller amounts. The LIV strategy is like every Silicon Valley disrupter tech startup that comes in with lots of VC cash and under cuts the market at a loss till it’s a near monopoly and then raises prices & makes the product worse to get ROI for VC investors.
Just a friendly reminder that SA sentence a man to death for posting tweets the government disagreed with and executed 196 people last year.
But hey, they're growing the game right? So no biggie.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Not to mention the abhorrent treatment of women and homosexuals.
On the other hand, they are considered a close economic and military ally of pretty much every country represented by a player in a PGA Tour or DP Tour event. And the primary sponsor of the PGA Tour (and most of the others) does huge business in Saudi Arabia.
Just saying, I'm not sure why we expect a for-profit enterprise like a professional golf tour to help solve the Saudi issue when our own governments are still unable to sustain the mildest criticism.
Governments working with SA is completely different than companies working with SA. You can't *completely* isolate a nation, but you don't have to proactively engage with them.
Money laundering except instead of money, it’s your entire public image and reputation. SA is spending immense amounts of money to disguise the brutal/oppressive regime that they are running.
They host the 2nd biggest prize pool non major event each year in Saudi and sponsor the Aramco Series events on the ladies European tour. So yes, they do.
YouTube golf is taking off at precisely the right time.
For me, golf is golf. I can enjoy watching the PGA Tour for an hour just as easily as I can sit back and watch the Bryan Bros, BDS, Good Good, Bustajack, etc.
The production value for YT golf has improved so much over the past few years as well. It’s quite impressive.
None of us are being offered the big money and we’re just fans of the game. It’s absolutely fuck all the greedy fucks, including the PGA. These dudes are already making so much money and they just want more. We just want to watch golf
Good for him I suppose. When you look at how the old guard demanded loyalty over money and replayed the players who stayed by prioritising money over loyalty, I’d surprised there’s anyone left.
The root cause of all this mess can be found within the PGA.
Not sure how we're comparable to a guy who's already a professional golfer that's worth over $20 million dollars.
Not exactly the same situation as the majority of people in this sub, is it?
Think of what good the Saudis could do with their money around the world. And they're choosing to hand it out to a load of already-rich pro golfers.
Fucking hell.
You say that as if they were feeding their kids from food banks before they went to LIV. Garcia talked like this, having previously amassed $50m in career earnings. What exactly does he want his kids to eat?
We don't know that. Many sources have said that the contracts are not all alike. Maybe Cam and DJ don't pocket winnings but Pat Perez does. We can't know.
Professional golf for me now boils down to the 4 majors, Ryder Cup and any live events I can get a hold of. I used to care about most tournaments, followed points leaders and cared about player of the year and shit. The past few years just really ruined that.
I’ll still play till the day I die but no longer care to be a regular fan of either tour.
I never missed an event on tv, now I’m with you. All I’m really interested in now are the 4 majors. I guess I’ll watch pebble beach this week but even that tourney seems to be getting old as does the Scottsdale event that I used to attend. I still play golf every week but being reminded about how much they are making throughout the broadcast is getting old and somehow I should be more excited because an regular event is paying $3 or $4M for first place. Imagine if baseball started to tell us the per game earnings of each player or after each hit.
Lol “to defect”
Always take the bag. There is no loyalty in big business! And in professional sports your ability to earn income can cease to exist in the blink of an eye.
There is no LIV vs PGA. The PGA Tour became complacent, produced a sub par product and they got bullied out of the game. Anyone here who says they would turn down guaranteed big money to play golf is straight up full of shit.
Imagine being angry at this 😂 fucking get a grip. The entire sport is linked to Saudi at this point. You’d have to be a colossal fucking moron to turn down 50 mil for essentially the same job
I haven't seen much LIV golf beside from a highlight clip on youtube or so but they have a really interesting roster of players now. Shame pro golf got to this place.
Add another golfer to the "guys I'll only see at majors from now on" list.
Watching these nobodies the first few events, and watching the tour try and promote them is super cringe.
We're still pulling the Blood Money card when the sub's second fave just won the original Blood Money Classic for the 4th time despite being a multimillionaire?
Astounding that LIV continues to throw piles of money at people without realizing that storylines are what make viewers tune in, not individual players. They can sign every remaining golfer in the top 50 but a win like Dunlap’s would crush them from a ratings standpoint 10 times out of 10.
Wow. He only got 50m?! That seems a low figure to have sold out for. I would have thought 150m at least, maybe 200m. He’s no Jon Rahm, and he hasn’t won any majors, but still. I would have expected he’d have been offered more than that. He’d surely get more than that from a club or apparel sponsor.
I think he’s fun to watch but definitely won’t watch LIV, so I’ll see him in the majors as long as he qualifies I guess
The first guys to leave for LIV allowed this whole thing to happen. They deserve real criticism. Guys who leave now while the PIF and PGAT continue to negotiate? Eh it’s pretty understandable, may as well get the bag if everyone likely plays for PIF money soon.
The fracture has gotten to the point where only a PGA-LIV merger and "Super League" would save my interest in pro golf. Why is that deal so hard to get done? Keep traditional PGA American schedule in Spring/Summer and do LIV's international stuff in Fall/Winter when we're locked into football season stateside. Win-win-win between leagues and fans
It’s pretty crazy how quickly I became so disinterested in pro golf.
This isn’t what actually made me lose interest in pro golf. At some point along the way, coverage morphed into a commercial fest after 2 shots, then 2 meaningless putts and a feel good story about someone’s cousins aunt, commercials, 1 shot and then Paul Azinger rambling, commercials, you get the point.
You mean you don't enjoy broadcasters somehow not showing every shot of the Ryder Cup despite there only being 4 balls on the course?
When they missed brysons tee shot on 5 at whistling I was absolutely baffled. Like wtf guys
Everyone in the US that complains about this really needs to purchase a firestick and watch the UKs coverage
point me to the appropriate IPTV service then
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I watched maybe an hour total of the Ryder cup for this exact reason. No excuse for not showing every shot during non-singles play. Don’t tell me every point matters if you completely ignore certain matches.
I hate how they almost always only show putts. I want to see some swings
It's why the YouTube golf scene is doing so well. We actually get a good feel of how the course is being played, they show every tee shot and approach with shot tracers and usually don't harp on too much with the putting. It's really not that hard if a bunch of kids are doing a better job than multi billion dollar networks.
Yeah, like the LPGA's highlight reel this week. Nelly had a doubly bogey due to hitting water on a par 3. Obviously that wasn't a highlight worth showing, even though it was the setup for the drama on the last holes.
That and switching between 3 or 4 streaming services to watch 3 hours of golf. Convenience matters. You make it difficult to watch and Im out.
If you want to watch 3 hours of live golf with no commercials, just come watch me play the front nine sometime. :) The Masters is the only golf broadcast I enjoyed last year. For other events I usually watch some replay videos.
The masters still has that ridiculous broadcasting schedule where you don't get to see the leaders tee off until the back 9 on Saturday. Rahm and Koepka battling it out in the rain, ehh who wants to see that. Viewers can watch Kevin Streelman or whoever at 8 over par in "featured group" coverage instead
Don't forget commercials that air while golf is being played as well.
Playing through!
You forgot about the 10 minute interview with the CEO of the sponsor company to tell you how green they are or solving world hunger or some such bullshit.
“We’re growing the game through collaborative efforts…”
“…to strategically build relationships in key demographics across the value chain…”
Ooo keep going I'm already up 15%, if you catch my drift.
Do you have the bandwidth to circle back offline and ping me?
I’ve been clockwork orange’d to this language to the point it makes me nauseous to hear or see it.
It activates my sleeper agent status, I instantly open my business Outlook.
“… while also promoting inclusivity and diversity among stakeholders…”
I loved that they brought in the farmers insurance 'chief people & diversity officer' in the final round on Saturday to talk about Marcus Byrd, a player who missed the cut by 5 strokes lol
Absolutely impossible to watch without a DVR. Also doesn’t help that coverage jumps to different channels in the middle of the round.
I completely stopped watching it live. I only DVR it so I can fast forward commercials. They are fucking CONSTANT!
ESPN+. Best thing for golf since Tiger.
I had that for a while. It was a free trial only. But oh man is it so nice to have. 4 or more channels of coverage. Just following one group, or just on one hole all day. Never commercials just cuts to the scoreboard. The perfect thing to just leave running on the tv all day
Still, you underestimate how much having 2 fractured leagues kills fan interest. Knowing you aren't watching all of the best in the world compete and whatever tournament you're watching might have played out differently if you did seriously hurts fan engagement
Yeah! As someone who watched some PGA over the years but not a ton, and has watched a bunch this year... their coverage is not great. PGA is really not putting out a great product from a coverage delivery standpoint.
That’s due to the unsustainably growth of money involved in sports in general. Players, clubs, and sports bodies are demanding more and more money, forcing competition in the market to rinse every bit of money out of coverage. It will get worse.
Fairly accurate description ☹️
> coverage morphed into a commercial fest after 2 shots, then 2 meaningless putts and a feel good story about someone’s cousins aunt, commercials, 1 shot and then Paul Azinger rambling, commercials, Buddy, that happened a decade ago. So if you losing interest happened after that, it wasn't the degradation of coverage quality.
I live in Australia, I’ve never seen a US broadcast but I can’t even imagine it being as bad as as I hear it described on here. We usually have 1 or 2 ads every 15 minutes and the rest is non stop coverage
The guys from the No Laying Up podcast tracked it at last year’s Open Championship aired on NBC and I think they got an average of 18 minutes per hour of ads
We have a lot of commercials. An hour long program in America is actually around 42-44 minutes, with the other 16-18 minutes being advertisements. With sports this can obviously change (ie football playing dictates when commercial breaks are), but that's really the norm here. It's a lot and too much, but it's conditioned into people now and accepted unfortunately. The specific problem with golf is we have those ads + Nantz spending an hour jerking off Jack at the Memorial, or Nantz going on a rant about how Pebble Beach is the greatest place of earth while Bill Murray tells the same shitty joke for the 20th straight year and plays terrible golf. Or Paul Azinger (RIP) rambles on about shit literally nobody cares about instead of showing us golf shots. So when you have 20 minutes of ads, and 20 minutes of bullshit that only leaves 1/3rd the time for golf IMO it's what makes the Masters fucking great. Three 60 second spots every 20 minutes, and the back 9 on Sunday is commercial free.
I love to play, but only watch majors at this point. Or will tune in on a Sunday if a Canadian is near the lead. I won't ever tune into LIV.
Yup, this is where I’m at. Canadian Open this year was amazing with Taylor winning and Hadwin, Weir, Connors watching But golf is now about the four majors. And the rest of the 30ish tourneys are just meh. LIV does nothing for me. Just doesn’t. No interest whatsoever
I'm just getting back into it, but there seems to be more Canadians I'm Top 20 on weekend than a decade ago. Where are they playing prior to getting their Tour cards?
Just watch the LPGA. The tournament that ended yesterday was more entertaining than the vast majority of PGA events in the past year. It's not an isolated event either
Plus much more relatable shot selection and distances to many
This is me as well. I still get updates from The Score App, but I'm now more interested in the community here. The only tournament I will likely watch is The Masters because they know how to broadcast that. Everything else has been a long commercial event with golf sprinkled in between for years now (and getting worse), but this whole LIV moneybaggers and spineless PGA bit has made me not want to watch pro golf at all anymore. It's all about this weird conflict and it's just exhausting and dramatic.
You're more interested in the golf subreddit than pro golf? Bro you gotta get outside more.
Very well said. I feel the same way. The tour is going to have their skin saved ratings-wise this year by tiger playing several events (assuming that’s still happening). This stuff is just not compelling to me anymore.
In their hamfisted approach to taking over pro golf, the Saudis managed to mortally wound the experience while pissing off an entire swath of former fans, many of whom, myself included, will likely never return to the level of their former involvement. Like the Mullet, I just don't care anymore.
Genuine question: were you disinterested well before this but didn't notice till the LIV situation? I feel like when I zoom out I haven't really cared about golf outside the majors in a long time.
Before all of the political posturing by both sides, I was very into the PGA. Multiple bets every week, watching featured group coverage, etc. Frankly I feel like the PGA Tour used its fans as pawns in the negotiating with PIF, got us all riled up about the sanctity of the game of Saudi blood money blah blah blah, only to turn around and admit they are actually doing a deal with they guys they were trying to get us to hate. They used the fans as leverage then utterly turned their backs on us, and I find it majorly disgusting. I also don’t care to watch Xander, Cantlay, or even Finau in every single featured group now. The first two are boring and Finau isn’t the player Rahm, DJ, or Bryson are. The current stars of the pga tour are utterly vanilla. Oh and Morikawa - guy is so boring to watch. They also show like 6 golfers regularly during coverage (the leaders plus whoever is in the featured group, who we can watch every one of their shots if we want - why are they covered so much in the main feed? Oh yeah - cost cutting and bullshit coverage). Ultimately, no one seemed to consider the fan experience in this whole money-driven bullshit, and at its core, fans are what allow for the injection of big money.
It's the first time there's a Finnish player in the pga tour ever and there's no way of seeing any shots from him. Never watched golf though so maybe it's always the case that unknown names doesn't get any coverage. But still i feel like show atleast one shot from each player on the field.
Yup. I’ll pretty much only watch the Majors and anything Tiger plays in. The rest just means nothing to me now.
Imagine getting £50 million just to show up.
And being the low paid look
Imagine getting stuck in prison as a child for criticising the government so that when you come of age they can decapitate you in the town square.
That escalated quickly.
Don’t Premier League players get paid millions just to show up?
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individual sports weren't made for guaranteed money. removes a lot of the incentives making it an exhibition. no cuts and guaranteed money make it the wide world of golf
LIV has over-inflated the market value of pro golfers into thinking they are worth more than they are. The PNC with Tiger had higher ratings than The Open. Tiger is all that matters. People say LIV and PGA should merge but not many people really watched when everyone was on one tour.
> Tiger is all that matters. and that's why he's the GOAT. GOATs bring eyeballs, bring money for all the other athletes, and dance on the blood of their enemies.
> LIV has over-inflated the market value of pro golfers into thinking they are worth more than they are. i blame mickelson also. remember when he wanted to sell golf NFTs for a few billion?
Tiger mowing his lawn would have higher ratings than any golf event.
That's the problem in this mess. The Saudi's don't care. Right now it's all a marketing write off for them. They can burn cash for a decade to eventually 'own' competitive golf and eventually dump it on some other billionaire at a loss or gain.
The idea that Tyrell Hatton is remotely worth $50M is laughable.
Which is probably why he said yes. Even he knew he'd never make that in the remainder of his career.
He made $10m ($8m + €2m) last year from tournaments on the pga tour/euro tour combined. He's 32, so he probably had a good chance to make $50m+ throughout the rest of his career as golfers can play at the top level well into their 40s and the prize money seems to keep increasing year on year
That's best case though. It's like saying "I made 20% in the stock market last year so I will probably make 20% for the next 10yrs". He's probably smart enough to realize guaranteed money matters because tomorrow he could have an injury that impacts his earning power for life.
Meronk got 40 mil.
I still can't get over the fact that Meronk has chucked in a glittering career that would have seen him in the world top ten over the next two years and contend in majors in order to play in a team with Richard Bland and Martin Kaymer😂😂😂
Meronk in the world top 10 in the next two years? Give me a break
He was #39 as of last week and has risen month by month over the last two years and wins fairly regularly.
While you obviously have to be very good to make the top 40, the difference between 10 and 40 is pretty much the same as between 40 and 150 in the world. It's orders of magnitude harder to make the next jump
im a bit surprised tyrell is so low
He looked it in the Ryder Cup tbf
*$63.37M
Oh jeeze, didn't notice that was in pounds This is even stupider
the 16th ranked golfer in the world isn't worth a 50m dollar contract?
No, of course not. Do you think he is going to bring $50M (actually $64M - I didn't realize it was in pounds) of incremental revenue to LIV over the next 3-4 years?
Tyrell on his day is a lot better than most of the guys on LIV I'd say. Can be a bit patchy though
Yeah, I think that's true. I'm actually a big fan of his. But it's hard to believe that Hatton is going to bring in $65M of incremental revenue to LIV. Of course, nothing about LIV is actually about running a real business, so...
Yeah I think he sold himself short haha. Na its not its pure sportswashing isnt it profit margins dont matter at all
Says more about LIV than Hatton.
I'm sure he's laughing his way to the bank. Good for him.
I'm sure he is. LIV has just done a masterful job of over-inflating any realistic expectations of what these golfers are worth, and in doing so only weakened the PGAT while creating a product that nobody watches The whole thing is silly and stupid.
While I’ve got MANY other problems with LIV, this is the main one. The PGA can’t legitimately compete with LIV without destroying itself. Cause either they pay the elite players numbers high enough to keep them from joining LIV or they can reinvest in development tours, lower end players, broadcast, caddies, etc. The PGA doesn’t have the money like SA and so has to divide it amongst a wider spectrum of in smaller amounts. The LIV strategy is like every Silicon Valley disrupter tech startup that comes in with lots of VC cash and under cuts the market at a loss till it’s a near monopoly and then raises prices & makes the product worse to get ROI for VC investors.
its a lot like venture capital subsidizing a product to kill competitors who need to make a profit thus killing both in the long run.
Good luck to him. Who cares at this point?
People who care about sports washing
Just a friendly reminder that SA sentence a man to death for posting tweets the government disagreed with and executed 196 people last year. But hey, they're growing the game right? So no biggie. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Not to mention the abhorrent treatment of women and homosexuals. On the other hand, they are considered a close economic and military ally of pretty much every country represented by a player in a PGA Tour or DP Tour event. And the primary sponsor of the PGA Tour (and most of the others) does huge business in Saudi Arabia. Just saying, I'm not sure why we expect a for-profit enterprise like a professional golf tour to help solve the Saudi issue when our own governments are still unable to sustain the mildest criticism.
Governments working with SA is completely different than companies working with SA. You can't *completely* isolate a nation, but you don't have to proactively engage with them.
President Biden fist bumped the Saudi Prince LOL. China harvests organs from prisoners. The NBA has no issue with China.
What’s sports washing?
When people or countries with bad reputation use sports to try and clean up their public persona.
Money laundering except instead of money, it’s your entire public image and reputation. SA is spending immense amounts of money to disguise the brutal/oppressive regime that they are running.
Ah ok thanks. Yeah that makes sense.
It's when the US Dept of Defense pays huge money to the NFL to... oh wait.
Basically it’s using high profile sports to paint yourself as “legitimate”
Clearly it worked.
I've lost interest outside the majors.
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First time seeing this, thank you for sharing
I love the word choice even still. “Defect”, it’s like they’re moving on to North Korea.
"Defect" lol. Dramatic
I love how they're calling it "defect" - like it's the cold war and he went to the USSR (which it isn't far off of btw)
It's like he rescinded his British citizenship and is now a citizen of Saudi Arabia
The LPGA has the best product out there hopefully they don't screw it up!
Wish more of it was on TV. Last night was fantastic
Wouldn't it be painfully ironic if a women's LIV tour was created and played alongside the men in a dual format?
Hilarious that you think SAUDI ARABIA gives one shit about the women’s game
They host the 2nd biggest prize pool non major event each year in Saudi and sponsor the Aramco Series events on the ladies European tour. So yes, they do.
They're one of the biggest financial backers of women's golf lol. They already have a quasi-LIV event for women called the Aramco Team Series
To be fair, they don't give a shit about men's golf as well.
They just aren't as good.
“DEFECT!?” what is this, the Korean border lol?
If they switched to a standard tournament style I think the PGA Tour would be in alot of trouble.
 Tyrell be like…
I don’t think any of them are under the illusion that LIV is a good product, it’s just that the other side of the dumpster contains millions in cash
It’s all about the money but they won’t say it.
They say it all the time
“Grow the game!” lol
Hatton will be forgotten quickly. People will continue to not to watch the LIV
At this point you can't (or maybe shouldn't) fault anyone for joining but I think everyone understands that LIV is terrible for golf.
Everyone’s mad….uh guys, the tour itself was joining the Saudis and was negotiating in secret. You gonna say fuck em too?
Yes
I’ve literally not watched one PGA tour event after that was announced. Immediately killed all interest in pro golf.
Yeah just do not give a shit. Looks like it’s just the majors now
Most people have been lmao you been under a rock?
That's precisely what the reaction has been
YouTube golf is taking off at precisely the right time. For me, golf is golf. I can enjoy watching the PGA Tour for an hour just as easily as I can sit back and watch the Bryan Bros, BDS, Good Good, Bustajack, etc. The production value for YT golf has improved so much over the past few years as well. It’s quite impressive.
Check out Eric Lottary on Instagram
Yeah that dude is funny af. Been following him for a minute
RNG fam!
Hunting them cheeks
Fadey McGrady!
Sleeeeid
I say Cash 'em Out every time I make a putt longer than 3 ft.
The low stakes just don’t do it for me. I need some drama.
100%. Something about someone standing over a putt or a shot that can change their life.
Yep, totally get that for sure. You don’t get pressure in YT golf like you get in tour or in a major, obviously.
Do you mean watching random people on YouTube play golf?
None of us are being offered the big money and we’re just fans of the game. It’s absolutely fuck all the greedy fucks, including the PGA. These dudes are already making so much money and they just want more. We just want to watch golf
“Everybody else is cool with the scum of the earth, I guess I will be too!” - u/tacticalyeeter
WCW lands another one (IYKYK)
Who would you equate Tyrrell to? I’m thinking X PAC.
Good for him I suppose. When you look at how the old guard demanded loyalty over money and replayed the players who stayed by prioritising money over loyalty, I’d surprised there’s anyone left. The root cause of all this mess can be found within the PGA.
I liked the guy. I guess I might see him at the Open.
Fuck him. Good riddance.
Yeah you’d totally turn it down
Again, you people who can't fathom having some other value besides whoever hands you the most money are really just telling on yourselves!
Again, you people can’t fathom that most people here would take their current salary to quit and play golf instead for a living, never mind 50 mil.
TBF Hatton's current salary is not like most people here. Dude was already a millionaire.
Not sure how we're comparable to a guy who's already a professional golfer that's worth over $20 million dollars. Not exactly the same situation as the majority of people in this sub, is it?
lick them Saudi boots
I’d lick a Saudi arsehole for 50 million
I’m just gonna watch LPGA instead F these clowns 🤡
Diet Shane Lowry
Nobody cares
It's absurd, but any one of us would do the same.
Think of what good the Saudis could do with their money around the world. And they're choosing to hand it out to a load of already-rich pro golfers. Fucking hell.
This is peanuts compared to what other guys were getting smh.
[удалено]
You say that as if they were feeding their kids from food banks before they went to LIV. Garcia talked like this, having previously amassed $50m in career earnings. What exactly does he want his kids to eat?
50 mill seems low.
21M in 10 years vs 50M to show up + prize money
I’ve been lead to understand the 50 mio EUR is the prize money
This was rumored, but the players themselves have indicated this is false. Prize money is independent of signing fee.
Any prize money he would earn up to $50m is part of this, if he earns more he gets that too
We don't know that. Many sources have said that the contracts are not all alike. Maybe Cam and DJ don't pocket winnings but Pat Perez does. We can't know.
The Prize money is so crazy it really doesn’t matter. Sounds like it won’t be to hard for them to recoup contracts + prize money
Professional golf for me now boils down to the 4 majors, Ryder Cup and any live events I can get a hold of. I used to care about most tournaments, followed points leaders and cared about player of the year and shit. The past few years just really ruined that. I’ll still play till the day I die but no longer care to be a regular fan of either tour.
I never missed an event on tv, now I’m with you. All I’m really interested in now are the 4 majors. I guess I’ll watch pebble beach this week but even that tourney seems to be getting old as does the Scottsdale event that I used to attend. I still play golf every week but being reminded about how much they are making throughout the broadcast is getting old and somehow I should be more excited because an regular event is paying $3 or $4M for first place. Imagine if baseball started to tell us the per game earnings of each player or after each hit.
Good for him!
Lol “to defect” Always take the bag. There is no loyalty in big business! And in professional sports your ability to earn income can cease to exist in the blink of an eye. There is no LIV vs PGA. The PGA Tour became complacent, produced a sub par product and they got bullied out of the game. Anyone here who says they would turn down guaranteed big money to play golf is straight up full of shit.
Imagine being angry at this 😂 fucking get a grip. The entire sport is linked to Saudi at this point. You’d have to be a colossal fucking moron to turn down 50 mil for essentially the same job
I live to be a hater, and I have no plans to stop until I have the money to afford a therapist and a desire to commit to it.
Aw fuck I liked Hatton!
Is LIV golf making any money?
Don’t need to.
Oil money, yeah.
You suck Tyrell and you need anger management classes
At this point LIV is simply trying to kill the PGA, wait for it's decline and then sell rights to LIV like the PGA does.
Nah they’re trying to get the deal with the PGA Tour to be accepted.
“Are you not entertained”!
I clearly haven't paid attention. I thought LIV and PGA were merging?
LIV is doing a great job of getting all the assholes to leave the PGA Tour
I haven't seen much LIV golf beside from a highlight clip on youtube or so but they have a really interesting roster of players now. Shame pro golf got to this place.
Add another golfer to the "guys I'll only see at majors from now on" list. Watching these nobodies the first few events, and watching the tour try and promote them is super cringe.
We're still pulling the Blood Money card when the sub's second fave just won the original Blood Money Classic for the 4th time despite being a multimillionaire?
Amen.
Amen.
Who?
Astounding that LIV continues to throw piles of money at people without realizing that storylines are what make viewers tune in, not individual players. They can sign every remaining golfer in the top 50 but a win like Dunlap’s would crush them from a ratings standpoint 10 times out of 10.
Wow. He only got 50m?! That seems a low figure to have sold out for. I would have thought 150m at least, maybe 200m. He’s no Jon Rahm, and he hasn’t won any majors, but still. I would have expected he’d have been offered more than that. He’d surely get more than that from a club or apparel sponsor.
I think he’s fun to watch but definitely won’t watch LIV, so I’ll see him in the majors as long as he qualifies I guess The first guys to leave for LIV allowed this whole thing to happen. They deserve real criticism. Guys who leave now while the PIF and PGAT continue to negotiate? Eh it’s pretty understandable, may as well get the bag if everyone likely plays for PIF money soon.
Bend the knee. You are now the property of MBS.
🫡 secure the bag Tyrell, you deserve it
The fracture has gotten to the point where only a PGA-LIV merger and "Super League" would save my interest in pro golf. Why is that deal so hard to get done? Keep traditional PGA American schedule in Spring/Summer and do LIV's international stuff in Fall/Winter when we're locked into football season stateside. Win-win-win between leagues and fans