December 13, 2023 • 50 mins
The Athletic journalist discusses John Rahm's move and it's impact on the golf landscape. The 29-year-old is the best player as well as first to leave the Tour for LIV since the June 6th framework agreement which still needs to be completed by December 31st. Plus, why Brendan plays a lot of golf on simulators but still wouldn't be interested in Tiger and Rory's TGL.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's the Son of a Butch podcast. We come to
you every Wednesday. I am your host, Claude Harmon. This
week's guest Brendan Quinn. I haven't had a journalist on.
I've had some TV people on, but I hadn't had
a journalist on full disclosure. We recorded this last Thursday
during the day. We I mean everybody pretty much knew
John Ram was signing with Live, but we did it
(00:29):
as kind of a hypothetical. Even though we thought he
was going to sign You never know. I mean, all
these rumors, there's there's rumors about people all day every day.
But I wanted to get a journalist on because I
hadn't had one on before. I had some people that
were in the TV space, but I wanted to get
someone who writes. And the thing I like about Brendan
(00:49):
he doesn't come from a golf background. He starts. He
still writes college basketball. But I wanted to get someone's
perspective that wasn't a kind of season golf journalists because
I think in twenty twenty three, I think everybody's opinion
kind of you know that is that is deeply, deeply
embedded with all the tours is somewhat, I don't know,
(01:13):
maybe compromise just because of their own bias. So I
thought to get a fresh take Brendan. I really like
his writing, and we talked about some good stuff. Listen.
It's crazy times, and I don't want to bombard all
you guys with tons of PGA tour lift stuff, but
it's impossible, given you know, everything that's happened in the
last week with John Rahm going to Live to not
(01:35):
talk about where we are with that and where everything is.
So I think it's a really good podcast, and we
talked about some you know, some stuff that you know. Listen,
it's been going on for the last two years, and
I thought it was important to get another point of view.
So sit back and enjoy listening to Brendan Quinn. I
(01:59):
guess is Brendan Quinn, you write for the Athletic both basketball,
college basketball and golf. But obviously we could talk about
college basketball. But it's the end of the twenty twenty
three season. The golf landscape Brendon over the last two
years is just it's unrecognizable from what it once was.
(02:19):
On the podcast, I've talked about this, I've had players
talk about it, I've Caddy's stuff. But we're in the
middle of it, right. Some of these guys are on
the PGA Tour. Some of these guys are on live.
But for those of us in the sport, I think
it's hard to see the overall view of it when
you're in the middle of it. And right now, it
seems like there's two sides, right there's the PGA Tour
(02:40):
guys and then there's the live guys. And as a
journalist and someone watching the last couple of years, what's
it been like and what are your thoughts? Because it's
I mean, I even though I'm right in the middle
of it, I work with three guys that are on live,
two of the biggest guys on live. Still, to me
(03:00):
is crazy that when I look back at, you know,
the end of the year in twenty twenty one, you
just couldn't have told me that we'd be where we
are today.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, you know, it's funny. It's for number one, it's
not what I or a lot of people signed up for.
When you're like, I wanna go cover golf, right, it's
and then suddenly you're in the middle of like covering
this like geopolitical just spionage. There's just you know, with
all these layers and understanding. And I remember when when
it all really started kind of bubbling to the surface,
(03:32):
but that would have been like twenty one summer, right,
I was coming out of basketball season and going to
Augusta and this was like, right, things were really popping
around Phil et cetera, et cetera. And my editor is like,
you know, you want to write a column about you know,
live and all these things going on and you know,
(03:52):
right and wrong, because it was very much still the
right and wrong portion of the conversation. And I said
to my boss, I'm like, I gotta tell you, I
don't know what a sovereign wealth fund is.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Can we start there, you know?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
And I kind of embarked on it that way, and
one of my first big stories on it was very much.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Speaking to.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Academics and finance people and journalists who work in that
space of foreign governments and understanding governments stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
This kind of involvement in sports there is I mean,
it's crazy to me, you know, as someone that has
been you know, part of I'm on tour on LIB
the last two years because that's where my players went.
But I find it crazy that as much as golf
wants to be like everything else. Right, And one of
(04:42):
the big things right now I think is the golfers.
The Saudis have come in and started to pay professional
golfers like other athletes get paid, like they get paid
in American football, soccer, over in Europe, baseball, basketball. You know,
some of the contracts, the film contract, the Bryson, the DJ,
the Brooks, those big live contracts. We're on a par
(05:03):
with what we see in basketball, baseball, other sports. Right,
We've never seen that before, but we have seen governments
countries get involved in sports through various companies and things
like that. Right, Yeah, why do you think that golf
has been so Why has this issue been so polarizing
(05:25):
in golf?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I think mainly it's there's a difference between buying a
team and creating a league. So, you know, we're not
going to go and rehash you know, should the tour
have taken those initial calls, et cetera, etc. Right, it's
a whole other thing. But there is something fundamentally different
by creating a competitive league that's going to go up
against your old school standard bearer, the brand, the institutional
(05:53):
piece and go head to head. You know, that's that's
not You've seen that happen in other sports. You've never
seen it created this way though, and where the money
came from and all that. So I think that was
like the most baseline reason for why this has been
so different. And then you know, I mean, we can
get into all the geopolitical stuff of why it became
(06:15):
a hot button issue and some people, I think, use
that to their advantage and other people honestly felt that
way and things like that, But it's.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
A journalist, it's just covering the sport. Yeah, what has
surprised you about the last two years?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
You know, I think the biggest surprise is the kind
of the constant lack of clarity, if that's it, Like everything.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Is just everything speculative, everything.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Speculative, speculative, speculative.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You hear people say one thing, and like it took
a while for a lot of people to just be like, Okay,
let's just stop listening to what anyone says because the
numbers it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Until right in the middle of John Rahm going to
live rumor Mania three hundred six hundred and like, like
I'm in the I know the people involved with making
these decisions and the numbers that get thrown out, it's
like you don't even know what to believe anything anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And it's crazy, it's not like is it like that?
And not? Do you think it's like that in the end?
And do you think the rumor mill on let's say
Patrick Mahomes is going to leave the Chiefs? I mean
we saw that when Lebron was going when when the
Lebron lottery was happening in the NBA are where was
Lebron going to go? That was that was was big news.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, there's there's rail, there's guardrails to all that stuff.
There are dates on the calendar of when you can go,
we know the length of It's nothing like that.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
There is nothing like that in this space.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Where it's like, you know, six months ago, if you
asked anybody about John Rahm as a non starter at
that point, you know, I mean, it's one hundred and
he's not going anywhere. You know, these guys are tent poles.
They're not going anywhere. Well, now it appears one of
those tentpoles is gone, so okay, Well that means let's
(08:07):
look at those other tempoles. How many of them are
actually planted right, because this one, I mean, this is
going to be It's obviously right now when we are
speaking right now, this is still slightly speculative, but it
seems like this is happening.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
This is a this is a different domino.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
In what way? In what way do you think John
Rahm is a different domino at this point? So because
obviously the biggest domino in my opinion, Yes, Phil was huge, Yeah,
but DJ going to Live to me was the tipping
point that changed everything. When a player of his caliber,
with his resume, as beloved as he is by the fans,
(08:47):
as popular as he is on the PGA tour. I
remember getting the call from DJ and him telling me
that he was going, and I was shocked, even though
I'd been with him for the last five years and
watched him entertain this and watched him agonize over to
the decision. And he struggled after the Masters, after winning,
for those two years after before he went to Live,
(09:08):
because the question of do I do this? What is
my legacy going to do? He played terror, He didn't
play great for two years, not up to the standard
that he's used to. And I think the struggle of
the decision to do it, and I still remember rend
In him calling me and even though I thought he
(09:29):
might do it, I was shocked. I got off the
call and I just went, holy shit, Yeah what just happened.
And I think he was the domino. And if you
talk to the people that subsequently went after DJ, they
all will say, yeah, once DJ went, it made it
more viable. Now John Rahm is a bigger dominant. I
(09:52):
think for Live the three biggest dominoes have been DJ going,
Brooks winning a major as a live player, and if
John Rahm does go to Live, that is another domino
because I think in the same way that maybe I
know for a fact that after the Masters and Brooks
almost winning, people went, Okay, we've got to figure out
(10:17):
what is really happening, and we've got to try and
figure something out because we thought that this wasn't going
to happen, and it basically just did. And then he
wins the PJ So that was a big domino to
where then he's on the Ryder Cup team and all that.
Do you think that the domino effect of John Rahm
is he's such a big player, two time major champion,
(10:40):
you know, all of the things that he's done up
to this point in his career. Why is he such
a big domino?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Number One is age? Okay, So like obviously DJ was.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Still incredibly mid thirties, could certainly pop up and win,
you know, another major and no one would be stunned.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
But also someone clearly on the back end of the career.
Rom's twenty six, twenty seven. So A, you have all
this runway.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
B you have his ranking, see you have he was
a face of the tour without question, and.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The face of the European tour.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The thing that really I think is kind of the biggest,
biggest piece of this though, is the legitimacy of the
brand in terms of competition. When When Live wants to
say we have a top three player in the world
now and the reigning masters Chimp and Brooks at times
is the top three player in the world, and other
(11:38):
times he is not. I mean physically he is what
he is. There are times you think he could be
done in a year if his body doesn't hold up.
Like John Rom ain't going anywhere for ten years, fifteen years,
as long basically as long as he wants to go.
So that's different and when you talk about what he
has behind him in terms of brand potential and things
like that. He's the face of Callaway, He's the face
(11:59):
of a lot major pieces.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
He's one of the faces of the European Ryder Cup
team for the next fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Is this the final one that gets a major brand
to come in and say, we're gonna put X amount
of dollars into your friend, he's gonna get his own team.
We're gonna put X amount of dollars. Rumor is he's
going to get his own Yeah, we're gonna put X
amount of dollars. And when that happens, other brands seeing
it and say, okay, well, now that brand's going to
(12:26):
put in this money. You know, we all kind of
roll our eyes a little bit where at some of
the valuations of some of these franchises where it's like, oh, yeah,
that Sergio's team's worth two billion, and you know, it's like,
I feel like he just kind of pulled that number
out of this guy.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But I'm not saying that would be legitimate.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
But like someone like rom having his own team and
being a guy who could go and.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
He could win multiple majors in a year, he is just.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
If John Rahm goes to live he could win five
day times.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
He's that yeah, oh yeah right, And.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Not to say that the other guys aren't. But I
say this all the time on the podcast. Anytime we
talk about John Rahm, we've had his coach, Dave Phillips on.
I don't he is so talented. He is one of
those players that you don't you don't understand how he
doesn't win every week. Right, that's how great of that's
how great his talent is. And I think the other
thing that you're talking about internationally John Rahm is he's European.
(13:22):
Even though he went to college in America, he's European.
He's Spanish, and that plays another role in it as well.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think, and you know, I mean, this further fractures things.
I mean, look, by the time this thing airs, who
knows what the state of the framework agreement is at
that time, if there is any more clarity as to
what's going on. But like everyone's talked about the game
being fractured in recent years, and like this is the
epitome of it. Man, Like if we don't get to
(13:52):
see Scottie, Rory and Ram playing each other at like
on a regular basis beyond four weeks a year, then
the game is fundamentally broken. At that it's already broken,
but there's just something different, you know, even with DJ
over on Live and Brooks, there's Jeff.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Smith and the players.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, like camp Smith Campus is a great example, and
Bryson was a great example. But like right now, I
think when you just think of like the best players
in the world, that's the conversation. And Cam was in
that conversation and it has changed, it feels like since
he went over.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And also I think if your Live, you're not gonna
get Tiger. You're not gonna get Rory. You're not gonna
get Scotti, Scheffler, you're not gonna get j t You're
not gonna get Jordan, You're not gonna get the PGA
Tours boys. Yeah, and they are their boys, right, they
are the one you're not probably I'm ninety nine point
nine percent sure you're not getting Max Homy either, right,
(14:46):
So from Live standpoint, they're like, Okay, we're not gonna
get Tiger and Rory. Rom is the closest thing we
can get to. That to further our legitimacy of what
we're trying to do. You said, obviously it's your opinion
that golf professional golf is broken if it is broken,
and that's up for debate, but there are a lot
(15:07):
of people that share that center.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
That's how I feel.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
And if you and someone gonna make a noo counterpoint,
and I'm fine with that, but that's how I feel.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But if it is broken, is there a way to
fix it?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, we thought that that was there was the potential
of it if LID was coming unto the umbrella of
this for profit business being created by the pediator et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, with the investment fund from the
public investment fund. Okay, we thought there was going to
be some sort of marriage of the clans, right of
the two sides. But this is like another This is
(15:38):
a great example of when you're trying to understand things
in real time.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I'm like, wait a second, does rom doing this? Is
that good for the framework deal? Is that bad for
the good Dad? I just like, I don't pretend to
I'm like, I'm not a smart man. I don't know.
I don't know. And to me, it.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Feels like if it changes the valuation of live without
question beyond just the money that is going to Ram,
it changes the valuation of the brand to have him
associate with it. And then you've spent multiple months trying
to come up with valuations for both the PGA Tour,
all of its properties and live and all of its holdings.
So this changes all of that, and the deadline is
(16:21):
kind of on the clock here.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
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your daily health and fitness regiment. There is an argument
I think you can make that both both the tours
as they are today are as strong as their biggest players.
Because the PGA Tour, just like the Knock against Live
(18:39):
as everybody goes, I don't even know half the people
who are playing. But there is a large contingent of
players playing on the PGA Tour that could walk into
a restaurant and you not know where they are. And
I think in a lot of ways, golfers fly under
the radar like that, because if you're six foot eight
(18:59):
and you're in great shape and you show up in
e Bentley to a restaurant and you've got all the
blade and the ice on, more than likely someone's gonna
go I'm guessing that guy plays professional sports of some right.
If you just walk in and you're like when Christian
McCaffrey walks into a people are are they don't. That's
not a normal guy, That's not normal, right, So golfers,
(19:21):
I think I have had a lot of anonymity by
the sport. Right up until Tiger. It wasn't athletic, it
wasn't seen to be athletic. You know, nobody was in shape.
It was a bunch of old people and stuff like that.
But do you think that because if if Rom does
go to live, it's Rom, it's Phil, it's Brooks, it's DJ,
(19:43):
it's camp Smith, it's Bryson, it's Sergio, right, they're kind
of the big ones, and then there's a bunch of
other ones. If you're a golf fan, you might know
who they are. But if you aren't a diehard golf fan,
you might know that. But like I said, there's a
lot of people, you know, these these opposite field events
mississip it be and that's only gonna get worse now.
And we have already been hearing from some people on
(20:05):
the PGA to or that it seems like there's a cast,
there's a there's a there's a two class system. There's
the haves and the have nots. And so do you
think that there's a case to be made that if
you look at if Rom were to go, if you
look at the stars, are they getting closer from an
(20:25):
amount from a.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Maybe who they say it's it depends on how you
look at You can almost look at it inside out too,
where it's like when when I say that the game
is fractured, just Rom going to live. I don't think
magically is gonna make people wake up on a Saturday
or Sunday morning and be like, holy shit, I got sorry,
I just clap in your mi like holy shit, I
gotta watch John Rom today. I'm sure there's people in
(20:50):
Spain who feel that way, and I'm sure there are
some fans who do, but the large public, he just
doesn't have that much sway. I don't know if anyone does.
So here's the thing, what guy going I don't look
at it as the like that much tilt on the scale.
I look at it as that him going over there
(21:10):
does make that product slightly smaller. I still don't think
anyone particularly is going to be.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Crawling to the.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Remote to make sure that they are watching every week.
The PGA Tour is getting more and more water down though,
like the tour needs to have all of the best
players there just to get any just to get casuals
to watch on a weekly basis. So now you have
a scenario where say there's two tournaments happening at the
same time, which will happen multiple times this year, Well,
(21:39):
you know, the tours.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
A little bit watered down.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And I'm not a big fan of live now I'm
watching no golf, you know, and there are a lot
of casuals.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I know people listening to this are not.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
People listening to this are golf fans. And so take
your journalist hat off. We think the average golf fan
now thinks about the professional game.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I think they're sick of the conversation. I think they
see a lot of entitlement on all sides. I think
none of these guys are relatable anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I think the people are just bored with the con
It was. It was kind of sexy and weird.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Right in the beginning, but now it's just like, all right, man,
like this two years of this, there's still nothing. They're
still just you know, pissing on each other's legs and
arguing over money, and and none of.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Them steal each other's girl, is right.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It feels like like a high school fight, right, like
like the two sides of these dudes, who are you know,
just kind of going at it like it's just old
and tired, and there are so many options, right, Like
this is a football country. Everyone's watching football right.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Now, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Is a football country.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, and they're going to turn on the Masters and
say who's playing where, and they're going to get caught
up on it. I just think my buddies back home,
I live in Detroit, I play with like we are
public golf course guys, right, we have like our one
trip a year, like that's our group, right, And you
know they follow along with the rumors and send me
texts of like.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Man, is this real? Is rom going? And I'm like,
I don't know, probably to but.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I think that's most people where there's no appeal to
any of this is there.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I think the only thing that I see is to
me this this happens. What's happening currently between the PJ
Tour and Live. You know, the people at the Country,
the club that I work at, the finance people, They're like,
I don't understand what the big deal is. This happens
literally every single day in the business world. Companies, no competition.
(23:45):
Somebody you see a company that's vulnerable, you try and
buy them, they say no. Then you hear the guys
going through divorce, and you go, well, hey, wait a minute,
are you interested in selling?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
No competition, but this happened. I mean Dan Rappaport I
saw where Taylor Gooch now has left the Range Goats
and gone to Smash and he's like, you never need
to know the lack of legitimacy for Live. When the
best player in the league goes to another team. I'm like,
that happens all the time, like pitchers in baseball. When
(24:18):
the side Garrett, the guy that played for the Astros
they won the World Series, Garrett Wilson, Garrett, I can't remember,
but he was playing for the Astros, Cy Young getting
paid a ton. The following year, they had a great year.
The following years at the Yankees try they paid more money,
they paid more money. And I guess being inside the
(24:40):
sport and being part of athletes, I've always I haven't
had an issue what's going on with live because I
am pro athlete, because I work for athletes. I work
for golfers, so I am a hired gun to professional golfers.
And I think that professional athletes, whether they're golfers, baseball,
but whatever, like everybody else in every other walk of
(25:01):
life and business, should have the opportunity and should be
able to make a choice to make as much.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Money as they want with that question.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
That happens in every other walk of life. And I've
been fascinated as watching this happen for two years, and
I've always thought this about golf, and I think we're
in a stage right now crazy. You know the live rumors,
you know the John Romrouvers, the ball roll back and everybody.
But it's always seemed to me like there has been
(25:32):
this Truman Show utopian view of golf that golf has
to be this evergreen concept and thought that it never changes, right,
and it's the only thing in life that can't change.
It has to stay the way it was in the
fifties and sixties and all the rules and all the stuff.
(25:56):
And I've always thought that at times golf can seem
antiquated and archaic, and I don't think the sport grows
if we have more courses where it's impossible to become
a member right where you know there are only like
if you look at a lot of the guys when
you know when Jimmy Dunn and Ed hurleyhy are involved
(26:18):
in all this stuff for professional golf, I mean, those
guys are the golf illuminate. They're members at Cyprus Augusta
Pine Valley, similar they are part of something that the
majority of people in golf will never even be part of.
And I do think that there are certain people in
(26:39):
golf that are kind of the gatekeepers that, in my opinion,
sometimes want golf to stay the way it was and
the way their version of what it is should be
And I don't think that. Does that happen in other sports.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I'm maybe a little bit, you see a little bit
in college sports. There are people who are just against name,
image and likeness legislation and are just wow, we're.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Paying these guys.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
And now it's all different and it's changed because it's
not my version of college football. And it's just like
and when I went to school, Hell, does it matter
to you if this nineteen or twenty year old kid
is able to make a car commercial and get.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
The universities making one hundred and fifteen, the coach is
making fifteen million.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Making ten million a year? What is the hashue?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
College coaches get paid a lot. They don't get paid
as much as Jay Monahan does.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Facts, but I think you do see it there though.
There is this ideal of the college sports. Are these
guys coming, they get their scholarships, They play for my
school with that school's name across the tire, and that's
all that matters. But when you tell them, oh, well
the playing fields, that evening out a little bit. Now
the kids are getting some money, they have control, they
(27:51):
can go to whatever school they want, because guess what,
the school doesn't matter They're just going to play their game,
maybe go to some glasses, maybe get into I don't know,
it's really up at this point.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
It's up to the athlete. If the kid wants to
get a degree, then get a degree. They don't let
me do it.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
But it is a pathway to the professional sports. So
you see a lot of pushback there, and I think
there's there's all kinds of stuff that goes into that
of why so it's just people like college sports and
other people. I just don't think like seeing kids get
money and be entitled. So that's the closest comp that
I can find. Now, it's obviously the other sport that
(28:27):
I cover, so it's easy. But the difference that comes
with professional golf though, at the end of the day,
is that what is there to identify with in a
professional golfer? Right, I'm from Philadelphia, so I'm an Eagles guy, Phillies.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Six, right, So there's a lot of teams.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I went to Saint Joe's University in Philadelphia, so Seeing
Joe's is my school, so were the guys who play
for those teams?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Those are my guys, you know, And there's just nothing
like that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
And golf you have to pick an individual.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
They're just they're just people.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You're a Rory guy, You're a j T guy, You're
a DJ guy, whatever guy you are.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Like, what's the is there?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
How many of those guys actually had like carry emotional
attachments from their fans. Tiger did, But Tiger doesn't count.
He's his own sport basically.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
But these guys, you.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Know, everyone's just kind of along for the ride with them,
but they're not living and dying. They're not you know,
when if they blow it on a Sunday, that fan
isn't waking up on Monday morning crushed for the next
three days. The Eagles loose to the Cowboys this weekend,
people filled up, You're gonna be pissed on Monday.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
It's it's different.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So, you know, and live creating teams, that's not you know,
people are not gonna ever have that attachment to those
teams they're trying.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah, I just don't.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I just me personally, I just don't see that ever
being a real thing. I like the team competition, but
I don't think anyone's gonna ever be just ride or
die for smash.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
That's just the rider die for smash. I'mna make a
t I'm gonna tell Brooks to make a t shirt.
Rid Er die for Smash. You mentioned Tiger Woods. Obviously
Tiger didn't go to Live. I think Tiger basically right
now is kind of the de facto. He and Roy
are the face of the PGA Tour. In twenty twenty three,
(30:09):
Tiger came back at the Hero last week his tournament
said he's probably gonna play, you know, maybe once a month. Okay,
in twenty twenty three. Does the game of golf and
the professional game of golf still need Tiger?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I mean, does it like need it is an interesting
way of putting it. I know they want in terms
of moving the needle, in terms of still getting casuals
to watch, in terms of getting extra attention.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, it needs it. It's extremely cred I still think.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
That one of the knock on lives, and you mentioned it. Listen,
the team nobody cares. I'm not gonna get involved in that.
A lot of people say, listen, I just I don't care.
I don't care who's playing it. I'm not gonna watch.
You still think that the casual, not die Hard, but
the casual golf fan and the casual non golf fan
will tune in. If Tiger Woods teased up at.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Riviera, I think they're more likely to. And if he
can do anything, the people are gonna pay attention to it.
I don't really care anymore because I just don't think
it's a really competitive venture anymore. But you know, people
will come out, people will buy a ticket, ask Rivier
if they want Tiger to play, you know, I mean
it getting people to come out and physically spend money.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, But there's also I've always thought at this point
there's an argument to be made for Tiger because his
body is where it is now. He's only going to
play a very very limited schedule, right, So the question
is can he get the momentum he needs to be
(31:48):
competitive again, and obviously he's going to be competitive in
the majors or at this point is it Michael Jackson
in sal Polo in front of three hundred thousand people saying,
this is my new this is the song off my
new album, and Everyody's going just play PYT and Thriller
totally nobody. And I think Tiger was such an unbelievable
(32:11):
golfer that he has spoiled us so much that I
think everybody still expects him to do what he did
in the.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Day, right, And I was kind of curious to see
TGL just because I mean literally, you asked me, does
golf need Tiger? I don't know, but I do know
that an entire professional league was created just basically to
allow Tiger Woods to hit golf shots on television?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Right, does golf need something like the TGL?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
I don't know. I don't know who's watching that. I
maybe I just it's to me. Do I care?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I don't know, And I know some people over there,
so like I feel bad saying this, but like I
just have zero interest in watching. And I live in Michigan,
like I have to play in simulators, you know, But
I just don't know if it's.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
If it's like a real thing. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Maybe I'm not a big enough golf fan to be
perfectly honest with you. But what does it do for anybody?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Put your journalist's hat back on? Okay, next year, at
this time, on this day, What the hell do you
think this looks like? What do you think and what
would you want it to look like? But first of all,
what do you think happens? Do you think that we
spend another year of just this dangling of a carrot,
(33:41):
that maybe there's a daytant that maybe we can get
everybody together. Does maybe live if John Rahm goes to
more players follow, does this all just become one big
Morgas board of.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah, I think it gets worse.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
This is totally a guess, right, This is not based
on like, oh I've got some secret conversations, not that.
This is my absolute guess is that the framework fractures,
Live doubles down more money.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
So if the framework goes away, you you see, y'alls
are going.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
What are they gonna do?
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I'm gonna push back all.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Where they going to pack it up? Yeah, there's no true.
They're too deep. They're too deep, right, This is the
it And that's based on reporting when I was at
I went to the event at the Ral and I
left there confident that if this thing, if the framework
doesn't go through and it is just still two separate entities,
that what are they would they ever realistically pack it
(34:38):
up and just be like, well, I guess you know,
tip the cap PGA tour. That doesn't happen in this world.
They have too much money, So who's.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
The commissioner next year.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
That was gonna be the other part.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I was gonna say, fractures the side split. I don't
think Jay would survive. Why that, you know, lack of
confidence amongst the players.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
If you're a player on the PGA Tour, whether you're
a big player, do you think it's different if you're
a superstar versus non superstar? Your opinion of Jay Monahan
at this point, I mean, is Justin Thomas's opinion of
Jay Monahan. Is Roy McElroy's opinion of Jay Monahan different than.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I think those guys at least, I think those guys
at least feel like Ted Podd Jr. Those guys at
least feel like he has to take their call and
answer to them to a degree, right, Like they still
have weight. Those other guys you have, they just they're
along for the ride. They don't have weight. And guess what,
the the notion that they should to me is crazy, okay,
(35:45):
because go cover professional sports and go ask the tenth, twelfth,
fourteenth guy in the NBA locker room. You know, if
the owner really cares about their opinion, and that's that's
just just the way professional sports.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
There's about Lebron's opinion exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So I think to your question, yeah, like Jay knows
that he has to you know, play Kate. Answer to
those guys that you're talking, those those small, those few
which could get fewer big time voices, and those guys,
I think that they the more the worse this gets,
(36:20):
the more power they have, the more power they have,
the more options they have to be able to pick their.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Own new leader.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
They're going to have an extra seat on the board.
They now rank the independence. So why couldn't this be
a player led not revolt, that's not the right word,
but a player led.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Coops say, you're out. Do you have a.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Problem with the players being more involved with how professional
golf is run? Because some people do. Some people say
this is basically the mark of the end because the
players will now just basically say listen, it's all all
about us. Will take all the money. And we've heard
that in you hear that sometimes in the NFL. You
hear that sometimes. And it's a players league, right. But
(37:08):
the owners, I mean, I work at a club, my club,
I've had them on the podcast. Jim Craney owns Houston Astros.
I mean, there's what the players want, And then I
spend a lot of time around Jim and I listened
to what he wants as an owner, as someone that
wants to return on his investment, right as the one
that put up the money to buy the team. I
think there's a really great story that during the pandemic,
(37:29):
one of the players, Jim was playing with one of
the players, and it was when the players were in
baseball were saying, you know, we we should still get
part of our salary and stuff like this, and I
think one of the players, it was a big player
for the Astros, said to Jim they were playing golf
during the pandemic in Houston, I mean in Florida, and
he said, you know what, you bought the team for?
How much? And how much is it worth? Now? You know?
(37:50):
Jim turned around and said to him, go buy your
own team. Then, yeah, go get six hundred million dollars,
go raise it, Go buy your own franchise. Then you
make all the decisions you want. But until you can
go pony up and get six hundred million to go
buy a franchise, you're making forty mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Right, Well, I would count the question with this, like,
once there's outside investment my end, you are seeding control? Yes, right,
so it there. The money that these players want to
make has to come from somewhere. So if they want
to play for all these all these millions of dollars
and get all these endorsements and all this stuff, well
that has to come from somewhere. And to get it
(38:29):
from somewhere, you have to seed a degree of control.
Like they're say, the framework actually went through, okay, and
this for profit business is me Are they under the
impression that they still just get to call their own
shots or all this stuff? Do we just think that
the public Investment fund is just going to be like,
here's three billion have fun. Yeah, you know, like no.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I thought that was good. I mean I had players,
you know, I had players from the PGA tour. I
had people involved in, you know, broadcasting the PJ tour.
When the framework happened, they all said it was fun
while it lasted. But you guys are toast. Now Jay's
going to get rid of Live And I'm thinking I've
gotten to know Yelsa pretty well over the last four
(39:10):
or five years, both professionally and spent some time with
him privately. I'm thinking I don't think someone's going to
give you three to ten billion dollars and say have
at it and whatever you want to do. I'm good
with that. Yeah, I just don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah, and that was very much. I mean, the tour
was pushing that hard when that agreement was was finalized,
you know, finalized in air quotes, because obviously we know
it wasn't finalized. But you know, the day those two
are on CNBC, Man, the back channels were already cooking
(39:43):
with the narrative.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
When that when they're in control when that day happened.
Did you think you were getting punked? Did you think
it was real? I got a text I was driving
I've just left the gym. I was driving up to work,
and someone sent that to me. I'm like and I'm like,
that's not real. And then five seconds later my phone
just went yeah, and I was just like.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
What, yep, were you surprised?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I was in I was in Philadelphia visiting my father
and had a flight out at like seven pm that day,
and it was what nine o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Or something, and.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
I was so caught off guard and so just kind
of like reactionary. I said, not only do I need
and not only do I have to leave Dad, sorry,
but like I gotta go home. I need to be
at my desk cause this day is gone to hell.
And I looked it up and there was a flight
leaving in like fifty minutes, and I just hauled as
to the airport and just got on a plane and
went back to Detroit and was at my desk and
(40:38):
on the phone for the next you know, as you know,
fifteen hours or whatever. And yeah, I mean it was.
It was so preposterous to see the two of them
sitting next to each other acting like this was a
normal situation to be Like.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Well, I think that situation, I mean, I know both
of them. I think the situation was way more normal
for Yaser than it was for j Yosters used to
doing shit like that all the time.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Sure, but they had been and they had been talking
for weeks, and a Jay I think had come to
the point of being accepting.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Because Yoster had always wanted totally to get involved in
the PGA tour. You know, I went to the Saudi
International when it launched on the European tour in twenty eighteen.
I have an academy in Dubai and we teach the
Saudi national team, so I knew all the guys there.
They invited me over. Keith Pelly was there from the
European Tour. He was announcing how great it was going
to be for the European Tour, and I saw Jay
I think at the at the Players Championship a couple
(41:36):
of hours, like, dude, talk to him. They want to
be involved, they want to invest in professional golf, and
you know, for whatever reason, that didn't happen. Lastly, lastly, can.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I ask you if you think the Framework Agreement's going
to get done.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Now? I don't think it gets done because I just
think that there are too many people that see the
Saudi's involvement as something sinister, as ulterior motives. And having
spent a good chunk of my adult life living in
(42:16):
the Middle East, you know, I lived in Dubai for
three years, and you know, when you look in my opinion,
taking away all of the geopolitical elements of it, right
just from a shear what I think they're trying to do.
I think they look at their population, which the majority
of it is under the age of forty to fifty,
(42:37):
and they look at Dubai and most people only know
about Dubai because of golf. A lot of people know
about Dubai because of golf. Now, in the last five years,
maybe Dubai's become but there was a big period of
time to where people like Tiger Woods and Freddie Couples
and Greg Norman and the American golfers that went over
there kind of put Dubai on the map. And I
think what the Saudis are doing, And you know, Randal
(43:00):
continues to call this sports washing, but I think what
they're trying to figure out is how can we use
sports as a vehicle to bring tourism in to do
other things. I'm not a politician, right, so and the
barstool guys and the no laying up guys love to
use at all. Anybody that said they're not a politician's
gone to live. I'm like, well, are you guys politicians?
(43:22):
Are you guys in politics? You guys are doing podcasts
right And I just I've been to Saudi every year
multiple times for the last five years, and everybody that
I've met involved and from the golf standpoint, loves golf.
They want golf to be a part of what they're doing,
(43:44):
but I don't think the framework gets done because I
just think there is a core group of people that
just fundamentally, like you said, they don't want to see
the power and they see that if they do a
deal with the PIF, with Yaser and the Saudi, is
it some it's a power struggle and they're losing. I
(44:05):
think it's I think it's been good for golf because
I think it's made everybody involved in professional golf somewhat
wake up, because I think the system's been broken for
a long time. The tour knows the system's broken, the
agents know the system's broken, and the players know it's broken.
But the agents all say to the players, listen, if
(44:26):
you guys want to change this one hundred and fifty
hundred and seventy high aver any people on the PGA Tour,
you guys can vote. But nothing ever significant has ever
really come out of the pack, right. There hasn't been
anything that has been, you know, breaking, breaking news, and
so I just think that maybe they gotten complacent and
(44:50):
the players felt like they looked at other sports. I mean,
I remember when DJ we were at Memphis and Steph
Curry signed his new deal and DJ it was he won,
so he just had, you know, amazing year that you won,
you know, fifteen sixteen million dollars And we're sitting at
dinner and he's like, well, at least I made more
money than the commissioner of the tour this year last year.
(45:13):
And he's like, that doesn't happen in other sports, right,
I mean, Roger Goodell gets paid on a par with
what Patrick Mahomes gets paid. He doesn't get paid exponentially
more than the superstars. But in golf, for a long time,
I think there has been a little bit of difference.
(45:34):
But I just think that I think competition is good,
and I think that if the PGA Tour, pivots and
their product changes and gets better, and I think the
majors now hold all the cards, right, yeah, the majors. Oh,
you know, you've got to be a die hard, die
hard tennis fan to know, namely five other tournaments Roger
(45:57):
fetters one other than Wimbledon, the French, the US and
the Aussie Open. You've got to be I mean, tennis
has to be part of your DNA. And I think
that the majors now will only become bigger.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, one of the things that just will never go away.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
As the primary issue is that, like, if you were
designing professional golf, now no one I related to the
NC double A. If you were creating college sports, nobody
would have ever created the model today that they created,
that was created, and that it what it kind of
(46:35):
formed into and just or devolved into or whatever you
want to say, Like it just became this preposterous version
of what it started out as. That's professional golf. It's
the same. And you can't you can't undo the paste
done right, Like you know, like the in college football,
they kicked the can down the road on a playoff
(46:56):
for all these years because they were beholden to these
ridiculous bowls, keeping these bowls happy and all the ye
we answered to the Rose Bull. It's like, why do
you answer to the Rose Bowl? You know, who gives
a shit? And and these in the in the tour,
you know, we have to worry about this a tournament
that sponsor and this and that, and you're like, you
just can't. There's so many miles to feed and really
(47:17):
that all that matters at the end of the day
is guys competing against each other. But everything around it
is just nothing.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Brendan, thanks for talking us fascinating, fascinating times. Next year
we're gonna get you back on and see if we
were right. Ah, thanks for talking to us. Thank you
so much. Quote. So that was some really good stuff
from Brendan. And listen. I mean we did this, uh,
(47:49):
not knowing if John Rahm had officially signed with Live,
but now that he has. Listen, depending on what side
you're you're on, and you don't have to take a
side I keep. I've been saying that a lot. It's
just golf. You can watch golf wherever you want to
go watch golf, but now that genre has gone to Live,
I think it's a big deal. I think John Ram
(48:11):
is arguably at any given time, the best player in
the world. And I think when the best player in
the you know, one of the best player I think,
you know, you can make an argument when these guys
are playing good. But Jon Ram is one of those
players that when he is on and when he is
playing at his best one four times last year including
the Masters, there is an argument that you can make.
(48:33):
And Jen Ram passes the eye test, uh for the
best player in the world. So for Live to get
someone who is arguably the best player in the world
right now. He can go toe to toe with Rory,
he can go toe to toe with Scotti Scheffler, he
can go toe to toe with anybody on any tour
anywhere in the world. And for all the things and
(48:56):
for all the negative things that a lot of people
say about Live, they just got John Rahm. And whether
you like that, whether you don't like that, whether you
think that's big, or whether you don't think that's big,
one of, if not the best player in the world
just chose to leave the PGA Tour. And I think
(49:18):
that's significant. Now where this goes, how this plays out
moving forward, I don't think anybody knows, but I do
think that it is significant, and that is why I
wanted to get brendan On to not only talk about
that the rumors of that which turned out to be true,
but also to talk about, Yeah, it's been crazy the
last two years. I hope in twenty twenty four we
(49:38):
all can just get back to talking about golf, golf
on the golf course. I don't think that's gonna happen,
because I still think there's a lot of moving parts,
but it's going to be an interesting twenty twenty four,
and there were a lot of surprises in twenty twenty
three that a lot of people didn't see coming, and
I think there's going to be more in twenty twenty four.
(50:00):
I'm gonna take a couple of weeks off for the holidays,
heading out to Dubai to my academy, spend some time
out there, and spend Christmas out there, but wishing all
of you happy holidays, and we will see you all
in the new year. Son of It, which comes to
you every Wednesday listen. I can't thank everybody over the
last two years that listens to the pod on a
regular basis. It really does mean a lot to me.
(50:23):
We've got a lot of cool stuff planned for twenty
twenty four, a lot of cool guests that are going
to be coming on, and we're going to keep doing
what we do here at Son of a Bunch
It's the Son of a Butch podcast. We come to
you every Wednesday. I am your host, Claude Harmon. This
week's guest Brendan Quinn. I haven't had a journalist on.
I've had some TV people on, but I hadn't had
a journalist on full disclosure. We recorded this last Thursday
during the day. We I mean everybody pretty much knew
John Ram was signing with Live, but we did it
(00:29):
as kind of a hypothetical. Even though we thought he
was going to sign You never know. I mean, all
these rumors, there's there's rumors about people all day every day.
But I wanted to get a journalist on because I
hadn't had one on before. I had some people that
were in the TV space, but I wanted to get
someone who writes. And the thing I like about Brendan
(00:49):
he doesn't come from a golf background. He starts. He
still writes college basketball. But I wanted to get someone's
perspective that wasn't a kind of season golf journalists because
I think in twenty twenty three, I think everybody's opinion
kind of you know that is that is deeply, deeply
embedded with all the tours is somewhat, I don't know,
(01:13):
maybe compromise just because of their own bias. So I
thought to get a fresh take Brendan. I really like
his writing, and we talked about some good stuff. Listen.
It's crazy times, and I don't want to bombard all
you guys with tons of PGA tour lift stuff, but
it's impossible, given you know, everything that's happened in the
last week with John Rahm going to Live to not
(01:35):
talk about where we are with that and where everything is.
So I think it's a really good podcast, and we
talked about some you know, some stuff that you know. Listen,
it's been going on for the last two years, and
I thought it was important to get another point of view.
So sit back and enjoy listening to Brendan Quinn. I
(01:59):
guess is Brendan Quinn, you write for the Athletic both basketball,
college basketball and golf. But obviously we could talk about
college basketball. But it's the end of the twenty twenty
three season. The golf landscape Brendon over the last two
years is just it's unrecognizable from what it once was.
(02:19):
On the podcast, I've talked about this, I've had players
talk about it, I've Caddy's stuff. But we're in the
middle of it, right. Some of these guys are on
the PGA Tour. Some of these guys are on live.
But for those of us in the sport, I think
it's hard to see the overall view of it when
you're in the middle of it. And right now, it
seems like there's two sides, right there's the PGA Tour
(02:40):
guys and then there's the live guys. And as a
journalist and someone watching the last couple of years, what's
it been like and what are your thoughts? Because it's
I mean, I even though I'm right in the middle
of it, I work with three guys that are on live,
two of the biggest guys on live. Still, to me
(03:00):
is crazy that when I look back at, you know,
the end of the year in twenty twenty one, you
just couldn't have told me that we'd be where we
are today.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, you know, it's funny. It's for number one, it's
not what I or a lot of people signed up for.
When you're like, I wanna go cover golf, right, it's
and then suddenly you're in the middle of like covering
this like geopolitical just spionage. There's just you know, with
all these layers and understanding. And I remember when when
it all really started kind of bubbling to the surface,
(03:32):
but that would have been like twenty one summer, right,
I was coming out of basketball season and going to
Augusta and this was like, right, things were really popping
around Phil et cetera, et cetera. And my editor is like,
you know, you want to write a column about you know,
live and all these things going on and you know,
(03:52):
right and wrong, because it was very much still the
right and wrong portion of the conversation. And I said
to my boss, I'm like, I gotta tell you, I
don't know what a sovereign wealth fund is.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Can we start there, you know?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
And I kind of embarked on it that way, and
one of my first big stories on it was very much.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Speaking to.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Academics and finance people and journalists who work in that
space of foreign governments and understanding governments stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
This kind of involvement in sports there is I mean,
it's crazy to me, you know, as someone that has
been you know, part of I'm on tour on LIB
the last two years because that's where my players went.
But I find it crazy that as much as golf
wants to be like everything else. Right, And one of
(04:42):
the big things right now I think is the golfers.
The Saudis have come in and started to pay professional
golfers like other athletes get paid, like they get paid
in American football, soccer, over in Europe, baseball, basketball. You know,
some of the contracts, the film contract, the Bryson, the DJ,
the Brooks, those big live contracts. We're on a par
(05:03):
with what we see in basketball, baseball, other sports. Right,
We've never seen that before, but we have seen governments
countries get involved in sports through various companies and things
like that. Right, Yeah, why do you think that golf
has been so Why has this issue been so polarizing
(05:25):
in golf?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I think mainly it's there's a difference between buying a
team and creating a league. So, you know, we're not
going to go and rehash you know, should the tour
have taken those initial calls, et cetera, etc. Right, it's
a whole other thing. But there is something fundamentally different
by creating a competitive league that's going to go up
against your old school standard bearer, the brand, the institutional
(05:53):
piece and go head to head. You know, that's that's
not You've seen that happen in other sports. You've never
seen it created this way though, and where the money
came from and all that. So I think that was
like the most baseline reason for why this has been
so different. And then you know, I mean, we can
get into all the geopolitical stuff of why it became
(06:15):
a hot button issue and some people, I think, use
that to their advantage and other people honestly felt that
way and things like that, But it's.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
A journalist, it's just covering the sport. Yeah, what has
surprised you about the last two years?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
You know, I think the biggest surprise is the kind
of the constant lack of clarity, if that's it, Like everything.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Is just everything speculative, everything.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Speculative, speculative, speculative.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You hear people say one thing, and like it took
a while for a lot of people to just be like, Okay,
let's just stop listening to what anyone says because the
numbers it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Until right in the middle of John Rahm going to
live rumor Mania three hundred six hundred and like, like
I'm in the I know the people involved with making
these decisions and the numbers that get thrown out, it's
like you don't even know what to believe anything anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And it's crazy, it's not like is it like that?
And not? Do you think it's like that in the end?
And do you think the rumor mill on let's say
Patrick Mahomes is going to leave the Chiefs? I mean
we saw that when Lebron was going when when the
Lebron lottery was happening in the NBA are where was
Lebron going to go? That was that was was big news.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, there's there's rail, there's guardrails to all that stuff.
There are dates on the calendar of when you can go,
we know the length of It's nothing like that.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
There is nothing like that in this space.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Where it's like, you know, six months ago, if you
asked anybody about John Rahm as a non starter at
that point, you know, I mean, it's one hundred and
he's not going anywhere. You know, these guys are tent poles.
They're not going anywhere. Well, now it appears one of
those tentpoles is gone, so okay, Well that means let's
(08:07):
look at those other tempoles. How many of them are
actually planted right, because this one, I mean, this is
going to be It's obviously right now when we are
speaking right now, this is still slightly speculative, but it
seems like this is happening.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
This is a this is a different domino.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
In what way? In what way do you think John
Rahm is a different domino at this point? So because
obviously the biggest domino in my opinion, Yes, Phil was huge, Yeah,
but DJ going to Live to me was the tipping
point that changed everything. When a player of his caliber,
with his resume, as beloved as he is by the fans,
(08:47):
as popular as he is on the PGA tour. I
remember getting the call from DJ and him telling me
that he was going, and I was shocked, even though
I'd been with him for the last five years and
watched him entertain this and watched him agonize over to
the decision. And he struggled after the Masters, after winning,
for those two years after before he went to Live,
(09:08):
because the question of do I do this? What is
my legacy going to do? He played terror, He didn't
play great for two years, not up to the standard
that he's used to. And I think the struggle of
the decision to do it, and I still remember rend
In him calling me and even though I thought he
(09:29):
might do it, I was shocked. I got off the
call and I just went, holy shit, Yeah what just happened.
And I think he was the domino. And if you
talk to the people that subsequently went after DJ, they
all will say, yeah, once DJ went, it made it
more viable. Now John Rahm is a bigger dominant. I
(09:52):
think for Live the three biggest dominoes have been DJ going,
Brooks winning a major as a live player, and if
John Rahm does go to Live, that is another domino
because I think in the same way that maybe I
know for a fact that after the Masters and Brooks
almost winning, people went, Okay, we've got to figure out
(10:17):
what is really happening, and we've got to try and
figure something out because we thought that this wasn't going
to happen, and it basically just did. And then he
wins the PJ So that was a big domino to
where then he's on the Ryder Cup team and all that.
Do you think that the domino effect of John Rahm
is he's such a big player, two time major champion,
(10:40):
you know, all of the things that he's done up
to this point in his career. Why is he such
a big domino?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Number One is age? Okay, So like obviously DJ was.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Still incredibly mid thirties, could certainly pop up and win,
you know, another major and no one would be stunned.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
But also someone clearly on the back end of the career.
Rom's twenty six, twenty seven. So A, you have all
this runway.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
B you have his ranking, see you have he was
a face of the tour without question, and.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The face of the European tour.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The thing that really I think is kind of the biggest,
biggest piece of this though, is the legitimacy of the
brand in terms of competition. When When Live wants to
say we have a top three player in the world
now and the reigning masters Chimp and Brooks at times
is the top three player in the world, and other
(11:38):
times he is not. I mean physically he is what
he is. There are times you think he could be
done in a year if his body doesn't hold up.
Like John Rom ain't going anywhere for ten years, fifteen years,
as long basically as long as he wants to go.
So that's different and when you talk about what he
has behind him in terms of brand potential and things
like that. He's the face of Callaway, He's the face
(11:59):
of a lot major pieces.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
He's one of the faces of the European Ryder Cup
team for the next fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Is this the final one that gets a major brand
to come in and say, we're gonna put X amount
of dollars into your friend, he's gonna get his own team.
We're gonna put X amount of dollars. Rumor is he's
going to get his own Yeah, we're gonna put X
amount of dollars. And when that happens, other brands seeing
it and say, okay, well, now that brand's going to
(12:26):
put in this money. You know, we all kind of
roll our eyes a little bit where at some of
the valuations of some of these franchises where it's like, oh, yeah,
that Sergio's team's worth two billion, and you know, it's like,
I feel like he just kind of pulled that number
out of this guy.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But I'm not saying that would be legitimate.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
But like someone like rom having his own team and
being a guy who could go and.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
He could win multiple majors in a year, he is just.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
If John Rahm goes to live he could win five
day times.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
He's that yeah, oh yeah right, And.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Not to say that the other guys aren't. But I
say this all the time on the podcast. Anytime we
talk about John Rahm, we've had his coach, Dave Phillips on.
I don't he is so talented. He is one of
those players that you don't you don't understand how he
doesn't win every week. Right, that's how great of that's
how great his talent is. And I think the other
thing that you're talking about internationally John Rahm is he's European.
(13:22):
Even though he went to college in America, he's European.
He's Spanish, and that plays another role in it as well.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think, and you know, I mean, this further fractures things.
I mean, look, by the time this thing airs, who
knows what the state of the framework agreement is at
that time, if there is any more clarity as to
what's going on. But like everyone's talked about the game
being fractured in recent years, and like this is the
epitome of it. Man, Like if we don't get to
(13:52):
see Scottie, Rory and Ram playing each other at like
on a regular basis beyond four weeks a year, then
the game is fundamentally broken. At that it's already broken,
but there's just something different, you know, even with DJ
over on Live and Brooks, there's Jeff.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Smith and the players.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, like camp Smith Campus is a great example, and
Bryson was a great example. But like right now, I
think when you just think of like the best players
in the world, that's the conversation. And Cam was in
that conversation and it has changed, it feels like since
he went over.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
And also I think if your Live, you're not gonna
get Tiger. You're not gonna get Rory. You're not gonna
get Scotti, Scheffler, you're not gonna get j t You're
not gonna get Jordan, You're not gonna get the PGA
Tours boys. Yeah, and they are their boys, right, they
are the one you're not probably I'm ninety nine point
nine percent sure you're not getting Max Homy either, right,
(14:46):
So from Live standpoint, they're like, Okay, we're not gonna
get Tiger and Rory. Rom is the closest thing we
can get to. That to further our legitimacy of what
we're trying to do. You said, obviously it's your opinion
that golf professional golf is broken if it is broken,
and that's up for debate, but there are a lot
(15:07):
of people that share that center.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
That's how I feel.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
And if you and someone gonna make a noo counterpoint,
and I'm fine with that, but that's how I feel.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But if it is broken, is there a way to
fix it?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, we thought that that was there was the potential
of it if LID was coming unto the umbrella of
this for profit business being created by the pediator et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, with the investment fund from the
public investment fund. Okay, we thought there was going to
be some sort of marriage of the clans, right of
the two sides. But this is like another This is
(15:38):
a great example of when you're trying to understand things
in real time.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I'm like, wait a second, does rom doing this? Is
that good for the framework deal? Is that bad for
the good Dad? I just like, I don't pretend to
I'm like, I'm not a smart man. I don't know.
I don't know. And to me, it.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Feels like if it changes the valuation of live without
question beyond just the money that is going to Ram,
it changes the valuation of the brand to have him
associate with it. And then you've spent multiple months trying
to come up with valuations for both the PGA Tour,
all of its properties and live and all of its holdings.
So this changes all of that, and the deadline is
(16:21):
kind of on the clock here.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
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(17:32):
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(18:16):
ch three. Check it out if you want to improve
your daily health and fitness regiment. There is an argument
I think you can make that both both the tours
as they are today are as strong as their biggest players.
Because the PGA Tour, just like the Knock against Live
(18:39):
as everybody goes, I don't even know half the people
who are playing. But there is a large contingent of
players playing on the PGA Tour that could walk into
a restaurant and you not know where they are. And
I think in a lot of ways, golfers fly under
the radar like that, because if you're six foot eight
(18:59):
and you're in great shape and you show up in
e Bentley to a restaurant and you've got all the
blade and the ice on, more than likely someone's gonna
go I'm guessing that guy plays professional sports of some right.
If you just walk in and you're like when Christian
McCaffrey walks into a people are are they don't. That's
not a normal guy, That's not normal, right, So golfers,
(19:21):
I think I have had a lot of anonymity by
the sport. Right up until Tiger. It wasn't athletic, it
wasn't seen to be athletic. You know, nobody was in shape.
It was a bunch of old people and stuff like that.
But do you think that because if if Rom does
go to live, it's Rom, it's Phil, it's Brooks, it's DJ,
(19:43):
it's camp Smith, it's Bryson, it's Sergio, right, they're kind
of the big ones, and then there's a bunch of
other ones. If you're a golf fan, you might know
who they are. But if you aren't a diehard golf fan,
you might know that. But like I said, there's a
lot of people, you know, these these opposite field events
mississip it be and that's only gonna get worse now.
And we have already been hearing from some people on
(20:05):
the PGA to or that it seems like there's a cast,
there's a there's a there's a two class system. There's
the haves and the have nots. And so do you
think that there's a case to be made that if
you look at if Rom were to go, if you
look at the stars, are they getting closer from an
(20:25):
amount from a.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Maybe who they say it's it depends on how you
look at You can almost look at it inside out too,
where it's like when when I say that the game
is fractured, just Rom going to live. I don't think
magically is gonna make people wake up on a Saturday
or Sunday morning and be like, holy shit, I got sorry,
I just clap in your mi like holy shit, I
gotta watch John Rom today. I'm sure there's people in
(20:50):
Spain who feel that way, and I'm sure there are
some fans who do, but the large public, he just
doesn't have that much sway. I don't know if anyone does.
So here's the thing, what guy going I don't look
at it as the like that much tilt on the scale.
I look at it as that him going over there
(21:10):
does make that product slightly smaller. I still don't think
anyone particularly is going to be.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Crawling to the.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Remote to make sure that they are watching every week.
The PGA Tour is getting more and more water down though,
like the tour needs to have all of the best
players there just to get any just to get casuals
to watch on a weekly basis. So now you have
a scenario where say there's two tournaments happening at the
same time, which will happen multiple times this year, Well,
(21:39):
you know, the tours.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
A little bit watered down.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And I'm not a big fan of live now I'm
watching no golf, you know, and there are a lot
of casuals.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I know people listening to this are not.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
People listening to this are golf fans. And so take
your journalist hat off. We think the average golf fan
now thinks about the professional game.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I think they're sick of the conversation. I think they
see a lot of entitlement on all sides. I think
none of these guys are relatable anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I think the people are just bored with the con
It was. It was kind of sexy and weird.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Right in the beginning, but now it's just like, all right, man,
like this two years of this, there's still nothing. They're
still just you know, pissing on each other's legs and
arguing over money, and and none of.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Them steal each other's girl, is right.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It feels like like a high school fight, right, like
like the two sides of these dudes, who are you know,
just kind of going at it like it's just old
and tired, and there are so many options, right, Like
this is a football country. Everyone's watching football right.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Now, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Is a football country.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, and they're going to turn on the Masters and
say who's playing where, and they're going to get caught
up on it. I just think my buddies back home,
I live in Detroit, I play with like we are
public golf course guys, right, we have like our one
trip a year, like that's our group, right, And you
know they follow along with the rumors and send me
texts of like.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Man, is this real? Is rom going? And I'm like,
I don't know, probably to but.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I think that's most people where there's no appeal to
any of this is there.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I think the only thing that I see is to
me this this happens. What's happening currently between the PJ
Tour and Live. You know, the people at the Country,
the club that I work at, the finance people, They're like,
I don't understand what the big deal is. This happens
literally every single day in the business world. Companies, no competition.
(23:45):
Somebody you see a company that's vulnerable, you try and
buy them, they say no. Then you hear the guys
going through divorce, and you go, well, hey, wait a minute,
are you interested in selling?
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
No competition, but this happened. I mean Dan Rappaport I
saw where Taylor Gooch now has left the Range Goats
and gone to Smash and he's like, you never need
to know the lack of legitimacy for Live. When the
best player in the league goes to another team. I'm like,
that happens all the time, like pitchers in baseball. When
(24:18):
the side Garrett, the guy that played for the Astros
they won the World Series, Garrett Wilson, Garrett, I can't remember,
but he was playing for the Astros, Cy Young getting
paid a ton. The following year, they had a great year.
The following years at the Yankees try they paid more money,
they paid more money. And I guess being inside the
(24:40):
sport and being part of athletes, I've always I haven't
had an issue what's going on with live because I
am pro athlete, because I work for athletes. I work
for golfers, so I am a hired gun to professional golfers.
And I think that professional athletes, whether they're golfers, baseball,
but whatever, like everybody else in every other walk of
(25:01):
life and business, should have the opportunity and should be
able to make a choice to make as much.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Money as they want with that question.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
That happens in every other walk of life. And I've
been fascinated as watching this happen for two years, and
I've always thought this about golf, and I think we're
in a stage right now crazy. You know the live rumors,
you know the John Romrouvers, the ball roll back and everybody.
But it's always seemed to me like there has been
(25:32):
this Truman Show utopian view of golf that golf has
to be this evergreen concept and thought that it never changes, right,
and it's the only thing in life that can't change.
It has to stay the way it was in the
fifties and sixties and all the rules and all the stuff.
(25:56):
And I've always thought that at times golf can seem
antiquated and archaic, and I don't think the sport grows
if we have more courses where it's impossible to become
a member right where you know there are only like
if you look at a lot of the guys when
you know when Jimmy Dunn and Ed hurleyhy are involved
(26:18):
in all this stuff for professional golf, I mean, those
guys are the golf illuminate. They're members at Cyprus Augusta
Pine Valley, similar they are part of something that the
majority of people in golf will never even be part of.
And I do think that there are certain people in
(26:39):
golf that are kind of the gatekeepers that, in my opinion,
sometimes want golf to stay the way it was and
the way their version of what it is should be
And I don't think that. Does that happen in other sports.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I'm maybe a little bit, you see a little bit
in college sports. There are people who are just against name,
image and likeness legislation and are just wow, we're.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Paying these guys.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
And now it's all different and it's changed because it's
not my version of college football. And it's just like
and when I went to school, Hell, does it matter
to you if this nineteen or twenty year old kid
is able to make a car commercial and get.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
The universities making one hundred and fifteen, the coach is
making fifteen million.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Making ten million a year? What is the hashue?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
College coaches get paid a lot. They don't get paid
as much as Jay Monahan does.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Facts, but I think you do see it there though.
There is this ideal of the college sports. Are these
guys coming, they get their scholarships, They play for my
school with that school's name across the tire, and that's
all that matters. But when you tell them, oh, well
the playing fields, that evening out a little bit. Now
the kids are getting some money, they have control, they
(27:51):
can go to whatever school they want, because guess what,
the school doesn't matter They're just going to play their game,
maybe go to some glasses, maybe get into I don't know,
it's really up at this point.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
It's up to the athlete. If the kid wants to
get a degree, then get a degree. They don't let
me do it.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
But it is a pathway to the professional sports. So
you see a lot of pushback there, and I think
there's there's all kinds of stuff that goes into that
of why so it's just people like college sports and
other people. I just don't think like seeing kids get
money and be entitled. So that's the closest comp that
I can find. Now, it's obviously the other sport that
(28:27):
I cover, so it's easy. But the difference that comes
with professional golf though, at the end of the day,
is that what is there to identify with in a
professional golfer? Right, I'm from Philadelphia, so I'm an Eagles guy, Phillies.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Six, right, So there's a lot of teams.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I went to Saint Joe's University in Philadelphia, so Seeing
Joe's is my school, so were the guys who play
for those teams?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Those are my guys, you know, And there's just nothing
like that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
And golf you have to pick an individual.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
They're just they're just people.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You're a Rory guy, You're a j T guy, You're
a DJ guy, whatever guy you are.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Like, what's the is there?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
How many of those guys actually had like carry emotional
attachments from their fans. Tiger did, But Tiger doesn't count.
He's his own sport basically.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
But these guys, you.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Know, everyone's just kind of along for the ride with them,
but they're not living and dying. They're not you know,
when if they blow it on a Sunday, that fan
isn't waking up on Monday morning crushed for the next
three days. The Eagles loose to the Cowboys this weekend,
people filled up, You're gonna be pissed on Monday.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
It's it's different.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So, you know, and live creating teams, that's not you know,
people are not gonna ever have that attachment to those
teams they're trying.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah, I just don't.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I just me personally, I just don't see that ever
being a real thing. I like the team competition, but
I don't think anyone's gonna ever be just ride or
die for smash.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
That's just the rider die for smash. I'mna make a
t I'm gonna tell Brooks to make a t shirt.
Rid Er die for Smash. You mentioned Tiger Woods. Obviously
Tiger didn't go to Live. I think Tiger basically right
now is kind of the de facto. He and Roy
are the face of the PGA Tour. In twenty twenty three,
(30:09):
Tiger came back at the Hero last week his tournament
said he's probably gonna play, you know, maybe once a month. Okay,
in twenty twenty three. Does the game of golf and
the professional game of golf still need Tiger?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I mean, does it like need it is an interesting
way of putting it. I know they want in terms
of moving the needle, in terms of still getting casuals
to watch, in terms of getting extra attention.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, it needs it. It's extremely cred I still think.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
That one of the knock on lives, and you mentioned it. Listen,
the team nobody cares. I'm not gonna get involved in that.
A lot of people say, listen, I just I don't care.
I don't care who's playing it. I'm not gonna watch.
You still think that the casual, not die Hard, but
the casual golf fan and the casual non golf fan
will tune in. If Tiger Woods teased up at.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Riviera, I think they're more likely to. And if he
can do anything, the people are gonna pay attention to it.
I don't really care anymore because I just don't think
it's a really competitive venture anymore. But you know, people
will come out, people will buy a ticket, ask Rivier
if they want Tiger to play, you know, I mean
it getting people to come out and physically spend money.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, But there's also I've always thought at this point
there's an argument to be made for Tiger because his
body is where it is now. He's only going to
play a very very limited schedule, right, So the question
is can he get the momentum he needs to be
(31:48):
competitive again, and obviously he's going to be competitive in
the majors or at this point is it Michael Jackson
in sal Polo in front of three hundred thousand people saying,
this is my new this is the song off my
new album, and Everyody's going just play PYT and Thriller
totally nobody. And I think Tiger was such an unbelievable
(32:11):
golfer that he has spoiled us so much that I
think everybody still expects him to do what he did
in the.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Day, right, And I was kind of curious to see
TGL just because I mean literally, you asked me, does
golf need Tiger? I don't know, but I do know
that an entire professional league was created just basically to
allow Tiger Woods to hit golf shots on television?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Right, does golf need something like the TGL?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
I don't know. I don't know who's watching that. I
maybe I just it's to me. Do I care?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I don't know, And I know some people over there,
so like I feel bad saying this, but like I
just have zero interest in watching. And I live in Michigan,
like I have to play in simulators, you know, But
I just don't know if it's.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
If it's like a real thing. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Maybe I'm not a big enough golf fan to be
perfectly honest with you. But what does it do for anybody?
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Put your journalist's hat back on? Okay, next year, at
this time, on this day, What the hell do you
think this looks like? What do you think and what
would you want it to look like? But first of all,
what do you think happens? Do you think that we
spend another year of just this dangling of a carrot,
(33:41):
that maybe there's a daytant that maybe we can get
everybody together. Does maybe live if John Rahm goes to
more players follow, does this all just become one big
Morgas board of.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah, I think it gets worse.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
This is totally a guess, right, This is not based
on like, oh I've got some secret conversations, not that.
This is my absolute guess is that the framework fractures,
Live doubles down more money.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
So if the framework goes away, you you see, y'alls
are going.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
What are they gonna do?
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I'm gonna push back all.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Where they going to pack it up? Yeah, there's no true.
They're too deep. They're too deep, right, This is the
it And that's based on reporting when I was at
I went to the event at the Ral and I
left there confident that if this thing, if the framework
doesn't go through and it is just still two separate entities,
that what are they would they ever realistically pack it
(34:38):
up and just be like, well, I guess you know,
tip the cap PGA tour. That doesn't happen in this world.
They have too much money, So who's.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
The commissioner next year.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
That was gonna be the other part.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I was gonna say, fractures the side split. I don't
think Jay would survive. Why that, you know, lack of
confidence amongst the players.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
If you're a player on the PGA Tour, whether you're
a big player, do you think it's different if you're
a superstar versus non superstar? Your opinion of Jay Monahan
at this point, I mean, is Justin Thomas's opinion of
Jay Monahan. Is Roy McElroy's opinion of Jay Monahan different than.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I think those guys at least, I think those guys
at least feel like Ted Podd Jr. Those guys at
least feel like he has to take their call and
answer to them to a degree, right, Like they still
have weight. Those other guys you have, they just they're
along for the ride. They don't have weight. And guess what,
the the notion that they should to me is crazy, okay,
(35:45):
because go cover professional sports and go ask the tenth, twelfth,
fourteenth guy in the NBA locker room. You know, if
the owner really cares about their opinion, and that's that's
just just the way professional sports.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
There's about Lebron's opinion exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So I think to your question, yeah, like Jay knows
that he has to you know, play Kate. Answer to
those guys that you're talking, those those small, those few
which could get fewer big time voices, and those guys,
I think that they the more the worse this gets,
(36:20):
the more power they have, the more power they have,
the more options they have to be able to pick their.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Own new leader.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
They're going to have an extra seat on the board.
They now rank the independence. So why couldn't this be
a player led not revolt, that's not the right word,
but a player led.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Coops say, you're out. Do you have a.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Problem with the players being more involved with how professional
golf is run? Because some people do. Some people say
this is basically the mark of the end because the
players will now just basically say listen, it's all all
about us. Will take all the money. And we've heard
that in you hear that sometimes in the NFL. You
hear that sometimes. And it's a players league, right. But
(37:08):
the owners, I mean, I work at a club, my club,
I've had them on the podcast. Jim Craney owns Houston Astros.
I mean, there's what the players want, And then I
spend a lot of time around Jim and I listened
to what he wants as an owner, as someone that
wants to return on his investment, right as the one
that put up the money to buy the team. I
think there's a really great story that during the pandemic,
(37:29):
one of the players, Jim was playing with one of
the players, and it was when the players were in
baseball were saying, you know, we we should still get
part of our salary and stuff like this, and I
think one of the players, it was a big player
for the Astros, said to Jim they were playing golf
during the pandemic in Houston, I mean in Florida, and
he said, you know what, you bought the team for?
How much? And how much is it worth? Now? You know?
(37:50):
Jim turned around and said to him, go buy your
own team. Then, yeah, go get six hundred million dollars,
go raise it, Go buy your own franchise. Then you
make all the decisions you want. But until you can
go pony up and get six hundred million to go
buy a franchise, you're making forty mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Right, Well, I would count the question with this, like,
once there's outside investment my end, you are seeding control? Yes, right,
so it there. The money that these players want to
make has to come from somewhere. So if they want
to play for all these all these millions of dollars
and get all these endorsements and all this stuff, well
that has to come from somewhere. And to get it
(38:29):
from somewhere, you have to seed a degree of control.
Like they're say, the framework actually went through, okay, and
this for profit business is me Are they under the
impression that they still just get to call their own
shots or all this stuff? Do we just think that
the public Investment fund is just going to be like,
here's three billion have fun. Yeah, you know, like no.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
I thought that was good. I mean I had players,
you know, I had players from the PGA tour. I
had people involved in, you know, broadcasting the PJ tour.
When the framework happened, they all said it was fun
while it lasted. But you guys are toast. Now Jay's
going to get rid of Live And I'm thinking I've
gotten to know Yelsa pretty well over the last four
(39:10):
or five years, both professionally and spent some time with
him privately. I'm thinking I don't think someone's going to
give you three to ten billion dollars and say have
at it and whatever you want to do. I'm good
with that. Yeah, I just don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah, and that was very much. I mean, the tour
was pushing that hard when that agreement was was finalized,
you know, finalized in air quotes, because obviously we know
it wasn't finalized. But you know, the day those two
are on CNBC, Man, the back channels were already cooking
(39:43):
with the narrative.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
When that when they're in control when that day happened.
Did you think you were getting punked? Did you think
it was real? I got a text I was driving
I've just left the gym. I was driving up to work,
and someone sent that to me. I'm like and I'm like,
that's not real. And then five seconds later my phone
just went yeah, and I was just like.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
What, yep, were you surprised?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I was in I was in Philadelphia visiting my father
and had a flight out at like seven pm that day,
and it was what nine o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Or something, and.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
I was so caught off guard and so just kind
of like reactionary. I said, not only do I need
and not only do I have to leave Dad, sorry,
but like I gotta go home. I need to be
at my desk cause this day is gone to hell.
And I looked it up and there was a flight
leaving in like fifty minutes, and I just hauled as
to the airport and just got on a plane and
went back to Detroit and was at my desk and
(40:38):
on the phone for the next you know, as you know,
fifteen hours or whatever. And yeah, I mean it was.
It was so preposterous to see the two of them
sitting next to each other acting like this was a
normal situation to be Like.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Well, I think that situation, I mean, I know both
of them. I think the situation was way more normal
for Yaser than it was for j Yosters used to
doing shit like that all the time.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Sure, but they had been and they had been talking
for weeks, and a Jay I think had come to
the point of being accepting.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Because Yoster had always wanted totally to get involved in
the PGA tour. You know, I went to the Saudi
International when it launched on the European tour in twenty eighteen.
I have an academy in Dubai and we teach the
Saudi national team, so I knew all the guys there.
They invited me over. Keith Pelly was there from the
European Tour. He was announcing how great it was going
to be for the European Tour, and I saw Jay
I think at the at the Players Championship a couple
(41:36):
of hours, like, dude, talk to him. They want to
be involved, they want to invest in professional golf, and
you know, for whatever reason, that didn't happen. Lastly, lastly, can.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I ask you if you think the Framework Agreement's going
to get done.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Now? I don't think it gets done because I just
think that there are too many people that see the
Saudi's involvement as something sinister, as ulterior motives. And having
spent a good chunk of my adult life living in
(42:16):
the Middle East, you know, I lived in Dubai for
three years, and you know, when you look in my opinion,
taking away all of the geopolitical elements of it, right
just from a shear what I think they're trying to do.
I think they look at their population, which the majority
of it is under the age of forty to fifty,
(42:37):
and they look at Dubai and most people only know
about Dubai because of golf. A lot of people know
about Dubai because of golf. Now, in the last five years,
maybe Dubai's become but there was a big period of
time to where people like Tiger Woods and Freddie Couples
and Greg Norman and the American golfers that went over
there kind of put Dubai on the map. And I
think what the Saudis are doing, And you know, Randal
(43:00):
continues to call this sports washing, but I think what
they're trying to figure out is how can we use
sports as a vehicle to bring tourism in to do
other things. I'm not a politician, right, so and the
barstool guys and the no laying up guys love to
use at all. Anybody that said they're not a politician's
gone to live. I'm like, well, are you guys politicians?
(43:22):
Are you guys in politics? You guys are doing podcasts
right And I just I've been to Saudi every year
multiple times for the last five years, and everybody that
I've met involved and from the golf standpoint, loves golf.
They want golf to be a part of what they're doing,
(43:44):
but I don't think the framework gets done because I
just think there is a core group of people that
just fundamentally, like you said, they don't want to see
the power and they see that if they do a
deal with the PIF, with Yaser and the Saudi, is
it some it's a power struggle and they're losing. I
(44:05):
think it's I think it's been good for golf because
I think it's made everybody involved in professional golf somewhat
wake up, because I think the system's been broken for
a long time. The tour knows the system's broken, the
agents know the system's broken, and the players know it's broken.
But the agents all say to the players, listen, if
(44:26):
you guys want to change this one hundred and fifty
hundred and seventy high aver any people on the PGA Tour,
you guys can vote. But nothing ever significant has ever
really come out of the pack, right. There hasn't been
anything that has been, you know, breaking, breaking news, and
so I just think that maybe they gotten complacent and
(44:50):
the players felt like they looked at other sports. I mean,
I remember when DJ we were at Memphis and Steph
Curry signed his new deal and DJ it was he won,
so he just had, you know, amazing year that you won,
you know, fifteen sixteen million dollars And we're sitting at
dinner and he's like, well, at least I made more
money than the commissioner of the tour this year last year.
(45:13):
And he's like, that doesn't happen in other sports, right,
I mean, Roger Goodell gets paid on a par with
what Patrick Mahomes gets paid. He doesn't get paid exponentially
more than the superstars. But in golf, for a long time,
I think there has been a little bit of difference.
(45:34):
But I just think that I think competition is good,
and I think that if the PGA Tour, pivots and
their product changes and gets better, and I think the
majors now hold all the cards, right, yeah, the majors. Oh,
you know, you've got to be a die hard, die
hard tennis fan to know, namely five other tournaments Roger
(45:57):
fetters one other than Wimbledon, the French, the US and
the Aussie Open. You've got to be I mean, tennis
has to be part of your DNA. And I think
that the majors now will only become bigger.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yeah, one of the things that just will never go away.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
As the primary issue is that, like, if you were
designing professional golf, now no one I related to the
NC double A. If you were creating college sports, nobody
would have ever created the model today that they created,
that was created, and that it what it kind of
(46:35):
formed into and just or devolved into or whatever you
want to say, Like it just became this preposterous version
of what it started out as. That's professional golf. It's
the same. And you can't you can't undo the paste
done right, Like you know, like the in college football,
they kicked the can down the road on a playoff
(46:56):
for all these years because they were beholden to these
ridiculous bowls, keeping these bowls happy and all the ye
we answered to the Rose Bull. It's like, why do
you answer to the Rose Bowl? You know, who gives
a shit? And and these in the in the tour,
you know, we have to worry about this a tournament
that sponsor and this and that, and you're like, you
just can't. There's so many miles to feed and really
(47:17):
that all that matters at the end of the day
is guys competing against each other. But everything around it
is just nothing.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Brendan, thanks for talking us fascinating, fascinating times. Next year
we're gonna get you back on and see if we
were right. Ah, thanks for talking to us. Thank you
so much. Quote. So that was some really good stuff
from Brendan. And listen. I mean we did this, uh,
(47:49):
not knowing if John Rahm had officially signed with Live,
but now that he has. Listen, depending on what side
you're you're on, and you don't have to take a
side I keep. I've been saying that a lot. It's
just golf. You can watch golf wherever you want to
go watch golf, but now that genre has gone to Live,
I think it's a big deal. I think John Ram
(48:11):
is arguably at any given time, the best player in
the world. And I think when the best player in
the you know, one of the best player I think,
you know, you can make an argument when these guys
are playing good. But Jon Ram is one of those
players that when he is on and when he is
playing at his best one four times last year including
the Masters, there is an argument that you can make.
(48:33):
And Jen Ram passes the eye test, uh for the
best player in the world. So for Live to get
someone who is arguably the best player in the world
right now. He can go toe to toe with Rory,
he can go toe to toe with Scotti Scheffler, he
can go toe to toe with anybody on any tour
anywhere in the world. And for all the things and
(48:56):
for all the negative things that a lot of people
say about Live, they just got John Rahm. And whether
you like that, whether you don't like that, whether you
think that's big, or whether you don't think that's big,
one of, if not the best player in the world
just chose to leave the PGA Tour. And I think
(49:18):
that's significant. Now where this goes, how this plays out
moving forward, I don't think anybody knows, but I do
think that it is significant, and that is why I
wanted to get brendan On to not only talk about
that the rumors of that which turned out to be true,
but also to talk about, Yeah, it's been crazy the
last two years. I hope in twenty twenty four we
(49:38):
all can just get back to talking about golf, golf
on the golf course. I don't think that's gonna happen,
because I still think there's a lot of moving parts,
but it's going to be an interesting twenty twenty four,
and there were a lot of surprises in twenty twenty
three that a lot of people didn't see coming, and
I think there's going to be more in twenty twenty four.
(50:00):
I'm gonna take a couple of weeks off for the holidays,
heading out to Dubai to my academy, spend some time
out there, and spend Christmas out there, but wishing all
of you happy holidays, and we will see you all
in the new year. Son of It, which comes to
you every Wednesday listen. I can't thank everybody over the
last two years that listens to the pod on a
regular basis. It really does mean a lot to me.
(50:23):
We've got a lot of cool stuff planned for twenty
twenty four, a lot of cool guests that are going
to be coming on, and we're going to keep doing
what we do here at Son of a Bunch
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