A "sensational, controversial, shocking" news story in the world of golf: the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour have announced that they're going to merge. Dr Seán Ó Conaill, UCC School of Law and Centre for Sports Economics & Law joined RTÉ journalist Greg Allen and Cormac Ó hEadhra on RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime to discuss the decision. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full above).
"I nearly swerved the car when I heard, actually," says Allen. "There's going to be strong reaction towards this, it's a bombshell. The PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and LIV Golf have reached an agreement. They've signed the agreement, in fact, the ink is dry on this. The deal combines the investment fund's golf-related commercial businesses. So, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia funds LIV Golf 100%. Basically, they are the purse string-holders and LIV Golf is their product," he explains.
Allen says it looks like LIV Golf will fade away after this year. "Because at the moment, the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, along with those of the PIF, will be formed into a new, collectively-owned for-profit entity. No mention that the word LIV will be used."
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From RTÉ One's Six One News, PGA Tour and DP World Tour announce merger with LIV Golf
The PIF funds LIV "to the point of putting so many gazillions into the sport that it's elevated prize funds everywhere, because the PGA Tour's prize funds had to rise to provide a credible alternative for their players to be thwarted from joining LIV," says Allen. "There are several court cases which have been ongoing for the past few months. The DP World Tour, which is the European Tour, they effectively won their case: they were allowed to sanction players who went from the DP World Tour over to LIV. That happened on the 6th of April, just at the start of the Masters.
"A week later the PGA Tour had a major win against LIV, in what was an antitrust case that LIV were taking against the PGA Tour. Antitrust being anti-competition. The judge in that case said that she was not willing to split the case into two, which would have expedited how quickly it would have gone. It was effectively kicking the LIV Golf case against the PGA Tour down the road for two years, they were the words of the judge. So things were not going LIV's way."
"In addition to that, over the Christmas and New Year period when LIV were trying to recruit players, Greg Norman announced that there were going to be six players from the world's top 20 joining LIV: nobody from the world's top 20 over that period of time joined LIV. They got the world number 34 Thomas Pieters. So things were not going so well for LIV."
Critical in all this is that there's been no mention of LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman, says Allen. "That brings to mind the fact that maybe the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour were not willing to have these negotiations with Greg Norman at the table. And I think a prerequisite for this deal, is that Greg Norman is off the table and away and gone forever, I think," says Allen.
Will the likes of Rory McIlroy be dismayed by the fact that this money is merging with the PGA Tour? He is due to give a press conference at the Canadian Open and it'll be very interesting to see what he is going to say, says Allen.
"Rory McIlroy is not just any player who has spoken out against LIV: he is the chairman of the Player Advisory Group on the PGA Tour, he has a seat on the PGA Tour board. Did he know that this was ongoing, while others didn't? I don't know, that may be something we'll find out," says Allen. He adds that following accusations of sportswashing, the deal now "has to be sold to the players, many of whom would have had human rights hearts, some of them would have had serious reservations about this."
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If the deal is signed, sealed and delivered, is there any way it can be challenged? There's probably a few legal steps to overcome, says Ó Conaill. "One is, they're currently both suing each other left, right and centre in Europe and the United states, so they're going to have to settle all of them and untangle the web they put there.
"But that's a little bit easier said than done, because we've had the PGA Tour and DP Tour shouting at them about human rights abuses and 'how could you take this money' and the commissioner of the PGA Tour said some really strong things about connections to 9/11 and the Saudis. Then on the other side you've got LIV golf and PIF who have been saying 'competition law' and now they're signing up to be a monopoly. So these things are going to be somewhat challenging for them to face down.
The big losers here are the players who ultimately stayed with the PGA Tour
"But the biggest thing is it's already been signed and that's the quirky thing about golf. Golf is a little bit different to most other sports. If we look at rugby or soccer there's this overall, global governing body: golf doesn't have that. Golf is a few different silos all around the world, that can act somewhat autonomously. So there's not going to be the kind of governance and oversight," he says.
Who are the losers here? The big losers here are the players who ultimately stayed with the PGA Tour, says Ó Conaill. "But the other losers are going to be, to be honest, everyone involved. They invested so much and they went to war and they had a huge PR battle and legal battles, only to turn around and say, 'actually we're all going to get on now'.
"Couldn't they have done this two years ago? Wouldn't this have made perfect sense? There's a big questions to be answered by a lot of people, as to why have we ended up here? The only people who have benefitted are the LIV golfers and the lawyers".
