Nobilo Says The Quiet Part Out Loud
As PGA Tour mulls private equity offers and the golf media ecosystem wilts, the veteran CBS analyst tells Five Clubs podcast that “golfers are overpaid compared to every other sport."
And you thought you had a long Monday.
Rory McIlroy spent hours discussing private equity offers with a PGA Tour Board that includes his Rome sparring buddy Patrick Cantlay. As a voting member, McIlroy presumably joined Monday’s Global Home deliberations from Dubai, where he’s playing this week despite having already won the season-long DP World Tour chase. McIlroy and the other nine Board members were expected to mull and maybe even vote on the final “unsolicited” financing offers sent their way after the organization blew through savings while fending off Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Private equity sharks—and a few dolphins calling themselves the “Friends of Golf” with noble intentions of preserving the Tour model instead of extracting savings—are circling the distressed PGA Tour. The rest of golf should brace for more months of tedious money talk about (A) how much capital will be infused by the winning bidder into PGA Tour Enterprises, (B) how much the non-defecting stars will receive in equity from the new venture, and, (C) how all of this portends well for growing purses and, you just know it, “growing the game.”
It’s all especially surreal knowing almost two dozen global tournaments in 2024 will have higher purses than majors despite having smaller fields, no-cuts and less compelling venues. In the case of LIV, just 54 holes of work for the Fireflies, Hurlers GC, etc. That’s in sharp contrast to the four majors, which put on a superior “product” while reinvesting into the sport. It’s all downright bonkers when you consider that an overwhelming majority of the top beneficiaries of these warring tours could walk down any main street protected by their grumpy bib-wearing caddies, and somehow still go unrecognized by all but the people who have old Big Break’s tucked away on their TiVos.
Fans and onlookers just want to know if this dance with private equity means the Tour has failed to come to terms with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Led by one-time nemesis and Deepdale-member-in-waiting, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, he offered to invest in a piece of the for-profit “PGA Tour Enterprises” just to make an uncomfortable deposition go away. But if the deal falls through and Al-Rumayyan remains motivated to wreak havoc, we’ll have an all-out war over a microscopic portion of the global sports landscape. One that sees sizable numbers just four weeks a year. And those events are not controlled by either feuding entity.
The threat posed by Al-Rumayyan’s LIV has funneled silly money and unsustainable expectations to players who happened to turn pro in a post-Tiger, Saudi Arabia-rebrand world. One where a delusional Crown Prince dreams of growing his GDP 1.5% hosting the 2032 Aramco at Royal Neom National Golf And Pickleball Resort.
Yet every viewership and engagement metric says only one elite professional golfer is deserving of doubled purses and other bonuses to keep him from jumping ship. A couple of TW’s successors with the initials RM and JR might also hold similar powers. But the Tour’s finest will play in 2024 for multiple $20 million-or-more purses (before bonus pools). Only four of those events will feature a 36-hole cut, further reducing the sense of competitive legitimacy and viewing urgency.
Meanwhile, the ecosystem surrounding the professional game is withering away as longtime sponsors say goodbye and others reduce their charitable and tournament build-out spends. And somehow in the face of a global threat, the PGA Tour has worked at becoming less worldly by jettisoning the WGC’s and buying the European Tour’s silence. Media partners paying rights fees face a number of existential threats and huge bills created before the LIV situation. This has led to a reduction in the coverage competency or innovation from one of two primary partners. The kind of investment that can inspire fans to care more about the players and shots they play.
Throw in the splintered way we consume media, with so many unrecognizable players whose stories need telling to help invest fans in what is an otherwise boring sport, and, voila! We have a world where certain influencers are more recognizable to the coveted demo than some world top 20s.
The Tour’s biggest media partner at Comcast has slashed marketing spends, production investment, and is bleeding homes reached via Golf Channel where the Tour’s early round coverage resides for seven more years. Last week, this once mighty one-stop-shop for fans canned or non-renewed more longtime personnel even as the operation was already leaner than it should be for all the hours golf is televised. Comcast has already moved major championship coverage to sister network USA Network to ensure a decent audience reach in between tacky standard def reruns. The Golf Channel decline is even more remarkable given how the recreational game has sustained its COVID-inspired renaissance.
Two years of incessant money talk has also eaten into the likability of professional golfers to all but the high finance bros and billionaires lining up to invest in the PGA Tour Enterprises. The majority of fans need more than news of purse and bonus pool growth to tune in for non-major championships.
So in response to these trends, respected analyst, former player and current broadcaster Frank Nobilo said the quiet part out loud.
“Golfers are overpaid compared to every other sport,” he told Gary Williams on the Five Clubs podcast.
This is someone of prominence who has been in the trenches and remembers what it was like when pro golfers were underpaid. Nobilo is now on the television side working for a network investing to improve its coverage despite constant whiny roadblocks from players who displayed little interest in helping a primary business partner put on a better show. (Remember it was only this year that we got the in-round interviews after years of players kvetching about the horrors of sharing a few thoughts during competition.)