52 Weeks of Hustle - Team Golf's Cold War Just Ended

Welcome to 52 weeks' hustle. I'm Travis Apple and after spending my entire career in the sports industry, I want to continue to find ways to give back, to give back to individuals that want to get in this business, or individuals that are currently in this business that want to continue to excel in elite level. For those of you know me, I've always put a lot of focus on hustle, hence the name. This podcast every other week is going to sit down with an industry leader to talk about their career path, what they look for in successful people, and ultimately a few key takeaways for you to apply to your everyday. Every other episode dives into a hot topic that I give my personal opinion thoughts and ideas on. So it's going to be a very fun season. We're already in season seven. And also we're getting closer and closer to December 3rd and 4th, 24 hours of hustle, presented by Spinzo. Our first ever, the businesses first ever, 24 hour podcast covering today's biggest topics in sports and live entertainment. Please be sure to tune in. Now on to today's episode. I'm Travis Apple, be the host of your podcast. This is another exciting week that we're going to talk about a live topic in my opinion thoughts and ideas. As a reminder every other week is an industry leader talking about their career path. And I'm super excited about today's episode is transparently, I'm not the biggest fan of this sport. I don't play this sport a ton, but I follow it, especially from the business side. And over the last couple years it's been really exciting to see. And that is the sport of golf. And today's episode, we're going to talk about the PJ tour and live golf and how they competed and really somewhat of a SWAT analysis of both. And where I think it is. And as always, with these episodes, I continue and I get a lot of feedback, you know, via email, LinkedIn, text about how you guys are thinking about these topics. Again, this is just my opinion, but it's always a fun idea and certainly a fun platform to discuss this. And so today's episode team golf's Cold War just ended. How the PGA and live both won, both struggled and both made golf bigger than they found it. So as we dive in just this past week, the president's club finished Sunday with the largest final day come back in the events history. Just several weeks earlier, live golf filed chapter 11 bankruptcy. But this episode's not going to be a PGA one live lost story because I think both sides earn real wins from this fight and battle. Both sides paid real cost. And golf, the sport itself viewed as one industry is bigger, more global. I think the argument could be made more player friendly and more commercially sophisticated than it was in 2022. And competition is so important in this industry and this business. I think live pushed the PGA into modernization and the PGA would not have run on its own. The Cold War just ended. At the end of the day, I think golf is that new net winner from this perspective. And so as I was watching articles, I've got a lot of friends that are very into golf. It's just talking to them and seeing how their thoughts and opinions are towards it. I think as I look at it, there's really three things that happened over the last five months that we should be looking at. And we're going to talk about on this episode because they're separately, they're golf stories. But together, in my opinion, they're one of the most important sports business stories, potentially of the year. And those are three big dates over the last couple of months. On April 30th, Saudi Arabia's public investment fund announced it will be ending its funding committed towards live golf. September 8th, live golf filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, potentially between 100 to 500 million in assets, 500 million to 1 billion in liabilities and roughly 5 billion in P.I.F. equity effectively written down since the launch in 2021. September 27th, we just talked about this just this past weekend, Team USA erase a three point deficit, beat the international team, 17 to 13 to win that president's cup, the largest final day come back in the events history. And it was played notably, talked about without the live golf stars, the international team could not use. And so every headline, I think I feel like I've read over the last several years. And certainly this month reads the same way. P.J.1 live loss, that's an easy story. But I also, again, this is my opinion, this is the 52-weeks Austin podcast, I think it's the wrong opinion that P.J.1 and live loss. The real story behind it, especially as it relates to the business side, is both sides have earned wins from this battle, this fight. Both sides also paid real cost, the sport of golf, I think is the big winner. Top of the tour to the bottom of the range, it's bigger, it's now more player friendly, it's more global, certainly more sophisticated than it's ever been. And I think a lot of that has to do with live pushed to them to modernize it and to have to run it on its own. And so, again, I think the Cold War ended. Golf is the true net winner tonight. There's no scorecard recap. It's just an honest look at, I think, who won, who paid what, which is there's a lot of finances behind it. And where the sport actually sits when that dust settles. And so this is, you know, Team Golf Cold War just ended. Let's get right into it. You know, so let's just put together the overall timeline. And I think just to make sure that we're all on the same page, we're all talking kind of the same numbers. And this is some stats I just quickly pulled online of like really the history of, you know, the whole story there. February 2022. You know, there was a leak by Phil Mickelson, the PGA Tour Commissioner, you know, Warns players against it. June of 2022, there's the first live event in England. Dustin Johnson signed as the first publicly name PJ started suspending live players. Late 2022, early 23, a lot of big names from Dishimbo, Kebka, Kim Smith, Reed, they all signed. They all launched team identities, which was really cool. I went to a live event and like the team identities is like you're going to any other sporting event with the hat and the gear. June 6th of 2023. You know, there was the announcement of the joint framework agreement, like the really that preliminary deal to combine those commercial operations. It really never came together. December of 23, John Rom signed with live. And that was reportedly, you know, 300 million plus, depending on where you were here, highest paid athlete of the year, April 2025, the PGA Tour reportedly, reportedly reject the $1.5 billion investment offer. And then at that point in time, it really seemed like the negotiation completely stalled and stalled out for good. April 30th and now September 8th and now September 27th. The, you know, the overall fund, again, from Saudi Arabia, has went away, live files changed, chapter 11, bankruptcy, present, clover finishes, without live stars three weeks after that. And so that's really the four year timeline. Every business story you have heard about this fight, probably fits somewhere in those kind of seven areas of conversation. Now back to the opinion on this 52 weeks' hustle episode, what I think actually came from the fight, because I think both sides probably really won. And so I'm going to break this down into, you know, several areas where I feel like live one, several areas where I feel like PGA won, and then some business opportunities too. So as you think about it, the entire sport, and we talk about it's more player-friendly now, live really reset the player compensation for the entire sport. There was those guaranteed contracts, upfront money, no cut formats where if they didn't make the cut, they didn't make money, like those were live innovations. And those, I think, permanently are going to reset where every top golfer in the world can expect a line. And expect to earn in the future, and I think the key part of that is live did not just pay its players more, it paid every top golfer in the world more, including those ones who never left the PGA, because then there was the bidding wars. You know, another area where live one, I think that the team golf format actually works. You know, they had 13 branded teams, some some really unique ones. They had a captain, a roster, a season long standing race, like that's an innovation that PGA has never really touched. And so Liv, again, didn't build the team format. The team format's been there for specific tournaments, but it built a template that every future golf property should and probably will copy, including the ones that ultimately won. A couple of other live wins, in my opinion, it really helped globalize this sport in the way that over the last several decades, I'm not sure if PGA was doing or ever would have. You've got the Saudi Arabia, Australia, Singapore, Mexico, the UK, you see some of the live golf tournaments they were all over the world. And it really helped expand golf's international footprint. And if you think about live golf is around for four years, the PGA hadn't really touched some of those markets globally in the last 40 years. And I think that is a key piece of it. And finally, I think we, I've talked about it on this podcast a little bit, like Liv really forced PGA's hand to innovate, to evolve. We've talked at Nazim and even on 52 weeks also, a lot of our best industry leaders have said, like those who are gonna win or the ones who are innovative or being proactive or thinking outside the box or being strategic, I'm not sure if PGA was ever getting at that point. And so, you know, I look at that piece of it. Even PGA, some of the decisions they were making since Liv was announced, like, was probably shaped by Liv's pressure. And I think the sport's better for it. You know, I think ultimately, the end of the day, from the scope of right now, when's a September 30th of 2026? The PGA won the war, but Liv made the PGA better at running the sport. And I think both those statements can be true. And that's okay. Kicking into the PGA, where did the PGA win? And I think there was multiple wins there as well. And again, we'll get into the lost column for both. The PGA was really able to keep the audience. You know, everything in this fight was certainly a lot of noise. The audience question was the actual scoreboard. And I think the PGA won that. You look at the PGA tour and quick article shows, just, you know, and it was a quick search of like, what was the viewership? PGA tour 2026 was average in approximately two and a half million viewers. Liv Golf 2026 season average was approximately 23,000 viewers across four day events. So that's quick math, not a math major, but a hundred to one ratio. And certainly sponsor dollars follow that, right? With assets and opportunities and visibility. So you can't buy an audience. You can rent one. And I think Liv rented that over the last couple of years. And when the rent came due, nobody necessarily stayed. Doesn't mean people weren't watching it, but the PGA still had that big piece of it. You know, another one for the PGA. The PGA continued to hold the majors and the team events. You think about some of the largest golf tournaments that people, this is one of the things globally, people probably certainly know, but certainly domestically here. The Masters, the US Open, the Open Championship, the PGA Championship, Writers Cup, obviously last weekend, the President's Cup. All six of those golf marquee events remain tied to PGA tour eligibility, which would certainly help. So Liv certainly won some Tuesdays, but the PGA held every Sunday that really, really mattered, you know, especially with those majors. You know, I think as you think about going back to the players and where I think PGA was able to help still win, you know, Liv helped it get paid. PGA preserves like it's brand and player pipeline. Still is very big, the cornferry tournament, you know, that those pipelines that are producing the next Sheffler and the next best were all preserved and intact. You know, Liv never really built a farm system. It was, don't call me on there, it was 50-sum, maybe 60, close roster meant, nobody's really necessarily generating the next best thing. So you cannot, you know, going back to bankruptcy for Liv, like chapter 11 and institution, Liv proved that by really trying to do that, but there is that pipeline. And you know, that can be hold true with a lot of sports, right? You think about some of the minor leagues and some of the early systems, the G leagues that help form future champions. And then finally, time was leveraged for the PGA. You know, I hate to say that 'cause I love to, you know, have people be innovative and think outside the box and just do something different. But the PGA never really had to make the biggest strategic move. It really just had to survive and outlast the competition and they showed that, you know, the most valuable thing, the PGA owned and this fight was really patience. They didn't have to go out and spend. I think they made some really good moves to be a scalable and sustainable league, but they didn't overspend doing it. And so as we think about the wins, and I think, you know, I just rolled out four wins for each Liv and PGA tour, which were all very wild. But if we're gonna have an honest conversation today, we need to talk about losses. So before we dive into losses again, thank you for listening to 52 weeks of hustle. Every other week we sit down with an industry leader. And these weeks like this, we talk about a live topic and provide my opinion. Please continue to reach out with topic thoughts, requests, but also big opportunity. I would love any of your feedback, you know, on the comments as well. So going into the loss, everybody wins. I think everybody lost a little bit. What, you know, Liv paid, right? They, they, they approximately again, a lot of numbers thrown around $5 billion of equity, you know, effectively written down since the 2021 inception. We talked about the chapter 11 filing bankruptcy there on September 8th, you know, five, again, 500 million to one billion in liabilities, 100 million to 500 million in assets. You know, I think as we think about it, it's even the team format. Like, I thought it was very innovative. I thought it was cool. I've said that on this episode when I went to the, went to the event here in Nashville a couple of years goes great, but I don't know if he got the audience and necessarily deserved. I think it was a great product. The distribution just wasn't quite there. You know, as you think about what the PGA paid, they lost several elite goffers. They were arguably probably in the peak of their career between Ram, Kim Smith, Jason Bo, Capca, like, you know, and obviously Capca came back, but years the PGA couldn't get back over that four year span. You know, I think as you think about, there's a lot of legal fees and legality. You know, that even that agreement that never ended up consummating. Like, you know, they just didn't have a clean path and I would argue and again, this is more of my opinion 'cause I'm not a player on the PGA tour. Unfortunately, maybe I'll keep trying, but you know, that there's a lot of player relation chaos. You think about any other sport when teams leave for free agency. There's a lot of like behind the scenes of like, I couldn't stay with this team or I wanted to go into this team 'cause I just couldn't, you know, handle ownership or leadership or whatever it may be. Like, I'm not sure if the PGA is gonna completely recover from that and realize like, yeah, like when competition came up, people left. What happened to us? To us as fans, again, I was transparent from the beginning. I'm not the biggest dire golf fan but I've been to some amazing golf events in person. I can't say here and say I watch it every weekend, but I certainly follow it. And I think golf fans had to pay a little bit. It was four years of fractured product because you kinda realize like, you're a little bit probably a fan of one or the other. And gone were the days you could go to one tour or turn on one TV station on a Sunday and watch all of the elite players. You, you know, there was a mix of fan base. Arguably, you know, I spent a lot of time in baseball and there's always the asterix of the, you know, homeruns or the, you know, Sai Young, things like that because of the steroid era, you could argue there's asterix by like the likes of the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup because some of the top players were quote unquote, ineligible. You know, some of the best golfers weren't able to play in those. And so, you know, I think some of your golf truest and I know my grandpa would have said this. If he was still around because he was a massive golf fan, like money kind of ruined it. And you see that with a lot of things. And then finally, like, what, what did the sport of golf, you know, quote unquote, probably lose? Like, there's a lot of, you know, certainly uncertainty about the sports, you know, commercial future, especially over the last four years. That chapter 11 bankruptcy live, it's going to play out through all of probably next year. And so golf as a sport, even golf as a fan, you still don't know what live looks like post-restructuring. And I think, you know, like, I think sponsors have probably taken a hit on this as well. It got messy. And there are some larger brands that, you know, probably set out or were not very impactful or spending near as much money as they did. And so as I look through the loss and you think about the loss, we just talk through it. Nobody really won cleanly. Live paid $5 billion in its independence. The PGA paid its stars in its purse structure. The fans, really probably four years of confusion. The sport, there's some uncertainty now more than ever. So, you know, even if I go back like when we live kind of launch, if you told me in 2022 that this is what teams golf cold wear, cold war would cost for everyone at the table. And again, we just talked about all four losses. I don't know if any of those stakeholders would say that fight was worth it. Again, there was a ton of wins, but there's some losses that I think are going to be impactful for long term. But again, they can get over that. You know, what over the next, and I don't want to say six months, I'm probably saying more in the next five years, it's going to be so important for the sport, for the PGA, for a potential live, for potential other competitors that may fall into this. So, like any of these episodes, I always like to put together really five lessons. And there's five lessons that if you're a sports business operator, you should be thinking about, again, whether you're in the golf business world or you're just in the sports business world as a whole. You know, I think number one, wealth has a patient ceiling. We kind of talked about the PGA was a little bit patient, live when out. You know, it's $5 billion, right? The fun walked, you know, any league taking money should model a three to five year revenue proof timeline, and not necessarily a 10 year one, right? Because when the funds domestic priority shift, and we saw that was the Saudi Arabia fund, that check writing quickly ended, and it ended very quickly. You know, number two, we talk a lot about this, and I love it, is innovation. It's, you know, innovation, disruption, competition in any space, like even when that challenger loses, it's still good. It helped the PGA modernize. You know, as you think about every, even well-funded challenger, like what will my organization learn to do better if that challenger forces me to? So if you're sitting there and you're selling tickets, you're selling sponsorship, you're marketing a team, and you have competition and competition is so many things, not just the other pro sports teams, it's everybody can use their discretionary dollar or their entertainment dollar. What is your organization learning on a consistent basis to do better when that challenger forces your hand, which is what live golf force PGA to do? You know, three, and again, this is probably more of your your player compensation. So many of you listen to probably don't like, I don't have a ton of saying that, but like it's certainly player compensation is a one way ratchet. You know, once Guarantee money existed at the top of golf, it never went back to that pre-live launch in baseline. And so as you think about that, like you're going to have to always think about that from an ownership team, but also like as it contains to a lot of business professionals listening this episode, it's also going to be a big piece as you think about your revenue goals. Number four, this is a key one for most people listening, cheeks and seats. Audience does not migrate even for money. You know, it's it's habit. You know, we talk about that the cliche say in the creature of habit, but like live as you thought about had every advantage a challenger could ask for, but they just couldn't find a way to completely manufacture that audience. And look, on the flip side, the PJ tour lost some audience as well. And so, and finally, you know, the fifth lesson, time is an incumbent's cheapest weapon, right? But, and as I kick this episode off, the sport, the sport of golf actually is the biggest beneficiary of this. And that the right league makes the sport more valuable, even though live failed to draw and and is failed and we're not sure what's going to be next, they made the sport of golf more valuable. So to close it out, again, as we talked about this episode team golf cold war just ended, I talked through how the PGA and live both one, they both lost, but ultimately they both have made golf bigger than it than it was. So, I talked about this earlier and because it's been interesting in the last month for any headlines in golf has been all about PJ one live lost bankruptcy. But again, that story is a lot more interesting than live change golf permanently and for the better. Player compensation is dramatically higher. Team format innovation is proven now and you start seeing that this sport is genuinely global for probably the first time and certainly the first time at a long time. You know, the PGA certainly certainly earned some real wins as well. It kept the audience, it kept the majors, it held that pipeline of amateurs, you know, and it used time as leverage better than anyone else in modern sports business. And it never had to make the biggest strategic move because it did not need to. It had the baseline, it was worth keeping. They went through some challenges, they went through some struggles, but they figured it out. You know, both sides paid, when we talked about live paid, reportedly $5 billion, the PGA tour paid its stars for four years and certainly a higher purse on a consistent basis. But, you know, the players won. Every top golfer in the world makes a lot more money and multiple of what they did before live came to together. You know, and again, I think the sport of golf really won on this because right now, I mean, hell, even this episode's talking about the sport of golf and the business of golf. And so if you're running a league, a team, a tour, take it home. Sometimes the most valuable outcome of a strategic war is not who actually won. It is what the war forced everyone at the table to become. At the end of the day, golf is a bigger, better, more global sport today because live in the PGA fought each other to the point of exhaustion. And it could be exhaustion for everybody that's part of it. Live PGA, fan base, the sport. But the Cold War ended. The true net winner is the sport of golf. So again, thank you for listening to 52 weeks, Oslo. These episodes are always fun. Being able to even do some research and thinking about some ideas and some hot topics like this. This has been in the media for the last four or five years. It's certainly not going away. But for those golf enthusiasts out there, I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this on this Cold War and in general and future topics. So again, also most recently announced was the 24 hour live hustle podcast and Nashville Tennessee with my great friend Stu Hallberg. We're going to have 24 straight hours December 3rd and 4th. So keep keep looking and keep hearing more about guests and sponsors in the big event that's going to be coming here in less than 70 days. Keep hospitaling. I certainly appreciate everyone's time. Please follow us on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. We'll be back next week with an industry leader. Have a great week.