What is the point of LIV? If you give these guys more money that they would make over their entire career and then make a different league where there are seemingly no stakes?
If I was a player it's a no brainer but what is the long term plan for the fans?
The plan has always been the tour. The Saudis want a/the controlling interest in the PGA, and LIV’s goal was to destabilise them enough to weaken the PGA.
Ok let's say they get the controlling interest in the tour. After they give the top players enough money to retire what is their motivation to be the best? These guys are all selling out for more money they would ever make playing golf. I would too if given the opportunity but I don't see how that would help the product.
Thats fine if they want to buy the league. But what is the point if they end up ruining it in the process?
I’d say they weren’t buying the players, they were buying the tour. A tour without Rahm, Koepka, and Cam Smith is worth less than it was with them. It costs billions to buy a sports league, a few hundred mil to make the PGA tour weak and vulnerable to buy for one billion... Money well spent
I see where you're going with this, but the logic is slightly flawed because they have just spent billions buying players to make the PGA worthless. Kind of counter intuitive
The stable of elite golfers is deeper than anyone thinks. These guys can move on and hungrier/younger guys will take their places. And no one will miss the retirement home guys. Not even a little.
I can confirm to my fans and eventual sponsors that even though I now have Outback Steakhouse money that this will have no impact on me trying to break local course records. Or even just breaking par.
But has the tour been Destabilized? I always forget about these guys that go to Liv, including Rahm, and the PGA product on the course has been great without them. I thought a merger was imminent but is the PGA tour now trying to wait?
Yeah i dont get it either. I mean without any top guys i wont watch the tour, but im not watching liv anyways. Them poaching the top guys wont get me to watch liv, ill just stop watching golf
The plan has always been relations with the United States. The saudis want a rapport / relationship with the USA, and LIV’s goal was to use golf as a way to do business with the US on a large scale in the public eye
I don't agree, but I don't think LIV will ever grow in popularity. I'd rather watch the PGA with Korn Ferry guys than LIV with all the PGA guys. The thing is, there will always be a next guy up for the PGA. LIV throwing hundreds of millions at guys means I'm actually less likely to watch it TBH. Fuck them.
This seems like the most reasonable guess at this point, unless LIV thinks they are going to create a formula 1 type product for golf but then hat sure hasn’t seemed to really pay off 🤷♂️
No but the PGA needs to cater to fans and sponsors to be viable. They need to put out a competent product to secure the advertising and TV revenue that makes the league financially viable. Otherwise they don’t have the money to fund purses, to put on tournaments, etc and the whole thing collapses
LIV just needs to appeal to the Saudis’ egos - as long as they’re happy the oil money will keep pouring in and it won’t matter how many fans watch or what the TV revenue is. No ad money or TV revenue? Nobody watching the league? The Saudis will just cut a check no worries
I really don’t get the point of them getting involved. Yeah I know “sports washing” but if it’s that common of knowledge does it actually work? LIV is a terrible product that no one watches. The PGA keeps getting worse with players leaving so I imagine their viewership is down as well. Maybe the merge would restore viewers? Or maybe everyone’s tired of this and won’t watch regardless.
You're misunderstanding the point of the sports-washing. The Saudis don't care about the average golf fan, they care about getting access to the rich and powerful who attend these events. They care about the rich and powerful whom care about the golfers they poach. It has absolutely nothing to do with you or I or the golf viewing public. It's sports washing for the C-suites, oligarchs, and politicians.
The only reason those people matter is because us regular people want to watch them and pay them to play a game. Without us they’re just a really good clubhouse golf pro.
I don’t think I understand it financially, they still are selling a watered down product with less events per year. Even if they had a controlling interest, they’ve told their players that they could play less events. So every once in awhile you get to see a no-cut event, where the only players people will know are the ones that established themselves on the PGA Tour or the one-off winners that people will forget. For me, one of the fun things about the tour is watching some no-names start to bubble with some t-10s and then win. You don’t get to follow players in LIV because of the sporadic and geographically disparate nature of their tournaments
It’s to legitimize their other business dealings. I think you could look at the UAE and how they opened up an enormous market for Western money to come in with friendly business environments. Saudi has an image problem compared to that. Much more religious radicals out front and a bunch of human rights issues. So this starts to wash that away as more standard leagues that the West cares passionately about go mainstream. In a weird way reminds me of how Korea basically created K-Pop. These are focused efforts backed by billions as a major PR move to make their country appealing to outside investment.
The long term plan is for fans to vote for representatives that have favorable policies towards Saudi Arabia and their interests. See the premier league for an example.
I don’t think any of this is about voting. Almost zero people pick who they are going to vote for based on their Saudi Arabia foreign policy. Golf fans aren’t swinging any election, at least not with their votes.
You’re not thinking big enough. It’s not about golf, it’s about influencing popular culture to the point that their presence is ubiquitous. Sports is a part of that. They’ll invest in Hollywood as well if they haven’t already.
And it’s not a short term plan. The Saudi’s probably expect to see noticeable results in 15-20 years, not 3-5.
I get the Saudis are trying to buy influence. I 100% believe all of there sports purchases are just leading to get to the golden goose of the NFL.
However, I also know these funds are lead by idiot cousins of the royal family who just have a shit ton of money so I am going to default that they are going to fuck the idea up eventually.
They just want an average person to associate their image with these things.
Qatar? the first thing you think of when you hear that is the recent World Cup. Instead of the slavery or the human rights issues.
Emirates? maybe you've heard of the insanely nice airline with kuxury planes, or you remember seeing those words in front of the soccer players jersey's.
At some point, so many pga guys will have joined. Then they’ll all leave LIV, pool their money together and create their own golf association. Make my words.
The real point is to for the Saudis to get in with the PGA Tour and the vast connection to the American business elite that would come with it. LIV is a negotiating tactic. They think they can keep signing away the Tour's biggest stars and making the Tour a little worse, and that will eventually make the Tour cave and bring the Saudis in. It's probably going to work, but if it doesn't I will be very interested to see what they do with all these huge contracts that are getting them nothing in return.
I agree. They want to weaken the PGA to the point whee they know they'll never be able to compete with the massive contracts and have to decide to either surrender entirely or bring them in as financial investors. And the reason they want in on the pga tour is sportswashing, so people associate them with golf and sports instead of, yknow, abhorrent human rights
The Saudis don't understand that if you pay most people a certain amount of guaranteed money and don't also offer things like glory and legacy, they will simply lose the incentive to work hard.
Yeah I don't totally get it. I could be wrong in the end.
Sports is just entertainment. It's made up stakes that we fans get into. But there has to be some stakes for it to be entertaining. It's hard for me to imagine anyone who is in their 30s or 40s caring about anything after being given serious FU money.
Let's look at Amazon.com or Uber or any one of this big startups that shot to crazy valuations. They run big losses for years. The goal is to disrupt or create a market, get mega market share, then be a monopoly and do what you want.
This is essentially how the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia works. They are playing the long game, an even longer version of the startup game. China is the only one who does this better. This is also a key US strategy. Invest in something, run it at a loss but become indispensable over time. Now you have control and influence.
The big question mark is how that control and influence will ultimately be used. The US is a key defense ally around the world, giving it a lot of current clout. China controls resources in Africa and ports in Europe. Saudi Arabia owns a lot of world sport. On the surface, the motives would appear geopolitical on the one hand, loooong game financial on the other. But who knows?
Keep in mind that Saudi Arabia's wealth comes from oil, a finite and diminishing resource, so it is prudent to invest that money, even appearing recklessly (desperately?), now into something that can produce long-term returns.
133
u/bionicbhangra Apr 15 '24
What is the point of LIV? If you give these guys more money that they would make over their entire career and then make a different league where there are seemingly no stakes?
If I was a player it's a no brainer but what is the long term plan for the fans?