Will Saudi-funded Liv Golf entice followers?
The LIV Invitational Golf Sequence has been a drag on a PGA Tour that was already flailing to search out its subsequent famous person. LIV, which is funded by blood cash from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has sparked a mini-exodus of a number of PGA stars. By providing boatloads of money for look charges, LIV has change into a pseudo-retirement fund. However how sustainable is the LIV sequence? Golf followers have already got a surplus of choices. Is LIV coming for the PGA’s throne or a fad? Golf doesn’t sometimes entice younger, forward-looking followers. They embrace custom.
LIV Golf joins the Saudi-funded Premiere Golf League, the European Tour, and the PGA as the highest skilled golf excursions on the earth. LIV dangers turning golf into boxing with its fragmented discipline of opponents, its surplus of championships and an assortment of matches or tournaments that followers haven’t any visceral connection to.
There are already dozens of golf tournaments that no one is watching. Tiger Woods is the largest attract golf and he turned down a excessive nine-figure provide from the LIV sequence, presumably so he could make a run at a number of extra majors. For sure golfers, a few of whom are named Phil, it is a get-rich-quick, money seize to recoup playing money owed and pocket sufficient cash earlier than the curiosity wanes. Mickelson has gambled earlier than and he’s misplaced larger. The LIV Invitational Sequence is funded for the following three years and received’t function a full schedule for 3 years. Within the meantime, the PGA Tour will keep it up. Are followers actually going to be excited for Dustin Johnson and Bryson Dechambeau down the stretch of a third-tier occasion in London?
In contrast to the European Tremendous League that tried to topple the Champions League, golfers aren’t employed by decades-old sports activities establishments like Liverpool or Chelsea. They’re primarily gilded impartial contractors. What occurs if LIV golfers notice they’re tour fading from the general public consciousness? As an illustration, there’s already a Saudi-backed occasion on the Asian Tour that lacks the PGA’s pageantry. Dustin Johnson received the inaugural PIF Saudi Worldwide occasion in 2019 when it was part of the European Tour, however no one offers a shit. He would possibly as effectively have received a match play occasion with Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes. Followers received’t care almost as a lot about LIV as they do The Masters or The PGA Championship.
PGA Championship rankings plunged 20 % this 12 months as Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods had been both out of competition or retaining their distance in Mickelson’s case. The PGA Tour’s legacy is a big a part of its draw within the absence of a traditionally dominant champion drawing eyeballs to its tournaments. Few give a shit about who wins the Canadian Open subsequent week, however Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Match has that means. The celebs will all present up for the majors.
LIV Golf is a league with out a built-in constituency. American audiences haven’t any attachments to those arbitrary tournaments the identical approach NBA followers wouldn’t give a crap about midseason cup championships. The LIV Sequence will primarily be seen as exhibition golf. The query is that after the novelty wears off, what turns into of the golfers who surrendered their PGA Tour membership, corresponding to Mickelson or Bryson DeChambeau?
It could be one factor if LIV Golf had been reinventing the wheel. Nevertheless, shotgun codecs by which gamers all begin without delay from completely different holes are a superficial change that received’t alter the viewing expertise a lot. The 54-hole format is nice, however the divided competitors between the PGA and LIV will create fractured audiences for each excursions. Whether or not this turns into a fad or knowledgeable mainstay will probably be decided by whether or not the Saudi cash can snuff out a long time of lore by shopping for PGA followers as effectively.
