Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a Friday Egg, Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, Frida Egg brid Egg, Frida Egg bride Egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today
Speaker 1: with the Live Team Golf Championship approaching, we're talking about
Speaker 1: what Live is doing well and what it could be
Speaker 1: doing better. But first we're going to discuss what we're
Speaker 1: in on and what we're out on this week. Here
Speaker 1: to do that with me are Andy Johnson and Joseph Lamania.
Speaker 1: Let's start with you. Joseph, what are you in on?
Speaker 3: Garrett?
Speaker 4: I am in on playing golf tournaments in the countries,
Speaker 4: in the home countries of superstars, and I think this
Speaker 4: sometimes gets framed as national opens, right, which we had
Speaker 4: the Irish Open this past weekend and it was an
Speaker 4: unbelievable scene with Rory McElroy playing to a crowd that
Speaker 4: was extremely friendly to him. One of I mean unbelievable
Speaker 4: scenes watching him walk down the seventy second fairway. Shane
Speaker 4: Lowry similarly had a lot of support out there. But
Speaker 4: I just think in general it's a great way to
Speaker 4: engage fans sell tickets. I think it's something that Live
Speaker 4: does effectively. And I know we're going to talk about
Speaker 4: Live a little bit later, but having a tournament in
Speaker 4: Spain when John Rahm and Sergio Garcia are two of
Speaker 4: your biggest stars, I think this is something for the
Speaker 4: PGA Tour to heavily consider. The Zozo in Japan is
Speaker 4: not a high profile event, and that could be really
Speaker 4: cool if you had more of the top players showing up.
Speaker 4: When Hideki Matsuyama is one of your most marketable global stars, right,
Speaker 4: the Irish Open could be really cool if more players
Speaker 4: were there.
Speaker 3: I thought that Zozo was becoming a huge event before
Speaker 3: COVID because you had Tiger go and.
Speaker 1: I win it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it felt like it had a lot of
Speaker 3: momentum until the pandemic, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think another small example would be getting rid
Speaker 4: of the match play in Austin, where Scotti Scheffler and
Speaker 4: Jordan Spief both went to school. Like some of there's
Speaker 4: so much local support for those golfers some of their
Speaker 4: biggest stars. I think there should be more of an
Speaker 4: effort to be a little bit more flexible with venues
Speaker 4: and get to the places where your best golfers, your
Speaker 4: most marketable golfers have either grew up or have ties
Speaker 4: to So that was a big takeaway for me from
Speaker 4: watching the Irish Norway Here we Come. That'd be sweet.
Speaker 3: It's the star still.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. After this season, Yeah, who knows?
Speaker 1: Who knows how Victor Hovlin is doing? All right, So
Speaker 1: what I'm in on, first of all, The big thing
Speaker 1: I'm in on is something I'll touch on quickly and
Speaker 1: we'll discuss maybe later. Is Bubba Watson being relegated and lived.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious, don't. I don't know what's gonna happen there.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's basically he's like a co owner of
Speaker 1: the range Goats.
Speaker 3: From what I've gathered. What I've gathered, not a lot
Speaker 3: of people like playing on Bubba's team. That could be
Speaker 3: part of why they made the late rule switch is
Speaker 3: that Bubba, Bubba and in and of himself, is a
Speaker 3: cancer in his own clubhouse potentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean if he isn't playing, then he
Speaker 1: would be a non playing GM presumably, or maybe he
Speaker 1: just end up playing for another team and retaining equity
Speaker 1: in the range. I don't know. It could get really messy,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty in on that. The serious thing I'm
Speaker 1: in on is during the Solheim Cup, what I saw
Speaker 1: was really refreshing in terms of the dynamic between the players.
Speaker 1: I thought there was a great combination of competitive spirit
Speaker 1: and genuine friendship between the two teams, and it was
Speaker 1: just it warmed my heart. I couldn't help it. This
Speaker 1: is a little bit sentimental, but you know, like it
Speaker 1: seems like Nellie Korda and Charlie Hole are really friends,
Speaker 1: but they went after each other. They had this I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that great of a match because Charlie Hole
Speaker 1: absolutely wiped the floor with Nelly, but it was a
Speaker 1: great matchup, a great combination of two big personalities and
Speaker 1: great players, and they seem to keep it really friendly
Speaker 1: but at the same time take the competition very seriously
Speaker 1: and put all of their energy into it, and so
Speaker 1: that was just a wonderful competition. It just seems like
Speaker 1: that balance of the friendliness and the classiness and the
Speaker 1: competitiveness isn't always there in the right cup. It seems
Speaker 1: like the men don't quite get that right all the time.
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, this past week's Soulheim Cup was
Speaker 1: was right on the money with the with the vibes.
Speaker 1: The vibes were great. All right, Andy, what are you
Speaker 1: in on?
Speaker 3: I would just add one thing. I thought the personalities
Speaker 3: were great in the Solheim Cup.
Speaker 1: Megan Kang was like, it was a big week for
Speaker 1: Megan Kang.
Speaker 3: I just think that in general, like the personalities really
Speaker 3: came out in the group atmosphere. And I think for
Speaker 3: women's golf, that's a big thing that they could differentiate from.
Speaker 3: You know, men's golf is men's golf doesn't have a
Speaker 3: ton of personality. It's kind of like, oh, we like
Speaker 3: this guy because he hits the ball far, or we
Speaker 3: like this guy because he's got a good short game,
Speaker 3: you know, and there's very few players who show personality.
Speaker 3: And I thought that was a big part of the
Speaker 3: women's game this week. I guess I like, since you
Speaker 3: guys haven't haven't said anything, I guess I'm in on
Speaker 3: on golf being held at the greatest golf courses in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: Robert Trent Jones Golf Club.
Speaker 3: Royal County Down was incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course it was.
Speaker 3: It was awful coverage, horrendous like in terms of like
Speaker 3: it was. I think at the shotgun start we talked
Speaker 3: about how we were excited for like a modern broadcast
Speaker 3: at Royal County Down with bells and whistles. It was
Speaker 3: like a two thousand and five broadcast at Royal County Down.
Speaker 3: It was handheld cameras. They couldn't track the ball. It
Speaker 3: was just straight world feed. There was no like drone,
Speaker 3: There was nothing, nothing out of this world about it was.
Speaker 3: It was horrible, horrendous coverage. That being said, it still
Speaker 3: was honestly probably the most captivated I have been for
Speaker 3: a golf tournament non major division in uh forever, outside
Speaker 3: of like the Ryder Cup and made That was the
Speaker 3: most into a golf tournament I've been. And it's because
Speaker 3: the golf course like really forced, Like what you saw
Speaker 3: was a golf course forcing its will on players. Players
Speaker 3: had to play certain ways because of the golf design,
Speaker 3: the elements that were thrust in their way. And you
Speaker 3: know the other thing that worked really well with it
Speaker 3: was the time that it was on, at this time
Speaker 3: of year. It was done wrapped up before the kickoff
Speaker 3: of football, and golf has made this like they've moved
Speaker 3: mountains to avoid football, move like, done everything. But the
Speaker 3: reality is like it doesn't work because golf the best
Speaker 3: golf season is September and October, arguably like late August,
Speaker 3: September October. That's when you you have every venue, every
Speaker 3: venue in the world is a possible destination for the
Speaker 3: most part outside of the Southern sphere, and you have
Speaker 3: like these delightful, delightful opportunities to have great golf tournaments
Speaker 3: and the tour. Because of how US centric it is,
Speaker 3: which Joseph just hit on. Because of how US centric
Speaker 3: it is, it acts like like we can't avoid football
Speaker 3: in any other way.
Speaker 4: But the.
Speaker 3: Opportunity, the way to avoid football was very abundantly clear,
Speaker 3: and it's also in the part of the world that's
Speaker 3: got some of the best golf courses that you could
Speaker 3: play tournament golf on. It just seems like it makes
Speaker 3: too much sense to have a Links season. Everybody talks
Speaker 3: about Link season in July. I think they should have
Speaker 3: a Lenk season in September and October. And you have
Speaker 3: these tournaments that end before football, and people wake up
Speaker 3: I thought it was great. You wake up, you're having
Speaker 3: your coffee, you're watching golf, and it rolls right into
Speaker 3: football and it solves your your big issue with the fall,
Speaker 3: and then the season makes a lot of sense. It
Speaker 3: goes from January to October. There's a two month off
Speaker 3: season for everybody, and there you go. It doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be as congested, it's spaced out, it's it's it's
Speaker 3: the way that the season should go.
Speaker 1: They've got to commit to that, though, and train people
Speaker 1: to watch golf at those times, because the ratings issue
Speaker 1: is a profound one, an issue regular tournament, but even
Speaker 1: more so when you're when you're televising these tournaments in
Speaker 1: the morning. You know when you're in that you know,
Speaker 1: three to six pm Eastern time zone, uh kind of
Speaker 1: tournament playing prime prime time, you know, golf time zone.
Speaker 1: You know you're you're getting the ratings that you are
Speaker 1: what it's like two to three million on Sundays. But
Speaker 1: if you're earlier in the morning, I'm agreeing with you.
Speaker 1: I think it could work. But it's just like the
Speaker 1: ratings for the Open Championship in the US are not
Speaker 1: very good, and for better or for worse, mostly for worse.
Speaker 1: Probably US ratings are really meaningful for the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: and it's it's financial well being, and so they've just
Speaker 1: got to train people to get up and watch golf,
Speaker 1: make coffee golf a thing, like, really commit to it
Speaker 1: and actually say this is a fun thing to do.
Speaker 1: Let's get up early and let's watch them golf before football.
Speaker 3: I just feel like they have a shot in the
Speaker 3: fall of getting people to watch golf in the morning,
Speaker 3: you know, and.
Speaker 4: They don't have much of a shot of getting them
Speaker 4: to watch golf in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: Right pro Core pro Core was not a hot ticket,
Speaker 2: did not register on the Doppler this past weekend.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to get into what we're out on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I'll start garts ready to go.
Speaker 1: I'm ready, and I am out on the LPGA Tours
Speaker 1: and NBC's seeming lack of readiness to channel the enthusiasm
Speaker 1: that fans felt for the Solheim Cup this past week.
Speaker 1: There was real momentum behind the Solheim Cup. People wanted
Speaker 1: to get on site and watch that tournament. People wanted
Speaker 1: to watch it on TV, and guess what, they couldn't
Speaker 1: get to the golf course. There were buses going to
Speaker 1: the wrong golf course. There were endless lines where people
Speaker 1: were leaving. Our own megat Cans covered this very well,
Speaker 1: and this was a big subject earlier in the week,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that people have already heard about it.
Speaker 1: But I think the incompetence here on the part of
Speaker 1: the LPGA Tour, and I'll put this at the doorstep
Speaker 1: of the Commissioner, Molly mark Us Sammon. This is their
Speaker 1: responsibility to make sure that fans who are enthusiastic about
Speaker 1: the product can actually get on site and have a
Speaker 1: great experience. And there at the first tee when they're
Speaker 1: hitting the first t shots, I mean, it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, half empty, So just a ridiculous display there.
Speaker 1: And then the coverage by NBC predictably at this point,
Speaker 1: it's been a really bad year for NBC golf. This
Speaker 1: has been well covered, but it was strikingly poor how
Speaker 1: NBC was covering the Solheim Cup, missing a lot of shots,
Speaker 1: just not getting a grasp on the narrative of each day,
Speaker 1: especially on Sunday. They were just lost and it was
Speaker 1: really hard to keep track of. They did not find
Speaker 1: a storyline, they didn't have cameras in the right places,
Speaker 1: they weren't following the right groups, and they just didn't
Speaker 1: have an idea of how to lay out the narrative
Speaker 1: of the day. And those were really really disappointing things
Speaker 1: because to me, it really felt like there was there
Speaker 1: there was potential for this event to kind of blow up,
Speaker 1: and in a sense it it sort of did, at
Speaker 1: least in my little world of the Internet and social media.
Speaker 1: It seemed like people were excited about it, and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of coverage of it and genuine enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: but I think that was that was tempered by the
Speaker 1: LPGA Tours and NBC's lack of preparedness.
Speaker 3: I thought the first Tea coverage was outstanding. I mean
Speaker 3: it was. It was for like two straight hours, and
Speaker 3: they just neglected all the matches that went out on
Speaker 3: the because you know, the most consequential shot of every
Speaker 3: match is the first T shot. I'm being starcastic here.
Speaker 1: You really appreciated the thoroughness of the first tea.
Speaker 3: Coming, Yeah, I mean, like you talk about, literally the
Speaker 3: least consequential shot in a golf match is the first
Speaker 3: T shot, and I think, like we need to address
Speaker 3: this with like team competitions. I get there's a lot
Speaker 3: of fans there. I get the golf and have a
Speaker 3: stadium feel. Very often. I understand why it's like this spectacle.
Speaker 3: It's like this shiny object, but when it comes to
Speaker 3: showing a golf match, it's literally the least important shot
Speaker 3: of the day is the first te shot, and I
Speaker 3: just can't It's like now a pet peeve of mine,
Speaker 3: because like it's just like running for like the thirsty
Speaker 3: social impressions it's run. It's like the coverage just being
Speaker 3: like trying to make golf cool. Like you know, what's
Speaker 3: actually way cooler than the first tea is when somebody
Speaker 3: hits like an unbelievable chip to save par and have
Speaker 3: a hole and throw the kind of throw the momentum
Speaker 3: of a match on its head. We miss that because
Speaker 3: we're showing people walking up to the first tea and
Speaker 3: a crowd cheering, like to me, like this is I
Speaker 3: guess this is what I'm out on. This is what
Speaker 3: I'm out on. I'm out on Golf's constantly to water
Speaker 3: down the product and like think that we need stuff
Speaker 3: like a cool first t atmosphere to appeal to people,
Speaker 3: like show the sport what's exciting about the sport is
Speaker 3: when players hit miraculous shots in match play that that
Speaker 3: somehow square matches, or hit unbelievable shots that you know,
Speaker 3: flip a hole when it looks like they're going to
Speaker 3: lose a hole, they hit a great recovery shot and
Speaker 3: win a hole. Show those shots. That is what's exciting
Speaker 3: about the sport, especially match play, and it gives you
Speaker 3: this awesome opportunity to show these shots and follow these
Speaker 3: matches that hinge on like these micro moments. That is
Speaker 3: what's amazing about the sport. It's not watching somebody walk
Speaker 3: to the first tea box and people cheer. That's actually
Speaker 3: extremely dull and it gets repetitive after like you know,
Speaker 3: show the matches go out, but like we didn't get
Speaker 3: to see any of the beginning of the Harley Hule
Speaker 3: Nelly Corda match, like two of the most marketable players.
Speaker 3: We're not getting to watch the match because we're watching,
Speaker 3: you know, Lily Avou walk from from the from the
Speaker 3: tunnel to the first t Like this is insane. Like
Speaker 3: imagine like the NFL, the greatest TV sports product. You
Speaker 3: know what they show about ten seconds of players walking
Speaker 3: out of the field. You know what they never miss
Speaker 3: a play. They never miss a play because that's what matters.
Speaker 3: They don't water down the product. It's not like, hey,
Speaker 3: like maybe they water down the product a little in
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift's in the stands. Okay, maybe they they do
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: It's like after Travis Kelcey makes makes a play.
Speaker 3: That's like the only time I water the product down.
Speaker 3: But anyways, my point is like, show the matches, lean
Speaker 3: into the beauty of the sport. To stop andering, stop
Speaker 3: trying to think that golf needs something outside the product.
Speaker 3: It is an unbelievably captivating, complex sport and by just
Speaker 3: showing the action that's in talking at about it in
Speaker 3: like not worry not worrying about trying to make it cool.
Speaker 3: You're you're gonna make it cool.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if if Taylor Swift were dating a
Speaker 1: PGA Tour golfer, how much of her they would they
Speaker 1: would be showing during the telecasts. I mean it would
Speaker 1: be insane, it would be it would be remarkable. All right,
Speaker 1: Sorry you were going to say something, Joseph, go.
Speaker 4: Ahead, No, I think the first team build out is
Speaker 4: important for the on site experience.
Speaker 1: You got to. You got to. It's a matter of ratios, though, right.
Speaker 4: Right, absolutely, I think the way that they missed the
Speaker 4: opening shots and you couldn't see a lot of the
Speaker 4: whole court of match, like you've lost the plot at
Speaker 4: that point, And the same thing happens with the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 4: Exacting as a hardcore go to not see the opening
Speaker 4: few holes of some of the coolest, most high profile matches,
Speaker 4: and you're missing. Oftentimes the best players are sent off first,
Speaker 4: so the longer they dwell on the first team build out,
Speaker 4: you're missing the most high profile match, like the entire
Speaker 4: front nine. So I'm with you on that. What I'm
Speaker 4: out on, I think is a combination of both things
Speaker 4: that Garrett and Andy, you both said, I'm out on
Speaker 4: a lot of what's happened on the LPGA tour this year.
Speaker 4: I think you could make the argument that it was
Speaker 4: a successful year. Nelly Korda had an unbelievable year, and
Speaker 4: there's a Salheim Cup that had some enthusiasm for it.
Speaker 4: But I think the alternate view, and the one I
Speaker 4: subscribe to a little more is, yeah, you had Nelly Korda,
Speaker 4: like a generational, very marketable young American star, have a
Speaker 4: good year, and a Salheim Cup year, did you capitalize
Speaker 4: on it? And it feels to me like they did
Speaker 4: not capitalize on it in any way. The turning off
Speaker 4: of a lot of fans with the shuttle bus situation
Speaker 4: is one incident, but I think it's emblematic of larger
Speaker 4: leadership issues to an extent, and I think you have
Speaker 4: to question after this year if it's moving in the
Speaker 4: right direction, like why is twenty twenty five going to
Speaker 4: be a more successful year for the LPGA Tour than
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four was, Because, at least from my perspective
Speaker 4: as somebody who doesn't watch it every week but does
Speaker 4: engage with the high profile LPGA Tour events, I certainly
Speaker 4: was not greeted with a great viewing experience at any
Speaker 4: point this year, and I think enthusiasm for the LPGA
Speaker 4: Tour is low. I think it's reasonable to question if
Speaker 4: this was a successful year despite some of the windfalls
Speaker 4: that they could have had.
Speaker 1: They could have had, Yeah, tell me if this is
Speaker 1: an unfair comparison. It is at an unfair comparison. I
Speaker 1: know that, But look what's going on with the WNBA
Speaker 1: right now, And obviously Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are
Speaker 1: rare superstars.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that you acknowledge the Chicago sky Superstars.
Speaker 1: Oh god, oh god, no, thank.
Speaker 3: You, thank you for acknowledging Skytown. We're very proud of
Speaker 3: it in Chicagoans.
Speaker 1: Thanks Sandy, this has been this has been your your
Speaker 1: daily word from Chicago. Man. Clearly, clearly those are are
Speaker 1: are a rare breed of athlete. But the w n
Speaker 1: b A has done a really great job of channeling
Speaker 1: the organic enthusiasm for these players and for the league.
Speaker 1: And it just seems like the LPGA Tour is not
Speaker 1: similarly situated to deal with the breakout popularity of any
Speaker 1: given player where whether that's Nelly Korda or to an extent,
Speaker 1: Charlie Hole.
Speaker 3: Right, Rose a couple of years ago was a disaster.
Speaker 1: The rollout was was not great. And you know what,
Speaker 1: like Roseaning has done some remarkable stuff in the past
Speaker 1: couple of years now, I will say that that Rose's
Speaker 1: personality is low key, that's just who she is. She
Speaker 1: doesn't kind of sparkle in interviews and so maybe that
Speaker 1: element isn't there. But she won her first event as
Speaker 1: an LPGA Tour player. She has kept winning and she
Speaker 1: hasn't been impressive in majors, but this is still an
Speaker 1: exciting developing storyline in women's golf. And clearly what Nelly
Speaker 1: Corda did this year, especially in the first half of
Speaker 1: the year, was remarkable and I think probably could have
Speaker 1: been capitalized on a lot more effectively by the LPGA Tour.
Speaker 1: The LPGA Tour, I believe, needs to have the attitude
Speaker 1: that we're trying to lift up and promote our star
Speaker 1: players and try to get them to resonate in the
Speaker 1: culture as much as possible. The strategy is different than
Speaker 1: you know, the PGA Tour, which can allow things to
Speaker 1: kind of just unfold, but the LPGA Tour really needs
Speaker 1: to kind of pounce on these moments, and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the current leadership is really into that. Right.
Speaker 1: For a while when Mike Wan was commissioner, there was
Speaker 1: a feeling of energy like we're going to make this happen.
Speaker 1: But things have calmed down during the reign of the
Speaker 1: current commissioner, and I think that's a problem.
Speaker 4: The difficult part of the comparison is that the WNBA,
Speaker 4: I think this warrants being said, doesn't go head to
Speaker 4: head with the NBA and with the golf men's professional
Speaker 4: calendar basically spanning year round. In it being an outdoor sport,
Speaker 4: it's a little bit difficult. The Kaitlin Clark isn't playing
Speaker 4: at the same time as Lebron James and Steph Curry.
Speaker 4: It's really hard for the women's game to earn its
Speaker 4: spot in the certain television window.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 4: Maybe there's a streaming option. The WNBA has their own
Speaker 4: league pass set up, and I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: the LPGA Tour is going to build out a whole
Speaker 4: league pass, But I think the availability of watching it
Speaker 4: on television has been a huge problem for the LPGA
Speaker 4: Tour this year. It's very difficult to find where it's
Speaker 4: going to be, so a lot of issues. I'll cut
Speaker 4: on some slack on that, but it doesn't feel like
Speaker 4: they capitalized. Andy, What were you about to say?
Speaker 3: I just think in general it's a tough situation. I
Speaker 3: think like there are a lot of aspects of the
Speaker 3: LPGA and I think we could this probably can parlay
Speaker 3: us into Live a little bit. But I think when
Speaker 3: you look at the organization, how they view the sport,
Speaker 3: what they allow to happen on the golf course, how
Speaker 3: they go about selecting venues like these are all major
Speaker 3: issues that hold the LPGA back. I mean, I've been
Speaker 3: thinking about the the idea of how you could get
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour playing premier venue after premier venue. It's
Speaker 3: very difficult because, like there just aren't a lot of
Speaker 3: venues that are capable of hosting the modern male professional
Speaker 3: who hits the ball three hundred and fifty yards. Like
Speaker 3: you start to like it's just like wow, Like as
Speaker 3: great as Royal County Down was this week, there was
Speaker 3: it was not really a driver test, you know, there
Speaker 3: was from that standpoint, like you could like say, hey,
Speaker 3: is it a complete test if it never really challenges
Speaker 3: somebody's driving ability. Now, with the women's game, the number
Speaker 3: of potential great venues that you could go play is
Speaker 3: got to be close to five hundred. I mean, it
Speaker 3: fits in just about just about anywhere. And of those
Speaker 3: five hundred, they might visit three per year. I mean,
Speaker 3: there is an unbelievable opportunity. I think, like we've we
Speaker 3: saw this this week at the Irish Open. And sure
Speaker 3: the ratings aren't gonna be good, but guess what you
Speaker 3: have to go to NBC Sports app to watch it like, yeah,
Speaker 3: the ratings aren't going to be good, but with the
Speaker 3: with the LPGA, you have an opportunity, unlike men's professional golf,
Speaker 3: to get week in, week out, the best players playing
Speaker 3: some of the best golf courses in the world. And
Speaker 3: I think that that pairing is part of what is
Speaker 3: going to propel the sport and too, like you need
Speaker 3: to figure out ways to get more people interested in
Speaker 3: watching the golf and by going to local market's best
Speaker 3: known golf course, that is a way to get more
Speaker 3: people interested in the sport. So if you're going to
Speaker 3: big markets in their best golf course, more people are
Speaker 3: going to watch the sport because they're gonna be like
Speaker 3: interested golfers that want to just go to the event
Speaker 3: to see the golf course to like, Oh it's being
Speaker 3: held at Medina, I'll go watch that. Oh it's being
Speaker 3: held at Blue Mound in Milwaukee, I'll go. I'll go
Speaker 3: see Blue Mount, I'll go walk around Blue Mount. Like
Speaker 3: this is a way to capture a bigger audience. Also
Speaker 3: administering pace of place so so that your product is better.
Speaker 3: It's just a better watching product. I went to a
Speaker 3: baseball game for the first time since the since the
Speaker 3: new rules, Like in person, it's incredible. The innings just
Speaker 3: go so fast, and it's like, why isn't golf looking
Speaker 3: at this stuff? It's it just like kept my attention
Speaker 3: so much more. Even with a four year old, I
Speaker 3: felt myself watching more pitches because they were just coming
Speaker 3: in succession, you know. So anyways, I think just in general,
Speaker 3: the LPGA like needs to take a good hard look
Speaker 3: at the mirror and say, like, what what are we?
Speaker 3: How do we differentiate ourselves from other tours? And how
Speaker 3: do we become the best tour we can be because
Speaker 3: right now it seems like they're just kind of very
Speaker 3: content being you know, the second or third biggest golf
Speaker 3: tour in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. And I have
Speaker 1: low confidence right now that the leadership of the tour
Speaker 1: is kind of on top of this, that they've wrapped
Speaker 1: their arms around this issue and are ready to push
Speaker 1: the tour forward. And you know, if I were an
Speaker 1: LPGA tour player, I would be beginning to get a
Speaker 1: little bit frustrated with it.
Speaker 3: I mean, right, I mean, there's a real opportunity for them,
Speaker 3: this is not There's a real opportunity for them to
Speaker 3: be the most popular version of professional golf.
Speaker 1: Men's golf is in chaos right now. Clearly there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity and it doesn't seem like they've really moved on it.
Speaker 3: But all right, is it easy to get there? Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: But in order to get there there have to be
Speaker 3: some wholesale changes with the way they do their business,
Speaker 3: and that to be seems like the thing that it
Speaker 3: seems like they're almost going the opposite way.
Speaker 1: Before getting into lives, we're going to discuss the state
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Speaker 1: let's get into Live. We're going to talk about some
Speaker 1: ways too that Live could be better headed, some fixes
Speaker 1: for Live. But there would be those out there who
Speaker 1: would argue that Live doesn't need any fixes, that it's
Speaker 1: doing great, that everything's wonderful, that it's changing golf in
Speaker 1: that you know, in just a couple of years it's
Speaker 1: going to be the dominant golf league in the world.
Speaker 1: You know. This past week we saw Live Chicago at
Speaker 1: at Bowlingbrook Golf Club.
Speaker 3: I think maybe a major championship.
Speaker 1: As Bryson Deshambo said, right, well, look, I mean the
Speaker 1: winning score was what minus eleven or something like that. Clearly,
Speaker 1: clearly it was administering a an examination of golfing ability,
Speaker 1: certainly acquitted itself better than Valhalla. But in any case,
Speaker 1: I'll start with you, Joseph. I mean you watch them
Speaker 1: live this past week. I know, do you do you think?
Speaker 1: Do you think the product needs to fix? Needs to
Speaker 1: be fixed?
Speaker 3: Can I just throw something out there?
Speaker 2: Ok?
Speaker 3: Real quick, go ahead to set the table here. Sure,
Speaker 3: you know we're at this point with the PGA Tour
Speaker 3: and everybody involved, how the how the players seem to
Speaker 3: be just running in opposite directions of each other, and
Speaker 3: it's become like extra, it's spent. It's at a point
Speaker 3: where it seems like nothing can get done. So like,
Speaker 3: if they want to make changes, there's no way both
Speaker 3: sides of players are going to agree on them. You
Speaker 3: know that, it just seems like they're at this place
Speaker 3: where they're at a stalemate where nothing can happen because
Speaker 3: everybody's at odds with each other, and the setup of
Speaker 3: the tour is such that you have to get everybody
Speaker 3: rowing in the same direction, and that seems to be
Speaker 3: a herculean task right now. I think the unique thing
Speaker 3: about Live is if one person decides that they're going
Speaker 3: to make months massive changes to the tour. They can
Speaker 3: do it because it's run by one person. It is
Speaker 3: a It is not run by the players.
Speaker 1: And Norman or it I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think I think.
Speaker 1: It's Andrew Waterman is not quite as visible.
Speaker 3: So anyways, I just think when you talk about this
Speaker 3: framing this discussion, if one tour has the ability to
Speaker 3: actually make a wholesale changes and be fixed right now,
Speaker 3: I think it's actually Live. I think Live has a
Speaker 3: much greater potential of making changes that improve the product.
Speaker 3: I think the tour, the PGA Tour right now is
Speaker 3: years away from anything changing. So I would say I
Speaker 3: wanted to just preface this this conversation with of all
Speaker 3: the tours that exist in golf, Live is the one
Speaker 3: that has the most opportunity to evolve, to iterate because
Speaker 3: of the structure it has. The players are contracted, They
Speaker 3: don't really have a say it is. It is run
Speaker 3: by Yasser and Greg Norman. Maybe not Greg for that
Speaker 3: much longer, but who knows.
Speaker 1: Well we've been saying that for a couple of years now. Greg,
Speaker 1: he's hung on the guy is the guy is tenacious.
Speaker 3: Him and Jay could could have a survivor contest, they
Speaker 3: WI should get him both on survivors who lasts longer.
Speaker 1: Cut from the same very tough cloth. Clearly all right,
Speaker 1: well with the table, so set, Joseph, I want to
Speaker 1: get your impressions of Live Chicago this past week, just
Speaker 1: to get a sense of where we are right now
Speaker 1: with the product.
Speaker 4: So I think there are actually a lot of things
Speaker 4: that Live does well. And straight up, I think the
Speaker 4: model if you're going to build a golf tour from
Speaker 4: scratch or a league from scratch, it would look more
Speaker 4: similar to Live than it would look to the PGA Tour,
Speaker 4: where the members approve of every decision. As Andy's alluding to,
Speaker 4: I think it has a real problem shaking some of
Speaker 4: the stink of its foundation and it feeling like a
Speaker 4: bunch of players who are past their primes took a
Speaker 4: lot of money more or less to exit the competitive environment.
Speaker 4: It doesn't feel particularly competitive. And maybe we'll get to
Speaker 4: some of the stuff that some of the honorable mention
Speaker 4: fixes like, I think everything should be geared towards creating
Speaker 4: as a competitive of an environment as possible. One of
Speaker 4: the things, so my big fix, A lot of contracts
Speaker 4: are expiring or apparently at the end of this year.
Speaker 4: I think it is notable that most of the good
Speaker 4: golf being played right now, in this era of speed youth,
Speaker 4: is being played by players who are ages twenty six
Speaker 4: to thirty three ish. Live is significantly older than that,
Speaker 4: and it's not because they have all these legends like
Speaker 4: Sergio Garcia who are hanging on similar to Adam Scott like,
Speaker 4: there are some very talented players who can continue to
Speaker 4: compete into their early forties. But the average age on
Speaker 4: Live is thirty six, which is past the window of
Speaker 4: when you see players playing at their peaks. I just
Speaker 4: was looking at the Tour Championship. The average age is
Speaker 4: thirty one.
Speaker 1: Right, and Live wants to get a young audience too.
Speaker 1: That's their big thing. They want to so younger.
Speaker 4: What I would do if I were running Live is
Speaker 4: I would sign a bunch of these twenty two to
Speaker 4: twenty four year olds who show some upside. They may
Speaker 4: not be the highest profile names, but they maybe they've
Speaker 4: got power, they have some amateur excellence that they've demonstrated.
Speaker 4: Give them a couple of years to develop, and by
Speaker 4: the time they're twenty six to twenty seven, they're playing
Speaker 4: in qualifiers to get into majors. You're investing in them,
Speaker 4: getting them into as competitive of shape as possible and
Speaker 4: giving them some time to grow. And you need to
Speaker 4: shed all of these Cameron tringalle type contracts, These thirty
Speaker 4: six year olds, these thirty seven year olds, who we
Speaker 4: know what they are. They provide no value. No one
Speaker 4: cares about watching Cameron Tringgalley play. We know what he is.
Speaker 3: Even Carlos Ortiz right.
Speaker 1: Thirty three, murdered Charles Howell.
Speaker 4: Charles Holl's forty five, right. They have so many of
Speaker 4: these golfers who are past their competitive primes. And again,
Speaker 4: Carlos ORTIZI thrice thirty three, He's not going to turn
Speaker 4: into a world beater next year. If I'm them, I
Speaker 4: shift the narrative. We keep some of the legends, the pills,
Speaker 4: the DJs, obviously Ram who's playing at his peak. Keep
Speaker 4: Patrick west Wood, you know leave West's fifty one.
Speaker 3: Dick Plans was one of the best players on the
Speaker 3: tour this year. If you want to wait a couple
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 1: A banner year for Dick Bland.
Speaker 3: How many guys can just go down to the Champions
Speaker 3: Tour and beat up on everybody and then then finish
Speaker 3: fifteenth in live events.
Speaker 4: You know, you get my point. I think you need
Speaker 4: to bring in you can keep some of those legends
Speaker 4: to mentor this new wave, and then I think you
Speaker 4: bring in a bunch of twenty two to twenty five
Speaker 4: year olds with a bunch of promise, and one of
Speaker 4: your benefits is that you lock them up for a
Speaker 4: few years, give them time to develop, and don't put
Speaker 4: pressure on them to compete in year one. That is
Speaker 4: probably the right way to make this whole thing feel
Speaker 4: a little bit more competitive.
Speaker 3: I want to push back a little here. Golf is
Speaker 3: an extremely fickle game and it's extraordinarily hard to pick
Speaker 3: how what young players are going to pan out. Like
Speaker 3: we're reminded of this all the time. Norman Jong. One
Speaker 3: of their young superstars big splash signings was Matt Will.
Speaker 3: How's that gone? I think they're young guys that they've signed.
Speaker 3: They've signed like promising young players, Turk Pettitt, James Piatt,
Speaker 3: the NCAA champion, a USAM champion, your Chikara these, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they have not worked out. They haven't worked out. So
Speaker 3: I think the the smarter path here is that Live
Speaker 3: needs to invest in a robust feeder Tour, and I
Speaker 3: think they've like done a little bit with the Asian Tour, right.
Speaker 1: That's it isn't that their idea for their feeder tour.
Speaker 1: That's that's what they want it to be.
Speaker 3: But if your live you could put together like the
Speaker 3: way the corn Ferry Tour works, it is not a
Speaker 3: like a fun place to be if you're on the
Speaker 3: corn Ferry Tour because like, sure I have a chance
Speaker 3: at a PGA Tour card, but I'm not making any
Speaker 3: any money like whatsoever. I think what is the total
Speaker 3: I think the total prize perse for the corn Faery
Speaker 3: Tour it like very very low. I mean it's like
Speaker 3: effectively like one point two million dollars per tournament, twenty
Speaker 3: five tournaments. So you're talking about a small investment, a
Speaker 3: smaller than Lee Westwood investment, and you could have the
Speaker 3: most lucrative feeder tour in the world. And that's how
Speaker 3: you build it, because it can't be We're going to
Speaker 3: sign ten young players because the reality of pro golf
Speaker 3: is that eighty percent of them aren't going to be
Speaker 3: very good. Ninety percent of them won't be a superstar.
Speaker 3: Even if you sign the ten best players from next year.
Speaker 3: You know, like one of them might turn into a superstar.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of that's my point though, right you
Speaker 4: want to hit on one or two of the big ones,
Speaker 4: and that's way better than taking your chances on Cameron Tringale.
Speaker 3: So if LIV wants to have the best tour, they
Speaker 3: need to also have the best feeder tour because that's
Speaker 3: what's going to ensure you long term sustainable success. It
Speaker 3: is not giving out these contracts to Carlos Ortiz overpaying
Speaker 3: for Graham McDowell. You know, like these are not the
Speaker 3: right answers. The right answers is how do we build
Speaker 3: a sustainable future and that has to be through getting
Speaker 3: the best players in the world at a young age
Speaker 3: to play in your system. And I think like that
Speaker 3: to me, for you know, with all the you know,
Speaker 3: this sounds crazy. For a meager one hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: a year, Live could have a great, great feeder tour
Speaker 3: where you have the most promising players playing and a
Speaker 3: real opportunity like you could say to college kids like
Speaker 3: right now, it's it's an interesting time with uh with
Speaker 3: the PGA tour you which is like promoting staying in
Speaker 3: school like you are there are massive benefits to staying
Speaker 3: in school. But if you could present a opportunity for
Speaker 3: the best college players to go make a couple million
Speaker 3: dollars a year playing on this on their on your
Speaker 3: smaller tour, I think that it would give a lot
Speaker 3: of people a reason to jump over there.
Speaker 1: Well, I think there's a bigger question here for Live
Speaker 1: than getting the right players and the right talent, and
Speaker 1: that's whether it's ever going to be on TV in
Speaker 1: a meaningful way. The CW deal has been kind of
Speaker 1: a low.
Speaker 3: Key I think that deals up.
Speaker 1: That deal is up this year, Yes, it is up
Speaker 1: right now after the team championship, and the team championship
Speaker 1: week is usually the week when Live officials convene a
Speaker 1: few of their their favorite media figures, get them in
Speaker 1: a room and lay out kind of their strategy and
Speaker 1: their thoughts about where the league is going next, and
Speaker 1: that would include media rights deals. So maybe something will
Speaker 1: come out this week about Lib's plan for getting on
Speaker 1: TV and getting in front of people. But the CW
Speaker 1: thing hasn't worked out. It doesn't seem like either side
Speaker 1: is happy with how it has gone. The ratings, of course,
Speaker 1: have been legendarily abysmal. They've been abysmal at the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour level as well. But you know, like we're talking
Speaker 1: about what three hundred thousand viewers or something like that
Speaker 1: for certain days, maybe maybe less than that, maybe more.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's like one hundred and fifty lot of final rounds.
Speaker 1: So that's really low. It's really low even for the CW.
Speaker 1: So it just doesn't seem like people are are following
Speaker 1: the league to the CW. Now there are people who
Speaker 1: would say that we've got a lot of viewers on
Speaker 1: the Live Golf Plus app. We don't know who's on
Speaker 1: the CW app. Look at YouTube. Well, we can look
Speaker 1: at YouTube. It's you know, the final rounds generally rack
Speaker 1: up views in about one two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: by a few days after the tournament, which is not
Speaker 1: terribly significant, I would say. And then there's the global scene,
Speaker 1: but they don't really have huge media rights deals in
Speaker 1: Australia or other countries. They don't have anything in the
Speaker 1: UK right now, people in the UK are being asked
Speaker 1: to watch live on YouTube. They have a deal in
Speaker 1: Spain with movie Star Plus. I believe it's called which
Speaker 1: is a streaming service that I think is fairly big
Speaker 1: in Spain, but it's a streaming service.
Speaker 3: It would have seen Caffeine collapsing.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, they have the caffeine thing, Caffeine TV,
Speaker 1: which was short lived. And then in Australia they have
Speaker 1: another streaming deal with a major network I believe it
Speaker 1: is in Australia seven, but it's not on TV. It's
Speaker 1: not on linear TV in Australia. It's purely streaming. And
Speaker 1: so the linear TV deal that they struck with the
Speaker 1: CW which is not a traditional media deal, it was
Speaker 1: more of a revenue share kind of situation. They didn't
Speaker 1: initially get fayed paid a rights fee for that, which
Speaker 1: is kind of remarkable, but you know, that was kind
Speaker 1: of an accomplishment because now they were on linear TV,
Speaker 1: they were on a network in the US that could
Speaker 1: be also viewed in other places in the world through
Speaker 1: DirecTV or whatever. But it hasn't worked out, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where they're going next. I can't think of
Speaker 1: the network that they're going to land at. The obvious
Speaker 1: solution would be kind of a TNT TBS kind of
Speaker 1: thing with Warner Brothers, because Warner Brothers just lost the
Speaker 1: NBA and they're desperate for new sports, and so that
Speaker 1: would seem to be the obvious landing place. But according
Speaker 1: to John rand, who I trust on these subjects, formerly
Speaker 1: of a sports business journal, now writing for Puck, he
Speaker 1: says a deal with Warner Brothers is a big long
Speaker 1: shot for Live. I don't know why it's such a
Speaker 1: long shot, because it would seem to be an obvious partnership.
Speaker 1: But again, you know that's those are cable news cable channels.
Speaker 1: Those aren't network channels. Live is not gonna land at
Speaker 1: NBC obviously, it's not gonna land at CBS. Fox does
Speaker 1: not seem interested in golf right now, and then it's
Speaker 1: probably not gonna land at ESPN or ABC because ESPN
Speaker 1: has that relationship with the PGA Tour through ESPN Plus,
Speaker 1: so that they're kind of blocked out of all of
Speaker 1: these places where their product could be seen. And I
Speaker 1: just don't think this is anything until there's a major
Speaker 1: media rights deal that involves some presence on linear TV.
Speaker 1: People will say Phil Nicholson will tell you, oh, we're
Speaker 1: pursuing the digital strategy that's going to be the big
Speaker 1: wave of the future, but we're not there yet. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe in ten years that would be a great strategy
Speaker 1: for Live to focus on digital, focus on YouTube and streaming,
Speaker 1: and find a deal that would get them out that way.
Speaker 1: But right now, linear TV is still where the big
Speaker 1: bucks are. That's why the NBA and the NFL have
Speaker 1: have still been lining up for those deals and Live
Speaker 1: hasn't gotten there, and it doesn't seem like they're going
Speaker 1: to get there in a meaningful way. Not again, something
Speaker 1: may come out this week, but it's a strange situation,
Speaker 1: and I think that all of this is more or
Speaker 1: less moot in terms of Lift's popularity until they figure
Speaker 1: that part of it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the TV, the visibility of it is a huge problem.
Speaker 3: And everybody will say, oh, you could just go to YouTube,
Speaker 3: or you could do live golf. Plus you're doing that.
Speaker 3: That's not the way. What works is when you turn
Speaker 3: on like I'm going to go bodered here, I have
Speaker 3: YouTube TV. When you turn on YouTube TV and it
Speaker 3: pops right up here, you know, it suggests it, and
Speaker 3: like Live isn't there. It's not there on my TV.
Speaker 3: I watch golf like it knows I like golf. It
Speaker 3: doesn't pop up. I think it's because like the CW
Speaker 3: is just I don't know how the algorithm works, but
Speaker 3: like it's just not there. And I think, like in general,
Speaker 3: I think it makes it like it's kind of stuck
Speaker 3: in the middle. I think in a way too, like
Speaker 3: it is. From a product standpoint, it hasn't. They like
Speaker 3: to say they innovate, but they don't really. You know,
Speaker 3: They've like done a couple things, but like if you're
Speaker 3: gonna go off the wall and try and like appeal
Speaker 3: the youth, like really go for it, And I don't
Speaker 3: think they have. Like I think that's like the tricky
Speaker 3: thing with it is like they've done a few things
Speaker 3: that are different, but for the most part, it's the
Speaker 3: same golf, right, you know. Like I think it's an
Speaker 3: interesting question with with live is is what could you
Speaker 3: do with the format to improve from that standpoint outside
Speaker 3: of the players, outside of this visibility, what from the format,
Speaker 3: product venue selection could you do. I think like one
Speaker 3: thing that they've done that I'm impressed with that I
Speaker 3: respect the shit out of So they're not afraid to
Speaker 3: dole out pace play penalties.
Speaker 1: I like that sluggers just out there whipping guys.
Speaker 3: Well, he's not worried about those guys. Kids college funds like.
Speaker 1: They're already taken care of. Yeah, that's right, he's been
Speaker 1: freed up. Yeah, I mean, I I don't I don't
Speaker 1: really know what you could do to to to improve
Speaker 1: the product to a degree that would be more appealing
Speaker 1: for say a network to pick up, because you've just
Speaker 1: you've got to have in order for the product to
Speaker 1: be appealing, there has to be a large audience that
Speaker 1: is excited about it, and then people will start to
Speaker 1: be attracted to that like a moth to a flame, right,
Speaker 1: And without the visibility, without the you know, establishment of
Speaker 1: a large audience in the first place, that momentum just
Speaker 1: can't get going. And so it just seems like to me,
Speaker 1: everything is irre irrelevant until they figure out the media rights,
Speaker 1: until they figure out how they're delivering this product to
Speaker 1: people at home. Because you know, the live event seems
Speaker 1: to be going well. I was impressed by the live
Speaker 1: event that Live put on in Portland, and that was
Speaker 1: their second event ever. I'm sure they've improved it and
Speaker 1: it seems like people are showing up to these tournaments
Speaker 1: and having fun. They report attendance numbers occasionally, when the
Speaker 1: attendance numbers are from their perspective good. They're not at
Speaker 1: this point anywhere near a popular PGA Tour event in
Speaker 1: terms of those numbers, but it seems like people are
Speaker 1: having a good on site experience.
Speaker 3: I had surprise that went to the Bowling Brooke event
Speaker 3: and said it was genuinely good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like on site. I think that's been the case
Speaker 1: from the beginning. They've always been pretty impressive with their
Speaker 1: live product. But again, I don't think that carries this league.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. Think about the salaries that
Speaker 1: they're paying these guys. You know, Phil Nicholson got a
Speaker 1: four year, two hundred million dollar deal. He's getting paid
Speaker 1: an average of fifty million dollars a year. Who gets
Speaker 1: paid fifty million dollars a year.
Speaker 3: I'm sure producer Golf.
Speaker 1: I'm sure PJ could correct me on this, but I
Speaker 1: think it's like Patrick Mahomes. I think it's like I
Speaker 1: think it's like Devin Booker and Steph Curry. That's that's
Speaker 1: the that's what they're getting. And so they've laid out
Speaker 1: this money to these guys and they're just not on
Speaker 1: not on TV. It doesn't work right now. It's so asymmetrical,
Speaker 1: and obviously we know that the Saudi piff is floating.
Speaker 1: This is keeping this going for the time being. That's
Speaker 1: that's why it exists. But at some point it just
Speaker 1: seems like these this imbalance has to be rectified in
Speaker 1: some reasonable way.
Speaker 4: I'll throw out one in a little different direction as
Speaker 4: somebody who watched a decent amount of Lived this past weekend.
Speaker 4: One thing that has to change, and Live fans will
Speaker 4: probably shake their fists at this. But the shotgun start
Speaker 4: is stupid and one of the I understand some of
Speaker 4: the advantages of it and keeping everyone on the course
Speaker 4: at the same time tightening that window at the end
Speaker 4: of the round is when a lot of the excitement
Speaker 4: happens on players' final holes and it's scattered throughout the course.
Speaker 4: It makes no sense to have those finishing the climax
Speaker 4: of a lot of people's rounds all happening simultaneously. It
Speaker 4: made no sense to me, as if you were watching
Speaker 4: it and you have a couple of golfers fighting this
Speaker 4: relegation zone, this open zone, all while John ram is
Speaker 4: trying to win, and like they're doing it on holes
Speaker 4: two and three, some of them are finishing their rounds
Speaker 4: there there's not a big crowd around that eighteenth, around
Speaker 4: their eighteenth green, the second green. I get some of
Speaker 4: the advantages of it, it is stupid, and I also
Speaker 4: think you play certain holes for a reason.
Speaker 3: What if you went to like a structured like star
Speaker 3: a little bit on the last day where you had
Speaker 3: like a kind of like a half shotgun, but then
Speaker 3: the last four or five groups went off one.
Speaker 1: And they currently do that with the last two groups. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sorry if that's wrong, because that's how it was toward
Speaker 1: the beginning. But yeah, I mean the shotguns start, wouldn't
Speaker 1: you say? Josef though that it's sort of integral to
Speaker 1: the concept that they've proposed so far, Like it's absolutely
Speaker 1: part of the core structure of what their proposal has
Speaker 1: been for what golf should look like.
Speaker 4: But does it have to be It doesn't seem like
Speaker 4: you would actually compromise on much of what they're doing
Speaker 4: to just change it to where players play the holes
Speaker 4: in order, like Saint Andrew's walking over the bridge on eighteen,
Speaker 4: Like when that's your final hole. There's something special about
Speaker 4: playing the holes in the order that they were designed. Like,
Speaker 4: I know that that's not priority number one, but it
Speaker 4: doesn't make sense to me. To have players finishing on
Speaker 4: the fifth and sixth holes and.
Speaker 3: All that action.
Speaker 4: That could be cool, player going for course record or
Speaker 4: something like that happening in all these disparate locations at
Speaker 4: the same time, and then having a bunch of sleepy
Speaker 4: you know, their wholes thirteen through fifteen are all sleepy
Speaker 4: at the same time doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So we've proposed some fixes here. We've got
Speaker 1: the Team Championship coming up this week. Overall, I want
Speaker 1: to put this out there as kind of a final
Speaker 1: question for this segment. Do you think Live is in
Speaker 1: a better place now at the end of this season
Speaker 1: than it was at the end of the last season,
Speaker 1: or do you think it's in a worse position.
Speaker 3: I think it's in a better spot. And I would
Speaker 3: say I think it's in a better spot because of
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour is in a worse spot, and they
Speaker 3: also have John Rahm and they didn't have John rom before.
Speaker 3: And when you start to look at it, you have
Speaker 3: John Rahm who's seemingly playing really good golf again, you
Speaker 3: have Bryson de Shamba who won a US Open, and
Speaker 3: you've got a slew the biggest names like I think
Speaker 3: from in terms of star power. They have a significant
Speaker 3: amount of star power. That's important. And I think the
Speaker 3: general you know, the PGA Tour doing nothing every day
Speaker 3: that the PGA Tour sits in this limbo, live gets
Speaker 3: in a better position. So I think it is in
Speaker 3: a better position. I do think like the thing to
Speaker 3: think about is like if liv decided to overhaul what
Speaker 3: it's doing, if they wanted to try something new, maybe
Speaker 3: it's not even overhaul. If they want to make significant
Speaker 3: tweaks to what they do, it's actually feasible. The PGA
Speaker 3: Tour could not do that. We have seen this, like
Speaker 3: they're trotting out the same schedule they had last year
Speaker 3: this year, despite fans wanting something different. It is reported
Speaker 3: that it's likely going to be the same next year,
Speaker 3: and that gives like live this weird, like live in
Speaker 3: a way like they've got like two years knowing with
Speaker 3: what's going on with the PGA Tour to really make
Speaker 3: a dent. And if you think about two years a
Speaker 3: long time to continue to pick up fan interest, I
Speaker 3: think there are genuine people that will never go to
Speaker 3: live and I think, like I have a hard time
Speaker 3: taking it seriously. I'm just gonna like I just have
Speaker 3: a hard time. I think, like in general, I have
Speaker 3: a hard time taking it seriously. And they have you know,
Speaker 3: the Saudi money thing that is like always going to
Speaker 3: turn people off. It turns to be off.
Speaker 1: Now that has always remained a problem, by the way,
Speaker 1: with with sponsorships. Yeah, Live, which is a major thing
Speaker 1: that really hasn't come through yet at all for the league.
Speaker 3: I think it has a problem. It's it's part of
Speaker 3: its network problem. Also, Yeah, without a doubt, like that's
Speaker 3: why you don't have the blue chips.
Speaker 1: Or feel about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't have blue chip networks jumping to get
Speaker 3: behind it because of that. And I think I don't
Speaker 3: know if the PGA Tour continues to drag his feet
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden Live partners with the European Tour,
Speaker 3: I think we would probably feel a lot differently about
Speaker 3: Live in the future of Live.
Speaker 1: That would be a big one. Now, what you're saying
Speaker 1: just brought to mind something that would be a really
Speaker 1: interesting possibility for Live. What if the League just said
Speaker 1: the fifty four holes the shotgun start, all of that
Speaker 1: was Live one point zero, Live two point zero is
Speaker 1: seventy two holes with a qualifying system, not a shotgun start,
Speaker 1: and we are designed to get OWGR points to force
Speaker 1: the OWGR to give us points. What if they did that,
Speaker 1: and maybe that would take down one of the last
Speaker 1: barriers that is preventing some major PGA tour players from
Speaker 1: coming over, and then there would start to be maybe
Speaker 1: that critical mass that would lead to a TV deal
Speaker 1: and the big sponsorships and all that. They just haven't
Speaker 1: hit that critical mass point with Rom and Phil and
Speaker 1: Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith, and that maybe has been
Speaker 1: a bit of a surprise that the clout of those
Speaker 1: players isn't quite as big as maybe all of us
Speaker 1: thought it would be in terms of getting the sponsorships
Speaker 1: and forcing the league's way onto network television and all
Speaker 1: of that. That it hasn't been enough so far. The
Speaker 1: star power has not yet overwhelmed the system to gain
Speaker 1: the league legitimacy. But maybe if it started to get
Speaker 1: OGBGR points, maybe if they changed their format enough so
Speaker 1: that all of the concerns of the rating system were allayed,
Speaker 1: then maybe you'd start to see way more players come over,
Speaker 1: and then it would just be inevitable.
Speaker 3: One of the other things is what if their feeder tour.
Speaker 3: I think like one of the things that it hasn't
Speaker 3: done is free agency trades. Those things have never materialized.
Speaker 3: Like the one of the things that people were excited
Speaker 3: about with Team Golf was that like is their player
Speaker 3: movement interest? Is there that not?
Speaker 1: According to lives in House journalists, trade season is full
Speaker 1: of event and moment for the for the paid live journalists.
Speaker 3: Well, I think like, here's the thing is if you
Speaker 3: had team relegation along with player relegation, and you had
Speaker 3: a again a feeder tour that promoted teams and as
Speaker 3: well as made players and options to sign. If you
Speaker 3: had a feeder tour with teams in it, it would
Speaker 3: make it more interesting. It would make the managers more
Speaker 3: engaged because they wouldn't want to get rele gated. Like
Speaker 3: relegation is one of the finest forms of getting people
Speaker 3: to care. And I think like one of the things
Speaker 3: is like a lot of players there, they sign up
Speaker 3: and then they just like, well, I got my check,
Speaker 3: I don't really care. Public embarrassment is something as a
Speaker 3: guardrail to players getting fat and happy with their contracts.
Speaker 4: I guess one other point on the public embarrassment as
Speaker 4: a good motivator slightly different angle, Andy, but I think
Speaker 4: one of the most one of the biggest reasons to
Speaker 4: be bullish on LIV is that I think the twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five PGA Tour season is going to.
Speaker 3: Be a disaster.
Speaker 4: That this year was not exciting and you had Scotti
Speaker 4: Scheffler on a once in a ten twenty year season
Speaker 4: winning at a prolific rate, and the ratings were still bad,
Speaker 4: and I don't know that sponsors are overly thrilled with
Speaker 4: where they are, and next year they're running back the
Speaker 4: exact same stale schedule. I think you could see those
Speaker 4: same ratings going down even less enthusiasm for the PGA
Speaker 4: Tour than there was this year, and that's something to
Speaker 4: capitalize on if you're a competitor. So that is for me,
Speaker 4: like the one of the top reasons to be optimistic
Speaker 4: about LIVE if you're a LIVE fan, that I think
Speaker 4: the PGA Tour is set up for massive failure in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Ironically, I think if you had a couple of billion
Speaker 3: dollars laying around right now, the space that these two
Speaker 3: organizations have created, it's actually created the perfect opportunity right
Speaker 3: now to start another competing golf tour.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be Hila premiere Golf League rises from the
Speaker 1: coffin like in a soap opera.
Speaker 3: I think, like you've gotten to the point where they've
Speaker 3: like created this golf and I don't know if, like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if anybody's ever going to be able
Speaker 3: to get behind live. I don't. I think that like
Speaker 3: that's a legitimate question, was the start of it and
Speaker 3: the kind of like is there such a bad taste
Speaker 3: in golf fan's mouth that it will never be popularly adopted.
Speaker 3: I think there's a real likely answers yes to that.
Speaker 3: The PGA Tour has also gotten to the point where
Speaker 3: it's so unlikable. I think if I think that right
Speaker 3: now is would be the perfect time to start, as
Speaker 3: as crazy as this sounds, third competing tour thread the
Speaker 3: needle and you could that it could be a winner.
Speaker 3: Takes all proposition. Now, it would probably take a lot
Speaker 3: of capital, But I do think like right now would
Speaker 3: be the perfect time for a third tour to launch
Speaker 3: and potentially win this space.
Speaker 1: We've we've almost run out of people to fund this
Speaker 1: kind of endeavor because you know, John Henry and his
Speaker 1: sort of you know, Boston area private equity guys have
Speaker 1: already thrown in their lot with PGA tour enterprises supposedly,
Speaker 1: though there seems to have been scant development of that
Speaker 1: of that idea in the past few months.
Speaker 3: Sounds like they might be frustrated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would. I would as venture to say that
Speaker 1: they probably are.
Speaker 3: I would just point out that it seems like anybody
Speaker 3: who has any business acumen that that finds themselves into
Speaker 3: in the PGA tour globe and in the circle, then
Speaker 3: shortly leaves after extraordinarily frustrated and confused.
Speaker 1: Yes, like what the hell is this?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's often is a comic. The reaction, it's one
Speaker 3: could almost we've almost reached a stat level, Joseph, you
Speaker 3: could correctly, we've almost reached a statistical relevance number here
Speaker 3: where this you could say that this is correlated.
Speaker 1: This is this is not just to random occurrence. There
Speaker 1: There must be must be some cause for these departures.
Speaker 4: Well, I think what you guys are forgetting is that
Speaker 4: on the very beginning of June, Golf Week released a
Speaker 4: Q and A with Joe Ogilvy that said, four months
Speaker 4: from now, it's going to be a completely different stories,
Speaker 4: and that's coming up in a couple of weeks, So
Speaker 4: that four month deadline, apparently the future of golf is
Speaker 4: going to have been sorted out in that time period.
Speaker 4: That's what was pledged.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, the deal is coming.
Speaker 3: Since June, I up until maybe last week if they
Speaker 3: did the nine to eleven meet with the Saudi's in
Speaker 3: New York City that happened that that was the first
Speaker 3: time they'd talked since June.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there can't have been much progress. Given the likely
Speaker 1: complexity that this deal would would have, it would take
Speaker 1: far more than kind of that one meeting to work
Speaker 1: everything out. All right, Well, on that note of confusion
Speaker 1: and despair, let's wrap up our segment on the condition
Speaker 1: of live and the competitive landscape of professional golf. I
Speaker 1: do like the idea of another league suddenly emerging. That
Speaker 1: would be an amazing wrinkle in this But I'd like
Speaker 1: to wrap up with some recommendations. Let's go to a
Speaker 1: positive place and let me go to Joseph first. Joseph,
Speaker 1: what are you recommending this week? What is something that
Speaker 1: you like and that fills you with joy?
Speaker 4: Easy one for me this week? A Frida Egg listener
Speaker 4: and friend sent me this, I'll always check out what
Speaker 4: people send me. There's a YouTube channel called the QB
Speaker 4: School and now that it's NFL season. This is a
Speaker 4: former LSU quarterback Jto Sullivan. He goes through quarterback breakdowns
Speaker 4: in the NFL. Maybe he does it for other levels
Speaker 4: as well, but takes you through. They're like twenty five
Speaker 4: to hour long videos taking you through quarterback play. It's
Speaker 4: really cool, great example of the use of YouTube and
Speaker 4: really shows you what's going on schematically, like takes you
Speaker 4: through the these quarterbacks are doing. So as we get
Speaker 4: into NFL season, some content for like pretty hardcore fans
Speaker 4: who want to understand what's happening on a deeper level,
Speaker 4: kind of within the Frida Egg ethos of understanding golf
Speaker 4: at a deeper level. I can't recommend it enough. I
Speaker 4: think I'm gonna watch every video he puts out this year.
Speaker 1: Nice QB School, all right. My recommendation is on the
Speaker 1: musical end of the spectrum. I'm really liking the album
Speaker 1: Manning Fireworks by MJ. Lenderman. This came out within the
Speaker 1: past few weeks. I believe a lot of really good
Speaker 1: indie rock songs on there. If you're approximately my age
Speaker 1: if you're saying, you know, forty ish years old and
Speaker 1: it kind of grew up. It came of age in
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. Listening to in guitar driven indie rock.
Speaker 1: This music MJ. Lenderman stuff will will hit you right
Speaker 1: in the sweet spot. He's a young guys, he's not
Speaker 1: an old dude like me, and so he's to be
Speaker 1: deriving some influences from before his time. But very very
Speaker 1: good album Manning Fireworks. I'm not sure exactly where that
Speaker 1: name comes from. Maybe it's spelled out in the lyrics
Speaker 1: of the album, which I haven't really listened to, honestly,
Speaker 1: Maybe from watching the UT football game on see Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's very possible that Manning Manning Fireworks happened this
Speaker 1: past week. We have a running Manning.
Speaker 3: I didn't so amazing. It can't be a Manning.
Speaker 1: Well, apparently his dad, Arch Manning's dad, Cooper, is a
Speaker 1: little bit more athletic, right, And you know, when I
Speaker 1: saw Arch Manning running for that down, just did a
Speaker 1: double take and I cracked myself up because I remembered
Speaker 1: how Peyton Manning used to run, how like sort of
Speaker 1: vertical had and short his steps were and just imagined
Speaker 1: how he would negotiate that that same play. But in
Speaker 1: any case, m J. Lannerman Manning Fireworks may or may
Speaker 1: not have something to do with the Manning family. Andy,
Speaker 1: do you have any recommendations for us to close out here?
Speaker 3: I traveled a lot of cities, and you know, I'm
Speaker 3: frequently looking for like restaurants, and I think, like listen,
Speaker 3: like Google reviews and Yelp are awful, They're terrible. Something
Speaker 3: that I've found that I really like is this company
Speaker 3: called Infatuation. Have you guys heard of them before?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, they have like a good website, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well they do so like they're like legit reviewers.
Speaker 3: They are employees of a company. And the way that
Speaker 3: they do food reviews is like they do not tell
Speaker 3: the restaurant they're coming. They pay their own bill like
Speaker 3: a lot of reviewers, like they'll let them know they
Speaker 3: get comped, like they pay their own bill, and then
Speaker 3: they write these reviews. They have them for like almost
Speaker 3: every major city in America. And I just find I
Speaker 3: like the the idea of somebody tell like an individual
Speaker 3: telling me like about restaurants. I like that I don't
Speaker 3: like what I don't like is like if you go
Speaker 3: on Google or Yelp, like pretty much everything gets between
Speaker 3: four and five stars, right like this, this website has
Speaker 3: a really nice curation of restaurants it has. They have
Speaker 3: different categories you can click on for like different occasions
Speaker 3: you can like they have recommendations for like sub ten
Speaker 3: dollars meals, They have recommendations for date nights, They have
Speaker 3: recommendations for big groups like it is uh, and then
Speaker 3: they also cover like new restaurant openings really well. I
Speaker 3: think this is a great website if you are into food. Uh,
Speaker 3: if you travel and you're going to do areas and
Speaker 3: you're looking for restaurants, this is worth They have a
Speaker 3: map that shows where everything is, so it's like easy
Speaker 3: to curate. It's way better. It takes a little bit
Speaker 3: more time than doing like the Google like maps like restaurants.
Speaker 3: To hear me, it takes a little more time. But
Speaker 3: if you want to plan out like a good inner,
Speaker 3: get a good meal like and want a little bit
Speaker 3: more inside look like you know, it's funny like I've
Speaker 3: used I've used this in like people like that. No
Speaker 3: restaurants in areas are like how do you know to
Speaker 3: go there? And I'm like, well, I use this infatuation.
Speaker 3: So this is a great way to avoid kind of
Speaker 3: tourist traps and find like really good local spots in
Speaker 3: my opinion.
Speaker 1: All Right, Andy and Joseph, thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: the pod today. Thanks Gay. This episode of the Frida
Speaker 1: Egg Golf Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ.
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