Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 3: In a brid egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday,
Speaker 3: Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida.
Speaker 1: Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off
Speaker 1: of the hump course game. Welcome to the Friday Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we are talking about Live
Speaker 1: Golf's upcoming twenty twenty three season. Live, as you know,
Speaker 1: is the breakaway golf league headed by Greg Norman and
Speaker 1: funded by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. It's
Speaker 1: really turned the golf world upside down. But a lot
Speaker 1: of things have happened recently that have suggested that Live
Speaker 1: maybe isn't in as strong a place as it was
Speaker 1: potentially last year. Live's new season, Season two of Live
Speaker 1: is starting next week, actually end of next week, February
Speaker 1: twenty fourth through the twenty sixth, at Mayacoba El kamal
Speaker 1: Leone Golf Course, which is familiar to people who are
Speaker 1: nerdy enough to follow the PGA Tour in the fall season.
Speaker 1: Mayacoba has been a venue on the tour for a while.
Speaker 1: Well now now it's with Live, So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to do basically a state of Live Golf podcast. What
Speaker 1: were the major things that happened last year and during
Speaker 1: the off season, and what are the major unanswered questions
Speaker 1: about the league this year. My guest is Adam Woodard,
Speaker 1: a reporter and the assistant editor for Golf Week. One
Speaker 1: of Adam's major roles this past year has been covering
Speaker 1: Live Golf on site and on a week to week basis.
Speaker 1: Adam is in a really interesting and I think difficult
Speaker 1: position because his job is to report accurately on what
Speaker 1: happens at live events and in the wider world of
Speaker 1: Live's efforts to recruit players and put out a competitive product,
Speaker 1: and the rest of us just get to opine on it,
Speaker 1: which is relatively easy and allows us to take a
Speaker 1: clear moral stance on the whole enterprise. I've made very clear,
Speaker 1: abundantly clear, on podcast after podcasts that I do not
Speaker 1: think it's good that a league backed by the Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabian monarchy is trying to take over the world of golf.
Speaker 1: That has been my stance from the beginning. But it's
Speaker 1: easy for me to say that Adam's role isn't necessarily
Speaker 1: to give his opinion in the way that it's my
Speaker 1: role to do that. Adam's role is to give us
Speaker 1: information that's an essential underlying bedrock for the rest of
Speaker 1: our discussion. I can't tell you how much we rely
Speaker 1: on reporters like Adam to just give us information about
Speaker 1: what's happening, because otherwise we wouldn't get it. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't talk to Brooks Koepka. I've said too many
Speaker 1: negative things about him. That guy's not going to talk
Speaker 1: to me. But reporters have the kind of relationships and
Speaker 1: perspective that allows them to get information that is super
Speaker 1: essential to the rest of us. But of course Adam
Speaker 1: is aware that in the effort to be objective, journalism
Speaker 1: can sometimes go astray and end up unintentionally endorsing things
Speaker 1: that should not be endorsed. And so I found it
Speaker 1: really interesting to get his take on how he sees
Speaker 1: his role and how he works through these conflicts with himself.
Speaker 1: So in any case, you know, he's a great guy
Speaker 1: to talk to you also just so friendly and fun,
Speaker 1: and I think you'll enjoy our conversation. But first, this
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Speaker 1: that's code Frida Egg all one word. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to Adam Wredon. So, Adam, you and I met
Speaker 1: for the first time at Live Portland. This was the
Speaker 1: first time we had met in person.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And I believe it was your first live event that
Speaker 1: you had covered, because the only one before that was
Speaker 1: Live London. So how did you find yourself covering Live?
Speaker 1: Why were you there?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So, I mean, I know I'm prone to hyperbole, but
Speaker 3: you know, Live is the biggest thing to happen to
Speaker 3: pro golf since Tiger Woods join, you know, join the
Speaker 3: tour twenty some years ago. It's been incredibly polarizing and
Speaker 3: because of that, we've seen just incredible interest in it
Speaker 3: with our coverage of it early on, I think I
Speaker 3: thought there'd be interest, but not to the to the
Speaker 3: level that we've seen. I mean, it's near, you know,
Speaker 3: major interest as far as the discussion that's going around
Speaker 3: it for us, and that's that carried out through through
Speaker 3: the rest of twenty twenty two. Now, we saw so
Speaker 3: much discussion around live not necessarily what was going on
Speaker 3: on the course, but a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 3: was going on off the course. You know, what players
Speaker 3: are joining, what's Greg saying about Jay Monahan, what's Jay
Speaker 3: Monahan saying about Greg Norman. It was all the discussion
Speaker 3: around it, but not so much on the course, and
Speaker 3: that really carried out as far as you know, player
Speaker 3: movement and everything that was happening. And we just sort
Speaker 3: of stuck with it, and we figured, look, if we're
Speaker 3: going to be involved in talking about professional golf, you know,
Speaker 3: whether you like it or not, these are professional golfers.
Speaker 3: This is still professional golf. And we thought it's a
Speaker 3: story that that had to be covered. And I think
Speaker 3: we've we've done a pretty good job about doing that. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we've got a lot of the news reporting, we've got
Speaker 3: a bunch of columns. If you've read any of am
Speaker 3: In Lynch's stuff about what he said about Live, I
Speaker 3: won't speak for him or his thoughts or anything.
Speaker 1: How does he feel about Live?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Amen, What you're referring to is that Amen has been
Speaker 1: very critical of LIV very much from the jump, but
Speaker 1: through an opinion column, whereas what you're responsible for, typically
Speaker 1: in Golf Week's coverage of Live is kind of more
Speaker 1: of the fact based reporting, on site reporting, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff.
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 3: A lot of what we a lot of our thoughts
Speaker 3: going into it was all right, we'd want to A
Speaker 3: lot of people aren't gonna be able to go to
Speaker 3: these events because they're scattered all throughout the country or
Speaker 3: all throughout the world, so we wanted to put people
Speaker 3: at these live events. So my job is basically going,
Speaker 3: all right, let's write about what you see, which was
Speaker 3: a lot of fun for me. It's something I haven't
Speaker 3: really gotten a lot to do, especially in golf. I
Speaker 3: passed at USA today. I got to do a little
Speaker 3: bit more stuff like that. But with golf tournaments and
Speaker 3: there's a lot of all right, let's go right about
Speaker 3: what's happening on the course, let's go right about the
Speaker 3: players and stuff in this there's just so much more
Speaker 3: involved in it, and it was a lot of fun
Speaker 3: to go out to those events and really see it firsthand.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have any feelings of conflict about covering
Speaker 1: live events as golf events? Did you think that through
Speaker 1: when you were reporting this stuff out, because there is
Speaker 1: an argument out there that reporting on live as a
Speaker 1: golf event is exactly what Live wants. You're playing into
Speaker 1: their hands. You're playing into the hands of the Public
Speaker 1: Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which backs Live, and there's
Speaker 1: a feeling out there among some people that reporting just
Speaker 1: on the golf is kind of not the right move.
Speaker 1: So did you think that through for yourself?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there was a lot of those a
Speaker 3: lot of those talks, a lot of those conversations with myself,
Speaker 3: with my family, with editors, with other people, you know,
Speaker 3: like you walking around the course talking about it, talking
Speaker 3: to other media members, seeing what they think. But whether,
Speaker 3: like like I said earlier, whether we like it or not,
Speaker 3: this is professional golf, and I think that you can
Speaker 3: kind of toe that line of you know, carrying you know,
Speaker 3: carrying the water for a live and just doing what
Speaker 3: they want you to do and talk about the golf
Speaker 3: while also still talking about what's going on behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: knowing that this is a golf entity, a golf league
Speaker 3: now that is fully one hundred percent backed by Saudi
Speaker 3: Arabia's sovereign Wealth Fund, the Public Investment Fund. Know, we
Speaker 3: make sure that we keep mentioning that. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think I've been doing a pretty good job to
Speaker 3: pat myself on the back because if I look at
Speaker 3: my Twitter mentions, I'm either a PGA tour stand one
Speaker 3: day or I'm just carrying the water for live golf
Speaker 3: the next day. You know, it's it's people are so
Speaker 3: opinionated on it all. But I think that there's it's
Speaker 3: important to talk about what's going on behind the scenes
Speaker 3: but also still talking about what's going on with the
Speaker 3: golf because they got some guys, they got some really
Speaker 3: important players and some really big name players, and there's
Speaker 3: still a lot of interest in what they're doing. But
Speaker 3: I think there's there's there's definitely a way you can
Speaker 3: do both covering the golf while also still you know,
Speaker 3: noting what's actually going on behind the scenes and grant that.
Speaker 3: I guess that's up to your opinion on whether on
Speaker 3: you actually believe that Live really wants to and cover
Speaker 3: your ears, grow the game, or whether this is all
Speaker 3: just one big sports watching effort for the Kingdom.
Speaker 1: So when you started covering live at Portland, what was
Speaker 1: kind of your intention in going out there and finding stories?
Speaker 1: You know, compared to a say, a PGA Tour event
Speaker 1: or a DP World Tour event. How is your approach
Speaker 1: different in just looking for things to report on at
Speaker 1: a live event or is it similar?
Speaker 3: I think in a lot of ways it's it's similar
Speaker 3: once the tournament gets started, but those early days it's
Speaker 3: completely different. Those some of those press conferences were just
Speaker 3: were just unreal, the animosity from from one side to
Speaker 3: the other. Uh, just getting a lot of the guys
Speaker 3: are real touchy and try to talk around things, And
Speaker 3: it changed from event to event. But I think that
Speaker 3: my thought going into it was I need to go
Speaker 3: into this with the most open mind possible. Sure, I
Speaker 3: can have my own thoughts, I can have my own
Speaker 3: opinions going on in the back of my head, but
Speaker 3: in order to successfully do my job, I wanted to
Speaker 3: tell the story of what was actually happening at these events.
Speaker 3: So that meant talking to the players, asking you know, directly,
Speaker 3: why did you join, What were the issues that you
Speaker 3: did that you went through and joining, What did you
Speaker 3: think about, what did you discuss? It was talking to
Speaker 3: the Live officials themselves. I talked to a bunch of
Speaker 3: them and straight up asked them, you know, did you
Speaker 3: have any reservations given the the funding from the Public
Speaker 3: Investment Fund and all of that. I talked to as
Speaker 3: many people as I could to get their opinions, to
Speaker 3: try and you know, have the most clear cut thought
Speaker 3: of what was actually going on. And you know, it's
Speaker 3: a lot of people. It seemed like they were genuine
Speaker 3: a lot of it. You could kind of tell they
Speaker 3: were just given the talking points for what they were
Speaker 3: supposed to say in order to you know, make the
Speaker 3: make the criticisms a bit less. But I just went
Speaker 3: into it with the most clear open mind as possible
Speaker 3: to try and just say, all right, what is actually
Speaker 3: going on at these events?
Speaker 1: Now? What actually went on at the Live Portland event?
Speaker 1: During the press conferences were some pretty tense moments between
Speaker 1: the players and the media. You and I were both
Speaker 1: in the room for the now infamous I guess it
Speaker 1: was Pat Perez Brooks Kepka, and there was a third
Speaker 1: wheel there, right, was it Abe Answer or somebody who
Speaker 1: was I don't exactly remember who their third person was,
Speaker 1: but Pat Perez and Brooks Koepka came out, you know,
Speaker 1: with some real fire and with they had different attitudes.
Speaker 1: Pat Perez seemed more angry to me, Brooks pep Gut
Speaker 1: seemed more kind of sullen. And so, you know, as
Speaker 1: you were seeing that press conference, what was going through
Speaker 1: your head? Like how do you report on a golf
Speaker 1: press press conference that gets that tense? Because usually they
Speaker 1: don't write.
Speaker 3: I've never been a part of anything like that before.
Speaker 3: I've never witnessed anything like that, and I've been doing
Speaker 3: this for a decade now and I've never seen anything
Speaker 3: come close to how how tense that was. Like I
Speaker 3: was not that I was nervous to ask a question,
Speaker 3: but I was definitely kind of worried about all right, like,
Speaker 3: is you know, is this going to turn into a thing?
Speaker 3: Am I gonna Is one of these guys going to
Speaker 3: try and make a headline out of me just from
Speaker 3: asking a question?
Speaker 2: And it's just.
Speaker 3: It's really tough to take the guys seriously when you
Speaker 3: know former you know, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer
Speaker 3: is standing ten feet off the podium writing down every
Speaker 3: single question and answer that was given and staring complete
Speaker 3: and total daggers into anybody who asked anything that wasn't golf.
Speaker 3: I mean I asked, I asked the guys, Oh, Patrick
Speaker 3: Reed was in that was in that press, he was.
Speaker 1: About that, and he was and he came off as
Speaker 1: the most level headed.
Speaker 3: That's the craziest thing. And the day before bryceon to
Speaker 3: Shambo or later on that day, one of the two
Speaker 3: most normal press conferences that you have are Patrick Read
Speaker 3: and Bryson to Shambo. Something is going either wrong or
Speaker 3: just it's it's unlike anything we've covered before, because that
Speaker 3: was not how it went on the tour. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I asked the guys, Look how much media training. I've
Speaker 3: see this guy standing right here. You've hired his PR firm.
Speaker 3: I straight up asked him, how much training have you
Speaker 3: gotten to deal with the difficult questions about the Saudi
Speaker 3: funding as well as leaving from the tour, And Brooks
Speaker 3: did his le I mean none unless you want to
Speaker 3: give it yourself and hit me with a thanks chief
Speaker 3: on the way out. And it's like it's I'm just
Speaker 3: asking a question, man, like if you if the answer
Speaker 3: is none, the answer is none. That's all I'm looking for.
Speaker 3: But I find it incredibly hard to believe that these
Speaker 3: guys weren't getting trained left and right, given how the
Speaker 3: first round of press conferences in London went to those
Speaker 3: just a couple of weeks later, with the guy standing
Speaker 3: right next to the podium. He was right there taking
Speaker 3: down notes. I just don't see they could think that
Speaker 3: we weren't going to ask about that. And that's what
Speaker 3: happens when you do ask those kind of serious questions,
Speaker 3: is you don't really get much of an answer, or
Speaker 3: if you do, it's it's kind of a joke.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That was a great question, Uh, do you have have
Speaker 1: you gotten media training? I thought that got really to
Speaker 1: the heart of some issues there. Now you ended up
Speaker 1: covering most of or all of the live events that
Speaker 1: took place in the US for the rest of the year. Correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And did you notice this is something I picked up on,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't at the rest of the events. Did
Speaker 1: you notice a kind of decrease in the electricity in
Speaker 1: the press conferences? And did you notice some decrease in
Speaker 1: the number of uncomfortable questions that the press was asking
Speaker 1: the players as the season went on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the only other time that I saw it truly
Speaker 3: get that tense was either when a new player joined
Speaker 3: and they got the same round of questions of why
Speaker 3: did you join, did the did the Saudi you know,
Speaker 3: did the money have any have any play in it?
Speaker 3: Those are the only times I ever saw get that.
Speaker 3: And then as well in Bedminster when a lot of
Speaker 3: the local journalists were talking about the nine to eleven
Speaker 3: attacks and the nine eleven family groups that we're doing.
Speaker 3: There are different protests throughout the area. They had a
Speaker 3: TV advertisement, I'm pretty sure they had a protest nearby
Speaker 3: at the club. Those were the only other times I
Speaker 3: ever saw it yet even even close to that tense.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, we can only ask these
Speaker 3: guys those questions so many times before they completely shut
Speaker 3: us down and stopped talking to us, or I mean,
Speaker 3: what's the point in us asking these same questions if
Speaker 3: we're just going to get the same answers. You know,
Speaker 3: there's the argument of well you still keep asking it
Speaker 3: because it's the answer you want to get. I understand that,
Speaker 3: but also the amount of access that you get to
Speaker 3: these players is so different than the amount of access
Speaker 3: that you get at other professional golf events, and you
Speaker 3: need and the one thing I learned is you need
Speaker 3: to use that time wisely for you to be able
Speaker 3: to do your job the right way, right, And that's
Speaker 3: I mean, that's something you have to learn along the way,
Speaker 3: and it's a decision that I made. There are other
Speaker 3: people that still try to ask those questions and they
Speaker 3: got they got zipped up pretty quickly. But for me,
Speaker 3: it was really just a matter of maximizing the time
Speaker 3: with players that we had because it is so few
Speaker 3: and far between.
Speaker 1: In what sense, was the access at live events less
Speaker 1: than the access that you might normally get at a
Speaker 1: PGA Tour or other major tour event.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Normally tour events press conferences start on Tuesday and Wednesday,
Speaker 3: and you'll get the guys up there for anywhere from
Speaker 3: fifteen to thirty minutes, and you get them solo, right,
Speaker 3: and you can basically ask whatever you want and the
Speaker 3: floor is open. At live events, I've never seen a
Speaker 3: one on one interview with a player ever. There's always
Speaker 3: two or three guys up there, even in the flash areas.
Speaker 3: After if there is a if it's a set media
Speaker 3: time and there's like a little pin where they For
Speaker 3: those who don't know what a flash area is, there's
Speaker 3: a little pin where they bring in and they got
Speaker 3: the microphones all set up, and it's outside of the
Speaker 3: main press area. But that's kind of like the free
Speaker 3: flowing area where you can pull guys in and ask them.
Speaker 3: At most tour events, you can request the you can
Speaker 3: request from the media reps to be hey, I want
Speaker 3: to talk to a player X, player a player B,
Speaker 3: and they'll bring them in for a few questions that
Speaker 3: assuming they didn't shoot like eight over that day and
Speaker 3: they weren't completely taking their round, you can get a
Speaker 3: little bit more of them. But with live they would
Speaker 3: bring in the people who who were scheduled, and a
Speaker 3: lot of that was the new guys or the you know,
Speaker 3: the the most the more famous players, and after that
Speaker 3: you could get a guy, but only if they said
Speaker 3: yes to speak with you.
Speaker 2: You know, I got.
Speaker 3: I talked to Paul Casey for a while after the
Speaker 3: Bedminster event because he was willing to talk. But I
Speaker 3: went up to Ian Polter and basically told, you know,
Speaker 3: was told to go play traffic, and he was like, no,
Speaker 3: I don't need to go I don't need to talk
Speaker 3: to you unless it's in a set media thing. So
Speaker 3: it's it's just so different in the amount of access
Speaker 3: you get and how open they are to speak with you.
Speaker 3: Very few athletes every want to speak to the media,
Speaker 3: but it's even more amped up with the with the
Speaker 3: live tour.
Speaker 1: So, Adam, when you think of Live in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: are there particular moments, whether on the course or off,
Speaker 1: that stand out for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of them were off the course, obviously,
Speaker 3: because that's where, like I said earlier, that's where a
Speaker 3: lot of the interest was. I mean insert press conference here.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many of those. I will I
Speaker 3: will never forget. We've already, you know, beat the Brooks
Speaker 3: one with to a dead horse already, but.
Speaker 2: A lot of them were those.
Speaker 3: The London one was just so awkward and uncomfortable, and
Speaker 3: I think that really set the tone for how it
Speaker 3: was going to go. One of them wasn't even a
Speaker 3: live event, but Sergio hit the Wells Fargo when he
Speaker 3: was saying I can't wait to leave this tour and
Speaker 3: basically tipping his hand. That was one of my favorite
Speaker 3: ms of the season because I was standing I was
Speaker 3: at that event, because he was in DC back where
Speaker 3: I used to live, and I was standing no more
Speaker 3: than ten twenty thirty yards away from him, and I
Speaker 3: heard it. Look around it he did? He just say that,
Speaker 3: like I looked around it.
Speaker 1: No, so that he was saying it loudly enough that
Speaker 1: you were able to hear it. It wasn't just the
Speaker 1: television cameras and microphones that were picking them up. He
Speaker 1: basically the situation was, without going to in depth on it,
Speaker 1: is that he wasn't getting a ruling that he wanted
Speaker 1: to get and because he was having trouble with the
Speaker 1: rules officials at this event, he decided that was the
Speaker 1: moment to declare, this is part of the reason why
Speaker 1: I'm leaving for Live. I'm fed up with not being
Speaker 1: protected as a player on this tour.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that the clock being started it on him searching
Speaker 3: for a lost ball and all that.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it it all blewm, you know, ballooned out and
Speaker 3: just kind of blew up there. But that was a
Speaker 3: big one that really showed you know, these you know,
Speaker 3: these guys were thinking about it. They were playing in
Speaker 3: PGA Tour events and they knew that they were going
Speaker 3: I couldn't imagine keeping that in or having all of
Speaker 3: that going on and still trying to go out and
Speaker 3: compete for for four whole days at a golf tournament.
Speaker 2: But that was a big one.
Speaker 3: I will say, you know, giving giving credit where credits
Speaker 3: do I've been. I'm obviously critical of some of the
Speaker 3: things that Lives done. I thoroughly enjoyed the Team Championship
Speaker 3: in Miami. I thought it was a unique format. It's
Speaker 3: kind of wonky with the different rules, with match playing,
Speaker 3: stroke play switching here and there. It was kind of
Speaker 3: tough to follow at times, even for us who who
Speaker 3: were there doing it all. But it was a really
Speaker 3: good crowd. They had a lot of really really good,
Speaker 3: you know, really knowledgeable golf fans out there, and the
Speaker 3: play delivered for for for most of the time. Obviously
Speaker 3: everybody knows the four aces and they went on to win,
Speaker 3: but uh, it was it was cool to see them
Speaker 3: kind of deliver.
Speaker 2: And and and show up when it mattered.
Speaker 3: And you know Pat Perez's press conference where he was like,
Speaker 3: I'm paid, I don't give a damn after the end,
Speaker 3: when everyone was kind of ripping in for not playing
Speaker 3: too well all the year. Those are the moments that
Speaker 3: stick out, and a lot of it was just it
Speaker 3: was just so divisive, and unfortunately those are the moments.
Speaker 2: That stick out.
Speaker 3: A couple of great golf shots here and there and
Speaker 3: some stuff that you saw, but unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 3: it was all of us focused around the negative conversation
Speaker 3: around Live and not so much the golf shots. But
Speaker 3: hoping that changes here this year.
Speaker 1: Well, based on just talking for a moment about the
Speaker 1: positives for Live from Live's perspective, what some of the
Speaker 1: positives out of the first season were, just generally speaking,
Speaker 1: not particular moments or events, but generally speaking, what do
Speaker 1: you think were Live's big successes from its perspective in
Speaker 1: its first season? What were the impressive things that kind
Speaker 1: of accomplished.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I one Live officially kind of explained it to
Speaker 3: me that, you know, early on, as they're building the
Speaker 3: plane while it's in flight and they didn't crash and burn,
Speaker 3: that's a success.
Speaker 2: The fact that they were able to hold eight.
Speaker 3: Events and do it and broadcast all of it with
Speaker 3: very few shortcomings as far as the production standpoint from
Speaker 3: a technical side, that's a success. The fact that they
Speaker 3: were able to do that. Nine months ago, we weren't
Speaker 3: sure if they were going to be able to fill
Speaker 3: a field with quality enough players, let alone host eight
Speaker 3: of those events, including a team championship that pretty much
Speaker 3: went off without a hitch. I thought that was a success.
Speaker 3: They signed a top five player in the world with
Speaker 3: Cam Smith. That's a massive success. Getting players, and not
Speaker 3: only players, but but characters I think was important. You
Speaker 3: get guys like Phil who can rile people up, and
Speaker 3: people have a lot of opinions on Bryson Brooks. All
Speaker 3: these guys were characters in the game. But getting DJ
Speaker 3: early on, I think was one of their big biggest successes.
Speaker 3: Looking back in life, as soon as a cool kid
Speaker 3: does something, other people are going to follow. That's what
Speaker 3: that's been true. Sent from elementary school all the way
Speaker 3: to adulthood, and it worked out would live the same way.
Speaker 3: DJ went showed that, all right, some of these guys
Speaker 3: are actually going to go they can actually get some talent,
Speaker 3: and others followed. I think that was a huge success
Speaker 3: for them as well. But those are the big ones.
Speaker 3: The fact that they were able to to keep the
Speaker 3: train moving, keep the plane in flight, and be able
Speaker 3: to show that Hey, we've got a product. Now it's
Speaker 3: just a matter of commercializing it and making some of
Speaker 3: the money back on the hundreds of millions, maybe even
Speaker 3: billions that they've spent on this project already.
Speaker 1: Now, what you cited just at the end there is
Speaker 1: potentially one of Liv's big shortcomings in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: just its inability to make anywhere near what it had
Speaker 1: invested in its product. What are some of the main
Speaker 1: other ways that you think Live fell short in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, and what are some of the things that
Speaker 1: they're probably working on for this year.
Speaker 3: The ones that jump out were obviously not getting a
Speaker 3: TV deal at first. In the owgr points every single
Speaker 3: player that we talked to, every official that we talked to,
Speaker 3: Phil included was the most the most vocal about it
Speaker 3: was where we believe we're.
Speaker 2: Going to get points.
Speaker 3: So I don't know where that disconnect came from. If
Speaker 3: they all just believed Greg when he said, Hey, you
Speaker 3: guys are going to get points. We're going to get
Speaker 3: this figured out, We've got plans, or or whether they
Speaker 3: all just believe that there's no way that we're not
Speaker 3: going to be able to get points.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Where that disconnect came from. But it seemed like they
Speaker 3: were all very dead set that they were going to
Speaker 3: get official World Golf ranking points that still hasn't happened.
Speaker 3: TV deal didn't happen, which I still think having a
Speaker 3: free broadcast on YouTube was probably one of the best
Speaker 3: things that they could have done because so many of
Speaker 3: the younger audience are trying to get to our cord cutting.
Speaker 2: YouTube's free.
Speaker 3: Everyone's got it on their phone, everyone's got it on
Speaker 3: their tablet, It's loaded into most televisions as well. It
Speaker 3: was easy to find and it was easy to get to.
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure they're going to be able to
Speaker 3: be able to do that with the CW this year,
Speaker 3: but that's more to talk on that later. But the
Speaker 3: biggest issue that I had and the biggest shortcoming was
Speaker 3: the broadcast itself. It was just awful. If anybody watched it.
Speaker 3: The encourse reporting, I don't want to rip on the
Speaker 3: people too much, but Sue Anne didn't know people's names,
Speaker 3: she stuttered, the questions weren't very insightful. It all seemed
Speaker 3: very just very surface value. Jerry Foltz just completely punting
Speaker 3: and just laying down and opening up but.
Speaker 2: All live is great? Live?
Speaker 3: Is this live? Is that? That was unfortunate to see
Speaker 3: because I really liked a lot of his coverage that
Speaker 3: he used to do on the Golf Channel. And then
Speaker 3: I mean, Arlow White just should have States Colin soccer
Speaker 3: because you can't fake golf knowledge, and man, he was
Speaker 3: so good at Collin soccer. I used to love listening
Speaker 3: to him called the Premier League in the mornings on
Speaker 3: Saturdays and Sundays for NBC. You just can't fake soccer
Speaker 3: or or you can't fake golf knowledge, and that was
Speaker 3: readily apparent throughout. I'm hoping that they learned something from
Speaker 3: year one and they'll they'll they'll pick it up in
Speaker 3: year two. But just a lot of the time the
Speaker 3: broadcast was very tough to watch and very even more
Speaker 3: tough to listen to.
Speaker 1: Now, something that I thought that they didn't really succeed
Speaker 1: in in twenty twenty two was escaping from the story
Speaker 1: about the league's connection to Saudi Arabia. Yeah, because that
Speaker 1: remained a big story, as I believe it should have
Speaker 1: all season long, and as I believe it should this year,
Speaker 1: because that's part of the reality of this organization. But
Speaker 1: do you think that Live felt that it could escape
Speaker 1: that story more quickly than it has or do you
Speaker 1: think they're not that naive?
Speaker 2: I don't think they're that. I think that's it. They're
Speaker 2: not that naive. What are you supposed to do?
Speaker 3: You know, right, what should they have done to not
Speaker 3: do that? Other than the fact that they had their
Speaker 3: Live to give where they're giving away tons of money
Speaker 3: to charity, which is great. That's there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. The tour does the same thing. Live does
Speaker 3: the same thing. It's great that they're giving back to
Speaker 3: the communities and the areas which they're hosting tournaments. That's
Speaker 3: that's all well and good. Fully supportive of that as
Speaker 3: they should. There's no hiding from where the money's coming from.
Speaker 3: And until they can get there this team franchise model
Speaker 3: that that that they want to do, they've gone all
Speaker 3: in on the team aspect. I don't think they're going
Speaker 3: to be able to get away from from the public
Speaker 3: Investment Fund and all of that until they can truly
Speaker 3: prove that there are other ways to bring in money
Speaker 3: aside from the public Investment Fund. There's there's no hiding
Speaker 3: from that. There's no getting around that, and I don't
Speaker 3: think people are going to let that, let that get
Speaker 3: washed away under the rug, or get swept under the rug.
Speaker 3: That's the definition of sportswa washing, right, But I don't
Speaker 3: think that they're gonna I don't think the media or
Speaker 3: others will let that happen. It's too big of a
Speaker 3: talking point, it's too big of a divisive issue.
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Speaker 1: I think the conversation about Live in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: starts with what happened at Live Miami and part of
Speaker 1: the show there, aside from the team championship, this was
Speaker 1: in late October, end of October. Part of the show
Speaker 1: there was Live executives presenting to the media and presumably
Speaker 1: to some other people what their plans were for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. What do you recall of that presentation and
Speaker 1: of some of the discourse about what Live was saying
Speaker 1: it was going to try to do in the off
Speaker 1: season and then this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there was a I was lucky enough to
Speaker 3: be a part of a select group of nine, ten
Speaker 3: eleven maybe people to sit down with a few Live
Speaker 3: officials and have them lay out what their plan is
Speaker 3: from a business standpoint, and how they see themselves becoming
Speaker 3: profitable in the future. It's funny enough looking back at that.
Speaker 3: I've actually been thinking about this a lot over the
Speaker 3: last few months. The three main people who were involved
Speaker 3: in that discussion, two of them are gone. Now only
Speaker 3: one of them still there. The COO tool Cultural, he's gone.
Speaker 3: Their chief media officer, Jonathan Grella, he was there, kind
Speaker 3: of set a lot of it up. He's now gone.
Speaker 3: The only guy who's who still left is and I'm
Speaker 3: blanket on the guy's name, and I was trying to
Speaker 3: think of it earlier, but he's from Performance fifty four,
Speaker 3: the consulting and marketing firm that's kind of been behind
Speaker 3: Live this entire way. He's the only guy left right,
Speaker 3: And it's just funny looking back at that to see
Speaker 3: all of these guys were talking about the future and
Speaker 3: three months later, two of them aren't even there. But
Speaker 3: like I said earlier, they are going all in on
Speaker 3: this team aspect. They think that this is how they
Speaker 3: can deliver. They think this is how they can commercialize
Speaker 3: their product, and it basically they look at the NBA,
Speaker 3: the NFL, MLB, a lot of other professional sports in
Speaker 3: America and that franchise model of that being a way
Speaker 3: for them to be profitable. They can bring in team sponsors,
Speaker 3: they can have equity in teams. The way it's going
Speaker 3: to work is Live is going to hold seventy five
Speaker 3: percent of the equity and the players themselves will get
Speaker 3: twenty five. How they split that up, that's that's for
Speaker 3: them and the team captains to do and whoever's going
Speaker 3: to be the principles or owners of these teams to
Speaker 3: figure out on their own. But starting this year, the
Speaker 3: teams are going to be responsible for paying for a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of the players. It's not going
Speaker 3: to be on Live as much anymore. It's going to
Speaker 3: be on the individual teams. And I think that's going
Speaker 3: to cut into a lot of early profits. And I'm
Speaker 3: just not sure how these teams are going to get sold.
Speaker 3: Who's going to show interest? Then, you know, the way
Speaker 3: they kind of broke it down was with you know,
Speaker 3: if a team is worth you know, one hundred million dollars,
Speaker 3: this is how it breaks out. I don't know where
Speaker 3: they're going to be getting those kind of valuations for
Speaker 3: any of this. I don't see how any of these
Speaker 3: teams are going to be worth even a tenth of that,
Speaker 3: let alone that much. But it's all based on the
Speaker 3: team and the team's making money and through sponsorships and whatever.
Speaker 3: They went on the course, but that's a lot of
Speaker 3: what it came down to was we believe in the
Speaker 3: team aspect and here's why. Now it's just a matter
Speaker 3: of seeing whether or not they can actually sell these
Speaker 3: teams and whether they can actually make a profit off
Speaker 3: of this format.
Speaker 1: So they're going all in on the range Goats as
Speaker 1: a franchise. That's that's the future that they're sort of envisioning,
Speaker 1: is that somebody is going to pay big to be
Speaker 1: the sponsor of the range Ghoasts, range Goats or the
Speaker 1: four Aces or whatever other team. That's not going to
Speaker 1: be so much about these centralized sort of movements of
Speaker 1: Live as an organization. The teams are kind of going
Speaker 1: to be the emphasis, as they are in organizations like
Speaker 1: the NFL and the NBA. Is that sort of the
Speaker 1: general idea that they were pushing.
Speaker 2: No doubt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they think that you know, the you know Live
Speaker 3: and you know, the public Investment Fund will fall into
Speaker 3: the background and the focus will be on the Aces
Speaker 3: it'll be on you know, Ripper, it'll be on the
Speaker 3: range goes, it'll be on those teams and those players,
Speaker 3: and they firmly believe that they've got the product to
Speaker 3: do it. And that's what a lot of this came
Speaker 3: down to. Year one wasn't about being profitable. Year one
Speaker 3: was about proving that they've got a product. They did that,
Speaker 3: whether you like it or not, they prove they've got
Speaker 3: a product and that they can sell. How much they
Speaker 3: sell it for and how much they can actually commercialize
Speaker 3: that product. That's for years two, three, four, five, and
Speaker 3: whatever we see down the line here.
Speaker 2: But that's that's what I.
Speaker 3: Think a lot of the the misunderstanding with Live is
Speaker 3: all these guys didn't make any money in year one.
Speaker 3: They weren't trying to. This was their investment to shake
Speaker 3: it up, to disrupt professional golf, and now prove that
Speaker 3: they've they can hold out a share of the market
Speaker 3: and maybe even take over a few years, depending on
Speaker 3: how it all plays out with the court cases and
Speaker 3: what players go and how much valuation they can actually
Speaker 3: get out of these teams and franchises.
Speaker 1: But then, and you talked about this earlier, some of
Speaker 1: these executives who were presenting this idea to the media
Speaker 1: in late October, by the beginning of this year, by
Speaker 1: mid December, in fact, in a tool COSLA's case, who
Speaker 1: is Live's chief operating officer. And you know, if you
Speaker 1: talk to anybody who was in the know about Live,
Speaker 1: this guy was a really important person in this organization
Speaker 1: and to a great extent the brains behind the franchise
Speaker 1: model that Live was going for a tool Coastla. By
Speaker 1: mid December no longer with the organization. That news came out.
Speaker 1: That was six weeks after Live Miami, this team championship,
Speaker 1: and so it happened fairly quickly. You know, other executives
Speaker 1: have left the organization as well. Jonathan Grelling, you mentioned
Speaker 1: Maja Delser, who is it was obviously a very important
Speaker 1: person in the Public Investment Fund and a liaison with
Speaker 1: Live and a big connector in that relationship. He is
Speaker 1: stepping back. He's still on a board of some kind,
Speaker 1: but not that you know, I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means either, but not day to day involved
Speaker 1: in Live. There's been a big shake up at the
Speaker 1: executive level in this organization. And so what do you
Speaker 1: think that means, how do you interpret what happened during
Speaker 1: the off season within the leadership.
Speaker 3: At Live From the outside looking in, it looks like
Speaker 3: there's chaos in the c suite, right Like, it looks
Speaker 3: like there is just there. People are leaving. People are,
Speaker 3: you know, whether it's on their own free will or
Speaker 3: whether they're getting kind of pushed out or kicked out.
Speaker 3: That's it depends on who you talk to for for
Speaker 3: what kind of answer you get with that. But directly,
Speaker 3: I don't think it's gonna have that much of an
Speaker 3: impact because the more and more that I think about
Speaker 3: and I see it, I'm starting to think that the
Speaker 3: performance fifty four folks have been running the show the
Speaker 3: entire time, and they were, like, I know a lot
Speaker 3: of the Fried Egg listeners are big in sync fans,
Speaker 3: so they'll get this reference that Bye Bye Bye music video.
Speaker 3: Right They're getting all puppeted and marionetted and geppetoed around.
Speaker 3: They brought in these industry execs to kind of puppet
Speaker 3: them around, use their expertise, and then as soon as
Speaker 3: they don't need them anymore, they know what to do,
Speaker 3: kick them out, start fresh, clean house, and trim the fat.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what they did. They brought the
Speaker 3: guys in, used them for, use them for their knowledge,
Speaker 3: showed and learned how to get get a golf league
Speaker 3: off the ground. Now that they know how to run it,
Speaker 3: they they they're they're trim in the fat and going
Speaker 3: with the most efficient way possible and a lot of
Speaker 3: that is going to cost cost people their jobs. But
Speaker 3: you know, you know, a tool was very big with
Speaker 3: like you said, the cheap operating officer running the day
Speaker 3: to day and how everything goes. Jonathan Grell, A lot
Speaker 3: of people would say that he was used for his
Speaker 3: DC connections with the anti trust lawsuits and how to
Speaker 3: and how to connect with people on the hill. Now
Speaker 3: that a lot of that has gone south with with
Speaker 3: Greg Norman's visit a couple of months ago, you know,
Speaker 3: did not go well. Yeah, so it's granted, that's that's
Speaker 3: you know, connecting a lot of a lot of whys
Speaker 3: and a lot of strings and stuff. But I genuinely
Speaker 3: believe that I think the performance fifty four folks have
Speaker 3: been the one that have been doing it, and now
Speaker 3: that they know what to do, they can cut out
Speaker 3: a lot of the people who might not be as
Speaker 3: integral to seasons two, three, four, and five as they
Speaker 3: were to season one.
Speaker 1: Okay, so then what is Performance fifty four. Some people
Speaker 1: might not even be familiar with this agency, but tell
Speaker 1: me about what Performance fifty four is and what their
Speaker 1: involvement in Live is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they've kind of been there from the start.
Speaker 3: They kind of had they kind of took the idea
Speaker 3: of fifty four hole shotgun starts, the team aspect of it,
Speaker 3: and ran with it. Whether you think that the Premier
Speaker 3: Golf League had the idea first or they had the
Speaker 3: idea first, that's for them to figure out. But they
Speaker 3: have been with Live the entire time. They have been
Speaker 3: there from the start. They're basically a pr and marketing
Speaker 3: agency for golf and sports, and they've had this idea
Speaker 3: and they've been the ones that have been pushing it through.
Speaker 3: They've been the ones that have been operating behind the
Speaker 3: scenes to do a lot of this, where you know,
Speaker 3: the Public Investment Fund has been the money behind it.
Speaker 3: They've been the the kind of brains of the operation
Speaker 3: and working it all from there. How directly involved, they
Speaker 3: are not sure, very very tough to get any sort
Speaker 3: of any sort of ruling on that, but they've been
Speaker 3: the ones that have kind of been pushing this and
Speaker 3: shepherding this along the entire way.
Speaker 1: And they represent some other personalities in the golf space, right.
Speaker 1: I don't want to name anybody who's not associated with
Speaker 1: Performance fifty four, so I don't want to rely completely
Speaker 1: on my memory here, but I'm pretty sure, almost one
Speaker 1: hundred percent certain that Rick Shields, the YouTube personality is
Speaker 1: represented at least in part by Performance fifty four. So
Speaker 1: this is sort of another aspect of what the agency
Speaker 1: is doing. It's it's behind a lot of lives moves,
Speaker 1: but it also represents.
Speaker 3: Very golf entertainment in general. Yes, it's golf entertainment in general.
Speaker 3: It's marketing and consulting for golf entertainers, influencers, whatever you
Speaker 3: want to call it. It's They're a pr and marketing
Speaker 3: firm and a consulting firm that works, that works in
Speaker 3: the golf entertainment space. And obviously Live is the new
Speaker 3: you know, big prize for them in their new big project.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if Rick Shields is not involved
Speaker 1: with Performance fifty four, I will insert a note here
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm a real journalist, Adam, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know that about me, but you know,
Speaker 1: deep down inside, I may not act like a real journalist.
Speaker 1: I may not do work that looks like journalism, but
Speaker 1: but I am deep down inside, So I don't agree
Speaker 1: with that. I'll put in the correct You're completely right.
Speaker 1: My tenure at Live Portland showed how little of a
Speaker 1: journalist I am. But in any case, so we've got
Speaker 1: this movement within the leadership at Live. But I think
Speaker 1: you're making a really interesting point, one that I hadn't
Speaker 1: considered before, that there's a constant there with performance fifty
Speaker 1: four and that you know this is not necessarily the
Speaker 1: disintegration of an organization that we're seeing.
Speaker 2: Restructuring it is.
Speaker 1: It's a restructuring. Yeah, but you know people often use
Speaker 1: that term when an organization is disintegrating. So yeah, take that.
Speaker 3: How you will it, It depends on how you want to
Speaker 3: look at It depends on new words or words, right,
Speaker 3: just spends so much ones that you want to use.
Speaker 1: All right, So another factor this off season, A big
Speaker 1: thing that people were talking about in November December was
Speaker 1: who is Live going to sign? Who are the new
Speaker 1: Live players going to be? And the off season went by,
Speaker 1: you know, Live is going to start season two coming
Speaker 1: up here in late February, and there have been two
Speaker 1: significant signings that I've seen at least and you can
Speaker 1: correct this or add to this, But Mito Pereira, it's
Speaker 1: been reported that he is going to be with Live
Speaker 1: from the beginning of the season, though reporting around his
Speaker 1: exit from the PGA Tour has been really touch and go,
Speaker 1: Like you know, he's been there, there have been reports
Speaker 1: that he's going, and then he hasn't and he's stuck
Speaker 1: around for the President's Cup. But it seems like there
Speaker 1: are reliable there's reliable journalism out there that he is
Speaker 1: going to Live in this new season. And then Sebastian Munos,
Speaker 1: who is a PGA Tour winner Mito Pereira by the way,
Speaker 1: if people don't recognize that name, he almost won the
Speaker 1: PGA Championship last year. That's going to be a scene
Speaker 1: in the Netflix documentary that's coming up and we're talking
Speaker 1: about on this podcast later in this week. But young,
Speaker 1: very talented player, friends with Joaquin Nieman. He's got someboddies
Speaker 1: on Live. Uh and then and then Bassie Munio's Those
Speaker 1: are the two signings that I saw. This is probably
Speaker 1: not what Live was hoping for.
Speaker 3: No, and it's fair to point the criticism their way too,
Speaker 3: because we were told at that meeting that we talked
Speaker 3: about earlier that the schedule will be out by the
Speaker 3: end of the year, rosters will be set by the
Speaker 3: end of the year. We're two weeks away, a week
Speaker 3: and a half away from the first event. We don't
Speaker 3: know who's on what team. We know the team names,
Speaker 3: and we know the captains. That's it.
Speaker 2: That's now.
Speaker 3: That was a massive loss for Live. I think this
Speaker 3: offseason and the one thing that they did really well
Speaker 3: last year that slow drip, that leaking faucet of news.
Speaker 3: They stayed in the conversation. Not always for the best
Speaker 3: of reasons, but they stayed in the conversation. They have
Speaker 3: been dead quiet for the last three months up until
Speaker 3: that release last week with the team names and all
Speaker 3: of that, and that was something.
Speaker 2: But it's.
Speaker 3: The fact that they've only gotten those two players. Maybe
Speaker 3: then that's all still off of other reporting. I haven't
Speaker 3: been able to confirm any of that. Agents are keeping
Speaker 3: it quiet, Lives keeping it even quieter for their big release.
Speaker 3: You would think that they had plans of getting more
Speaker 3: big names. Now maybe that's why it's taken this long
Speaker 3: to get the rosters out there. Maybe they're still haggling
Speaker 3: with a few guys over contracts and numbers. Maybe there
Speaker 3: were some players who wanted to play in these designated
Speaker 3: events and really give it a look to see how
Speaker 3: different the tour is. I think that could be a
Speaker 3: reason why this is all delayed. Obviously, like you said,
Speaker 3: it was speculation. But the names they've had circled John
Speaker 3: Rom Patrick Can't Ley Xanderschoff, like Cameron Young, those are
Speaker 3: all guys who were in the conversation beforehand that haven't gone.
Speaker 3: Almost all of them to a tee have come out
Speaker 3: and explained why they haven't gone. Even Cam Young, he's
Speaker 3: been the most open about his interest in Live last
Speaker 3: year and how and why he did consider and what
Speaker 3: he was looking into.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Granted, whether they get those guys or not, no direct
Speaker 3: sources don't know, not reporting anything true. Who's to say
Speaker 3: for who's actually gonna end up going. But you got
Speaker 3: to think it's been a big loss for them to
Speaker 3: not get any of those big names like the DJs,
Speaker 3: the Brooks, Koepkaz, the Bryson's, the Cam Smith's. At the
Speaker 3: end of last year that said, I if Mido in
Speaker 3: basket Munos go, those are two pretty solid players to
Speaker 3: bring in for what they're trying to do. They've got
Speaker 3: young players and they're They've got a real strong contingent
Speaker 3: of Latin American players and Spanish speaking players over there.
Speaker 3: That shows that they're a global tour and I think
Speaker 3: that's only going to serve them well as they try
Speaker 3: and grow throughout other countries. But man, as far as
Speaker 3: it goes to say signing players in the offseason, we
Speaker 3: were told there's going to be this sort of like
Speaker 3: similar to soccer and you know European European soccer, that
Speaker 3: transfer window of this three months four months in between tournaments.
Speaker 3: Players are going to be moving. There's gonna be trades.
Speaker 3: We're gonna see that. I saw one report of that
Speaker 3: early on. It was what two days after the event,
Speaker 3: DJ got rid of h who was it, Taylor Gooch
Speaker 3: and brought in I'm blanking on the I was at
Speaker 3: us at Hudson's offer. No, Peter you line brought in
Speaker 3: Peter U Line and got rid of Taylor. You can't
Speaker 3: think of it. So much stuff happens, you can't you
Speaker 3: can't keep up with all the player.
Speaker 1: Movement BA trade by the way, I mean, come on this, yeah,
Speaker 1: from a peer golf skill standpoint, no, no shade on
Speaker 1: Peter you line, he's much better golf than I am.
Speaker 3: But Taylor Gooses finished third in the money for Live
Speaker 3: last year, so he got something cooking with these fifty
Speaker 3: four hole starts and no cuts. But it's we thought
Speaker 3: that we would see that for weeks on end and
Speaker 3: we got absolutely none of it. I think that's going
Speaker 3: to be a massive loss for Live. They definitely left
Speaker 3: the conversation and they're going to try and push their
Speaker 3: way into it now and build it up for these
Speaker 3: last week and a half before their first event. But
Speaker 3: I think it was a massive loss not to get
Speaker 3: more people and not to stay in the conversation these
Speaker 3: last few months.
Speaker 1: A big way that Lives stayed in the conversation last
Speaker 1: year was by signing new players on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: and these rumors going around also that that even if
Speaker 1: they didn't sign new players, just having the rumor out
Speaker 1: there that you know, Brooks Koepka was gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: was going to sign after the first event like that
Speaker 1: was a big discussion point in the golf world. One
Speaker 1: remarkable thing in December and January was how little people
Speaker 1: were talking about Live and its players, how out of
Speaker 1: the spotlight so many of these players were. And that's
Speaker 1: got to start to be meaningful to some of the
Speaker 1: players who play for this league, right that. If Live
Speaker 1: isn't able to find ways to stay in the news cycle,
Speaker 1: then some of these players are going to probably suffer
Speaker 1: for that and become less valuable to sponsors, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's something that players are thinking about
Speaker 1: right now, that I'm just not going to be in
Speaker 1: the public eye very much, if this organization isn't able
Speaker 1: to stay in the new cycle.
Speaker 3: I think the quick and easier response to that is wellout,
Speaker 3: that's what the money's for, right and that reasoning, that
Speaker 3: reason covers a lot of a lot of the stuff
Speaker 3: that happens with Live, you know, But that's what that's
Speaker 3: why you get paid all this guaranteed money. Because you're
Speaker 3: probably going to lose sponsorship deals. You're not going to
Speaker 3: get all the opportunities that you got to be in
Speaker 3: the limelight like you would with the tour, at least
Speaker 3: you won't. You won't get as many opportunities to be
Speaker 3: in the in the in a national international spotlight like that.
Speaker 3: But I think that's what it comes down to, that's
Speaker 3: why you took It's it's a calculated risk to do it.
Speaker 3: I'm sure a lot of these guys thought they could
Speaker 3: you know, dip their dip their foot in both in
Speaker 3: both pools. It's not gonna work like that, or at
Speaker 3: least not until this court case gets solved here in
Speaker 3: the next year. But I that's I mean, that's that's
Speaker 3: what those guaranteed contracts are for, right. I think that's
Speaker 3: the only thing that it comes down to. I'm sure
Speaker 3: it's going to be an ego check for a lot
Speaker 3: of these guys. But if you look at them, a
Speaker 3: lot of the guys were on the you know, the
Speaker 3: back end of the you know, the back nine of
Speaker 3: their careers. To use a bad golf punt as it is, right,
Speaker 3: it's very few guys are still in their peak marketability, right.
Speaker 3: So I think that's what that's going to be a
Speaker 3: deciding factor that a lot of guys are going to
Speaker 3: have to to make if they're going to join here
Speaker 3: in the future. These these young amateur players who they're
Speaker 3: going to try and grab like they got you. Heniyoshikara
Speaker 3: last year he he waded out to the fact that look,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to get starts, but I can get
Speaker 3: this guaranteed money up front to get my career off
Speaker 3: and running.
Speaker 2: That's that.
Speaker 3: That's it's it's a calculated risk and whether you think
Speaker 3: it's gonna work out or not hasn't worked out in
Speaker 3: the short term, but maybe it will in the law
Speaker 3: long term. That's just something we're gonna have to wait
Speaker 3: and see how it plays out with the court cases. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: So those court cases. What's the state of play with
Speaker 3: the lawsuits between Live and the PGA tour right now?
Speaker 3: What's going on with those? I mean, it seems like
Speaker 3: things aren't going to get resolved very soon. Yeah, But
Speaker 3: has there been any movement on that front lately?
Speaker 2: Very little?
Speaker 3: There was some there's some news came out with some
Speaker 3: new filings last week. There was a joint motion that
Speaker 3: was filed. Basically, long story short, and not to get
Speaker 3: too deep in the deep in the weeds here, but
Speaker 3: I've been reading so many court cases.
Speaker 1: Man, are you an anti trust expert at this point?
Speaker 1: Is that I was?
Speaker 3: I was pre law for six months, but I think
Speaker 3: I'm I'm a novice now, but yeah, no, it was.
Speaker 2: The motion went through.
Speaker 3: Basically, what the tour wants to do is extend the
Speaker 3: extend the deadlines for not only the trial case, which
Speaker 3: is going to be in twenty twenty four, but also
Speaker 3: for the discovery period which is going to be wrapping
Speaker 3: up here over the next month. I don't know the
Speaker 3: exact dates off the top of my head, so I
Speaker 3: don't want to don't want to bes for all the
Speaker 3: wonderful listeners, But basically, the tour is arguing that we
Speaker 3: aren't getting any sort of response or we're not getting
Speaker 3: any sort of cooperation from the folks that live, from
Speaker 3: the folks at the Public Investment Fund, we need to
Speaker 3: extend the discovery date. And here's why Live is arguing
Speaker 3: that it's going to impact our guys even more if
Speaker 3: you keep pushing this off because they don't have access
Speaker 3: to your event, he said. He said, between both sides
Speaker 3: for arguing whether or not this should get pushed or not,
Speaker 3: there's going to be some sort of hearing over the
Speaker 3: next week that the judge is going to listen to
Speaker 3: to decide on that. But basically that's what it's going
Speaker 3: to come down to is just waiting to see whether
Speaker 3: or not we're going to be able to get a
Speaker 3: ruling on this, and I think that one judge's opinion
Speaker 3: is going to have a lot to do with Live's future,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately that's something we're not going to get here
Speaker 3: until at least twenty twenty four, if not even further.
Speaker 1: On the battle right now with these motions that you're
Speaker 1: talking about, like at this particular moment is about discovery,
Speaker 1: right is the basic story that Live is kind of
Speaker 1: resistant to participate in discovery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tour wants in their early parts of discovery,
Speaker 3: they seem to think that, you know, magital Sore and
Speaker 3: the Public Investment Fund are more involved with Live on
Speaker 3: the day to day than Live would like you to
Speaker 3: let on. As soon as they found that out, they
Speaker 3: tried to get the Public Investment Fund to be to
Speaker 3: be more a part of it. They tried to get
Speaker 3: access to a lot of their files and records, and
Speaker 3: Live and the Public Investment Fund have been you know,
Speaker 3: the lawyers have said, we don't want to do that,
Speaker 3: we don't think we need to do that, And it's
Speaker 3: going to come down to what the judge says. So
Speaker 3: it's like you said, it all comes down to discovery.
Speaker 3: What can we figure out and how quickly can we
Speaker 3: figure it out. It's going to come down to the
Speaker 3: judge whether or not they think that LIVE is actually
Speaker 3: gonna going to have to put more of the Public
Speaker 3: Investment Fund out there, or whether they can they can
Speaker 3: hide behind the I forget what was the sovereign something.
Speaker 3: I'm blanking on the official term itself. That's so many
Speaker 3: big words that get thrown around. You know, I'm just
Speaker 3: I'm just the golf reporter, man. I shouldn't be having
Speaker 3: to read all these court cases. I was told there
Speaker 3: be no math, and I was told there be no law,
Speaker 3: and I'm getting a lot.
Speaker 1: Of those these days in relations Yeah exactly. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: Maginal sort you know, it's coming into focus why he
Speaker 1: might be stepping back from his day to day role
Speaker 1: with Live. He is clearly in the crosshairs for the
Speaker 1: PGA Tours lawyers. Part of their play right now is
Speaker 1: to really try to expose as much as possible about
Speaker 1: the inner workings of the Public Investment Fund and of
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia's involvement in LIVE. And that's something It's pretty
Speaker 1: clear that that's something that that Live doesn't want, that,
Speaker 1: the Public Investment Fund doesn't want, that magital Sora doesn't want.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's what's interesting about this stage of
Speaker 1: the of the court battle between Live and the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour because the bigger questions about who's gonna win aren't
Speaker 1: going to be resolved for for years now.
Speaker 3: I think I think some of you said in their
Speaker 3: interest there you said there was interesting with the fact
Speaker 3: that you know, this might be why logital Sore is
Speaker 3: taking a step back from his from his role and
Speaker 3: being more on the board. There's one thing I've learned
Speaker 3: in this last year covering Live is where there's smoke,
Speaker 3: there's fire. It might not be exactly true, but there
Speaker 3: is going to be if if stuff is getting out
Speaker 3: like this, and very few things happen with Live that
Speaker 3: are coincidental, there's there's there's a there's a method to
Speaker 3: the madness, whether it's a good one or a bad one.
Speaker 3: There's a reason for the things that they're doing, and
Speaker 3: a lot of that ends up getting played out. But
Speaker 3: I would assume you're you're onto something there with with
Speaker 3: with why imagine it might be taking a bit of
Speaker 3: a step back with his at least his public involvement
Speaker 3: with with what's going on with Live.
Speaker 1: So you're saying all of my conspiracy theories are true.
Speaker 3: I'm glad, baby. I'm here for it. I'm here for
Speaker 3: all of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm pointing at all the papers on the wall,
Speaker 1: and it's all it's all fitting together.
Speaker 2: There's there's the beautiful every side point.
Speaker 1: All right. So last week Live sort of did like
Speaker 1: this kind of brand relaunch. They had revised team logos,
Speaker 1: some of the team names were different. They did this
Speaker 1: during super Bowl week, did this during.
Speaker 2: Bold Strategy.
Speaker 1: I mean, if anything that Live does can get buried,
Speaker 1: this was the week for it to be buried. But
Speaker 1: they've got their first event coming up of the year,
Speaker 1: and and maybe there wasn't really another good time to
Speaker 1: do it. But in any case, this was a push
Speaker 1: to put out there this team concept and to prioritize
Speaker 1: that in people's minds there's a team called the range Goats. Now,
Speaker 1: I guess the important question is are you pro range Goats?
Speaker 1: Do you think that this is a good rebranding, Do
Speaker 1: you like the logo or do you not?
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was if it was your
Speaker 3: boy Will who pointed out what the Range what the
Speaker 3: Range Goats logo might look like. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 3: leave that one for people to go look at his
Speaker 3: Twitter account because I'm not sure I want to be
Speaker 3: talking about that public forum.
Speaker 2: But look, it's funny to laugh at, right.
Speaker 3: You hear the name and it makes you laugh, right,
Speaker 3: But I kind of look at it in the same
Speaker 3: sense of how many bad minor league baseball names out there,
Speaker 3: and those get completely those get completely just welcomed in,
Speaker 3: like all the Myrtle Beach Pelicans and all this stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm from Akron, Ohio. Shout out the northeast
Speaker 3: Ohio three three zero people, all my people back in Ohio.
Speaker 3: They used to be the Akron the Akron Arrows. Now
Speaker 3: they're the Akron rubber Ducks. And they renamed the the
Speaker 3: ballpark the tub like stuff like that is it's quirky,
Speaker 3: it's weird, it's funny. That's what I kind of see
Speaker 3: the Range Goats. As Bubba tried to give his explanation
Speaker 3: for it and really break it down, I thought that
Speaker 3: was kind of kind of laughable. You know, the Range
Speaker 3: golfers on a team GC. That's it's weird, it's it's different.
Speaker 3: I'll say it's a hell of a lot better than
Speaker 3: the cliques and the niblicks. Still, I will say that
Speaker 3: absolutely lean into stuff like this, like don't it's funny
Speaker 3: to laugh at? Sure, but in ripper sounds awesome with
Speaker 3: an Aussie accent too, by the way, I'm all in
Speaker 3: that one as well. Yeah, or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm to be clear, I'm pro range. Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly what they should be going for.
Speaker 1: If they want to attract interest in the team concept,
Speaker 1: they should lean into the silliness of it. And leaning
Speaker 1: into silliness is not something that golf has traditionally done
Speaker 1: very well, and you can see some resistance to that
Speaker 1: even with Live. Even as Live is trying to move
Speaker 1: in some of these directions with the entertainment aspect of
Speaker 1: the game, you know, nobody has really done something so
Speaker 1: far that's kind of out there, like Bubba doing the
Speaker 1: range goats and posting videos of himself making goats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like this is exactly what they what they
Speaker 1: should be doing if they want to be on people's minds.
Speaker 1: Because nobody's talking about Martin Kaimer's cliques. That's just kind
Speaker 1: of a depressing, lazy name. It's the least you could
Speaker 1: possibly do. Yeah, I sort of wonder if if if
Speaker 1: Performance fifty four now that they're you know, really stepping
Speaker 1: into more power in this organization, if that's how they're
Speaker 1: kind of going to try to push the tone of
Speaker 1: the Live Golf League to kind of go for for
Speaker 1: some of this minor league baseball. You know, hey, look
Speaker 1: at us, let's come have fun. If that's going to
Speaker 1: be the vibe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a line between silly and stupid,
Speaker 3: and I think the range Goats are on the silly side, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's weird, it's different, but that's what Live should be embracing.
Speaker 3: That's what they should be doing. I mean, if you
Speaker 3: go to their events, in their it's I It's what
Speaker 3: I wrote about in Portland the first time I saw it.
Speaker 3: It's like it's a festival with the side off with
Speaker 3: like that just happens to be going on. And you're
Speaker 3: a golf tournament. You go through the fan village, you
Speaker 3: have people on unicycles juggling. They're even riding around on
Speaker 3: the course. People in unicycles. You know why why it's
Speaker 3: going on. It's just so crazy and different that I
Speaker 3: think that instead of trying to have things like the
Speaker 3: cliques and the nibbles, which are like, yeah, veiled references
Speaker 3: the golf that a lot of people probably don't even
Speaker 3: understand or know, or the casual fan might not understand
Speaker 3: and know, something big and bold like that is interesting,
Speaker 3: like the old Fireballs logo that was awesome. The new
Speaker 3: one stinks like go back to the.
Speaker 1: Old one, Like the old one is more cartoonish, right exactly.
Speaker 3: Fun yeahay, guys, and it's fun. It's different, it's new,
Speaker 3: Like that's what Live should be leaning into. If they
Speaker 3: want this audience. They want to be additive or they
Speaker 3: say they want to be additive to what's going on
Speaker 3: in golf, and but it's it seems like some in
Speaker 3: some ways they support that and in other ways and
Speaker 3: other things that they do, and with their schedule they
Speaker 3: just completely kick it off to the side, and it's
Speaker 3: like they're not even trying.
Speaker 1: In times, you know, the schedule does sort of feel
Speaker 1: like that. The twenty twenty three Live schedule, which was
Speaker 1: released toward the end of January, it was promised toward
Speaker 1: the end of December, came out about a month later.
Speaker 1: What did you make of the new schedule if anything,
Speaker 1: Are there any takes to be had about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3: I think there's two things that off the bat that
Speaker 3: I don't like, and that's starting the season and ending
Speaker 3: the season outside of the US. Now this is all
Speaker 3: looking at this is looking at it from a standpoint
Speaker 3: of assuming that there is a legitimate, like I said,
Speaker 3: grow the game, cover Yer's purposes to do this and
Speaker 3: it's not just sportswa washing they Like I said earlier,
Speaker 3: the event in Miami was incredibly well attended. It was
Speaker 3: that the golf fans were there. They showed out, and
Speaker 3: it was they were knowledgeable, they were clapping, they followed
Speaker 3: the big names. They showed out. They really did, and
Speaker 3: it was interesting. It was an intriguing format. They're not
Speaker 3: going to have that kind of turnout. They're not going
Speaker 3: to have that kind of vibe in King Abdullah Economic
Speaker 3: City for the final The fact that they're starting off
Speaker 3: their season in Mexico and not the US, I think
Speaker 3: is weird. They're going to a resort that's not going
Speaker 3: to have probably a bunch of fans out there, and
Speaker 3: it's not going to be easily easy to travel to
Speaker 3: and people to get to. I say that from someone
Speaker 3: who's on his way there and was booking trips to
Speaker 3: get there. It's not easy to get to. I think,
Speaker 3: sure they want to be global. I get that they
Speaker 3: want to show that they're a global league. That's all
Speaker 3: fine and dandy. Their bread is going to be buttered
Speaker 3: here in the US, and the fact that they are
Speaker 3: starting or ending their tournament here, I think is going
Speaker 3: to be a huge detriment to to what they're doing
Speaker 3: as far as the schedule. Look, they're going to another
Speaker 3: Trump course. Anybody could have seen that one coming after
Speaker 3: what they did for the first two. I will say
Speaker 3: the Bedminster event last year was more of a Trump
Speaker 3: rally than a golf tournament. I mean, want to fit
Speaker 3: one live person was wearing a red hat with white
Speaker 3: writing that said make Golf fun again and then make
Speaker 3: America great again.
Speaker 2: Thing. It's it's that that was bad, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: like that. In Miami.
Speaker 3: President Trump showed up for his for his pro am,
Speaker 3: talked to a few people, and then got out of
Speaker 3: the way and let the golf do the talking. I
Speaker 3: don't think that the golf is going to be able
Speaker 3: to do the talking in Mexico and in Saudi Arabia
Speaker 3: like it would here in the US, where you can
Speaker 3: have an actual fan base around here to be for
Speaker 3: those So those are the things that really jumped out
Speaker 3: for me. And then the last part I'm kind of
Speaker 3: rambling here was the fact that they're still going to
Speaker 3: places that are starved for professional golf. They're going to Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: they're going to West Virginia, they're going to DC. Same
Speaker 3: thing they did when they went to your neck of
Speaker 3: the Woods in Oregon last year, that they went to
Speaker 3: places where people I talked to fans there and they said,
Speaker 3: we don't care about the money because this might be
Speaker 3: the last chance I get to watch Phil Michelson play
Speaker 3: golf again. Some of these people have been Phil fans
Speaker 3: for the last twenty years and they never get to
Speaker 3: see him play. So when he comes to town, of
Speaker 3: course they're going to go watch him. Like I understand that.
Speaker 3: That all makes sense to me from the casual fan perspective,
Speaker 3: and I think they're going to lose a lot of
Speaker 3: that with the way that they're going about setting up
Speaker 3: their schedule, at least from the start in the finish aspect.
Speaker 2: Of it.
Speaker 1: One of the major challenges for LIV going forward will
Speaker 1: seem to be how global of a league they truly
Speaker 1: want to be, or that they truly can be, because
Speaker 1: they've come out from the beginning. Greg Norman, this is
Speaker 1: his big initiative. Rights been trying to make a world
Speaker 1: tour happen for thirty, maybe forty years at this point.
Speaker 1: This has been his passion for a long long time,
Speaker 1: and part of his rhetoric around LIVE is that this
Speaker 1: can be more of a global tour. Part of the
Speaker 1: reason that a lot of non American players went to
Speaker 1: LIVE is that they were hopeful that they could play
Speaker 1: in their home countries and that they could be part
Speaker 1: of a tour that wasn't so US centric. But the
Speaker 1: problem is that most of the big international stars in
Speaker 1: golf right now are American. That's not to say that
Speaker 1: it's all of them or that it should be that way,
Speaker 1: but that's just sort of how it is. And the
Speaker 1: players that they're going for, you know, they're going for Xanderschoffle,
Speaker 1: They're going for Patrick Cantley. They want these players to
Speaker 1: be in their league, and if they play most of
Speaker 1: their events outside of the US, these players are not
Speaker 1: going to want to participate in it, And you see
Speaker 1: some of that give and take with the schedule. It's
Speaker 1: finishing outside the US and ending outside the US, but
Speaker 1: most of the events are still in the US. There's
Speaker 1: only one tournament in Australia where I think that some
Speaker 1: of the Australian players and maybe Greg Norman himself, we're
Speaker 1: envisioning more than one event in Australia potentially ideally, and
Speaker 1: so that's going to be something for them to work out. Right,
Speaker 1: how much of a global league are we and can
Speaker 1: we be given the players that we want to attract,
Speaker 1: that we have to attract in order to get the
Speaker 1: attention that we need.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and looking at the twenty three schedule, it's you know,
Speaker 3: they're going to like you said, they're going to Australia.
Speaker 3: They've got a lot of Australians. They're going to Spain.
Speaker 3: They've got a strong Spanish contingent now as well. They're
Speaker 3: going to Mexico. They've got a strong Latin American contingent
Speaker 3: down there for and a couple of Mexican players as well.
Speaker 3: They want these guys to basically have like National Open,
Speaker 3: a National Open, but the live version of it, right,
Speaker 3: they want to be able to host events in the
Speaker 3: countries where they've got players. They're they'll they'll be in
Speaker 3: London where they've got you know, a bunch of a
Speaker 3: bunch of English players. It's they want to be able
Speaker 3: to have that. They're going to Oklahoma. They've got a
Speaker 3: bunch of Oklahoma state players. It's like there's a method
Speaker 3: to the madness for what they're doing. And you laugh,
Speaker 3: but it's it's true though, like it' it's it's funny
Speaker 3: to laugh at and see. But a granted, I've heard
Speaker 3: a lot about that course in in Tulsa. That's probably
Speaker 3: not the greatest, but you know more about more about
Speaker 3: that than I will, so I'll leave that to you.
Speaker 1: I haven't been there myself, but yeah, what word has
Speaker 1: not been positive about? Not your course not great?
Speaker 3: But I think a lot of that is is planned.
Speaker 3: They want to go to places where their guys feel comfortable,
Speaker 3: and they want to go to places that are starved.
Speaker 3: And I think they've done that, and that's that's a
Speaker 3: feather in their cap. They've done that. They've they've absolutely
Speaker 3: delivered on that. Same with when they say that they're
Speaker 3: going to avoid they they called them heritage events on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, these these bigger named events that have
Speaker 3: some history with them and in the majors. They said
Speaker 3: they're going to avoid those, and like another feather their cap,
Speaker 3: they've done that. They've they deserve that credit. They've they've
Speaker 3: stood up to their word on that. They're not trying
Speaker 3: to get in the way of a lot of PGA
Speaker 3: Tour events. That's just, you know, that's just you know,
Speaker 3: the court cases and stuff that they're trying to get
Speaker 3: in the way of and all that. But they've done
Speaker 3: well in setting up the schedule and that guard. But
Speaker 3: I just think it's such a such a miss to
Speaker 3: start and end the season outside the US.
Speaker 1: So just very simply, do you think Live is in
Speaker 1: a stronger position now or in a weaker position than
Speaker 1: it was nine months ago when it started with its
Speaker 1: first event in London?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think this is something that I've actually thought a
Speaker 3: lot about this offseason as well, And I honestly, I
Speaker 3: think you can make a case for yes and no,
Speaker 3: but I don't think we're actually going to get a
Speaker 3: true answer on that until, like I said, a lot
Speaker 3: of these core cases are decided. I mean, the reasons
Speaker 3: for no, you haven't made any splash signings this year.
Speaker 3: We've talked about that. You still don't have OWGR points,
Speaker 3: which is a massive sticking point for players and complicates
Speaker 3: them getting in majors, which are the biggest events in
Speaker 3: the world, not just PGA tour events, not live events,
Speaker 3: but everyone wants to play in the majors. They still
Speaker 3: can't get into that. They've got a TV deal. It's
Speaker 3: not great, but they've got one. I think that's kind
Speaker 3: of a loss. They didn't really make any big steps
Speaker 3: in regards to that. I don't think I haven't. Obviously
Speaker 3: we don't know the exact, full on details of what
Speaker 3: it's going, but it seems like they probably could have
Speaker 3: had a had had a better option. Maybe. I guess
Speaker 3: it's all going to come down to the judge and
Speaker 3: what they think. But if you want to say, yes,
Speaker 3: they're in a better spot, you can do that. Like
Speaker 3: I said, ATV deal is better than no TV deal, Right,
Speaker 3: They've got something now. Whether they can showcase that and
Speaker 3: if a network sees some promise in it, maybe that happens.
Speaker 3: That could be a reason why they're in a better
Speaker 3: spot here than they were nine months ago. The funny.
Speaker 3: The focus doesn't have to be on the money now,
Speaker 3: it can be on the actual teams and building these
Speaker 3: franchises doesn't have to be like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be all the public investment fund this
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia, that they can start putting more focus into
Speaker 3: these teams now, that could be a step in the
Speaker 3: right direction for them as well. And like I said earlier,
Speaker 3: they prove they've got a product and now they just
Speaker 3: have to show that they can commercialize it. And they've
Speaker 3: taken steps toward doing that. They're not huge steps, but
Speaker 3: they're closer to their goal now than they were nine
Speaker 3: months ago. So that's how you can make the argument
Speaker 3: for But it's just crazy that we all have so
Speaker 3: many opinions and so many thoughts on what Live is
Speaker 3: and what Live is in and what's going to happen,
Speaker 3: and it's all going to come down to one person's
Speaker 3: opinion and it's the judge. And I think that's really
Speaker 3: going to come down to whether Live you know, sinks
Speaker 3: or swims.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's uh, that is that is the big question
Speaker 1: right now, and it might not be resolved for a while,
Speaker 1: so that might not be particularly satisfying to people that
Speaker 1: they're going to have to to wait for a resolution
Speaker 1: to this. But you know, if Live continues to weaken,
Speaker 1: continues to struggle to get attention, you know, one big
Speaker 1: question is whether the players are really going to want
Speaker 1: to stick with it, or whether they're going to start to,
Speaker 1: you know, regret their decision to jump to this league,
Speaker 1: because that's it seems like a possibility now in a
Speaker 1: way that it didn't seem last year, that that some
Speaker 1: players just might be dissatisfied with it.
Speaker 3: I'd be surprised if a lot of those guys weren't
Speaker 3: having those feelings already, you know, looking at how how
Speaker 3: Season one played out and how some of these guys
Speaker 3: are performing and seeing how it's all gone, I'm assuming
Speaker 3: a lot of these guys thought that they'd get their
Speaker 3: owgr points. They thought a lot of this court stuff
Speaker 3: would be figured out by now, and it hasn't. So
Speaker 3: I would I would assume a lot of the guys
Speaker 3: are wondering did I really make the right decision, and
Speaker 3: they're playing the what if game leading up to it. Now,
Speaker 3: once the tournaments start rolling in again, they'll have something
Speaker 3: to focus on. Maybe they won't have those thoughts so
Speaker 3: much anymore, But I got it. I got to find
Speaker 3: it hard to believe that guys like Brooks and Bryson
Speaker 3: and all them who have just been getting just rolled
Speaker 3: through the media and haven't really been playing well the
Speaker 3: times that they have teed it up. I got a
Speaker 3: hard time believing that they're not at least somewhat regarding
Speaker 3: their decision right now.
Speaker 1: So two things that we didn't really cover, and we're
Speaker 1: going to wrap up now, But two things that we
Speaker 1: didn't really cover that you've sort of mentioned in these
Speaker 1: in these last comments. One is the TV deal. We
Speaker 1: didn't really talk about that, but basically Live is going
Speaker 1: to be on the CW and we'll see how that
Speaker 1: turns out. I think that's something to return to and
Speaker 1: to see how it actually goes. It's easy to make
Speaker 1: fun of, you know. On Twitter, our friend Barry at
Speaker 1: Sakuma made an incredible edit of the One Tree Hill
Speaker 1: opening theme with with live footage involved in it. It's hilarious.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's perfect. It was it was really great.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, yes, the Seed is an actual
Speaker 1: network and we'll see how it works out. I don't
Speaker 1: know how that's going to go. I don't claim to
Speaker 1: claim to be certain of how that's going to play
Speaker 1: out or whether it's going to be better than a YouTube.
Speaker 1: So that's one question. And then you mentioned the OWGR thing.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that a lot on the podcast before
Speaker 1: and so didn't want to return to that well too much.
Speaker 1: But that's obviously going to be a you know, an
Speaker 1: issue for players going forward. Are they going to get
Speaker 1: OWGR points? And if not, how are they going to
Speaker 1: get into majors? Are the majors going to relent and
Speaker 1: open up some spots for live players? How is that
Speaker 1: all going to happen. That's something that we could see
Speaker 1: some developments on in the coming year. So another thing
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on. But I don't want to
Speaker 1: take any more of your time here, Adam, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the pod. People can see
Speaker 1: your work at golfweek dot com and Golfweek magazine and
Speaker 1: golf Week. Golf Week is where you are. Where can
Speaker 1: people I'll find you on on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Yeh Twitter at Adam Woodard A d A M W
Speaker 2: O O d r D.
Speaker 3: That's where you find a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 3: I'm writing on a lot of PG tour, a lot
Speaker 3: of live golf stuff and should be an interesting year here.
Speaker 3: Of the next few weeks, I'll be in Mexico for
Speaker 3: the first event, so follow along for that and I'll
Speaker 3: hopefully get some more on the scene reporting for what's
Speaker 3: actually going on at these international events.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, thank you. If you would like
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