No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 713: Senate Hearing Recap with Slate's Jim Newell

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

After the events of the day in DC we fire up the pod and call upon Jim Newell, Senior Political Writer at Slate Magazine, to help us make sense of today's proceedings in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. We examine what was (and wasn't accomplished) over the course of the three plus hour hearing, plus the documents that were released about the communications between the Tour and the PIF - including the "best of both worlds" proposal. We also discuss potential reactions from players on tour, offer some thoughts on the road ahead and close with some listener questions. Link to documents discussed on tonight's pod: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023-07-10-PSI-Majority-Staff-Memorandum-Regarding-Preliminary-Information-on-Agreement-Between-PGA-Tour-and-Saudi-Arabian-Public-Investment-Fund-with-Consolidated-Appendix.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up podcast. I wouldn't say emergency edition. Borderline emergency, you know, reaction to the day that was. I don't even know what to title this episode. Something about a Senate hearing in golf.

And somehow this is what we talk about now. Sally is here. Neil is here. Hello, Neil. How are you? Good evening, Salih. Good to be here. I thought, you know, mid July, maybe we get a week off, you know, opens next week. No, absolutely not. So another night nuked, but happy to be here. Fired up. This is kind of vacation time, period. We're recovering from US women's open. Fresh off a red eye actually from that, Mr. Kevin Van Balkenberg. Hello, KVV.

I'm not up to speed. I don't think fully on everything that happened going to play the role as a listener in the car, asking some questions today. I have a feeling. So I feel like when we started talking about this a year ago, like London was a year ago that my beard was don't fact checks my beard was brown. And now it's just completely white. Like I'm just worn out and exhausted by this stuff. But back on the saddle, ready to go again. I'm been cramming for an exam the last hour or so. I'm going to, I'm a definitely some massive questions because I think you guys have a better grasp on this than I do, having barely slept in the last 24.

This is the last political reference I'll make in this whole episode. But you're like Obama before and after office picture. That's right. Exactly what it looks like here. No more politics on this show. Keep your politics out of my show when we're talking about congressional hearings and golf. We're going to talk, we don't talk politics on the show but we have a guest that you describe your job here but you're not allowed to say the word politics

are involved politics in any of it. Mr. Jim Newell from Slate how are you? I'm great this is such an honor to be on my favorite podcast I'll try to control myself but yeah I am a I won't say the word but I'm a congressional reporter for Slate magazine I was at the hearing today and my congressional reporter for Slate Magazine. I was at the hearing today and I am ready to talk through it. What's your kind of reaction to what went down today? You see a lot more of these hearings than I do. This is the first one I've ever sat through the entirety of.

I think I understand how all of it works. Shockingly, a lot more after seeing it today and seeing some of the I'll call it grandstanding we saw today and a lot of the today I felt like was a charade, but what was your reaction about we saw today? Yeah, a lot of it was a charade. I think you can, there are two types of hearings really. There's the stuff that no one watches, which is maybe just, you know, they're revising a spending bill or something like that. It's done. There's only lobbyists and attendants, It's not even televised. And those, I think, people are pretty cooperative and asking straightforward questions.

And then there are these kind of marquee events, you know, that are made for TV spectacles, that there's a design to just get broad interests and maybe change people's perceptions on a certain issue. So you will have members take those in whichever direction you want. Like, we had, I thought there was a lot of good discussion for much of the hearing from some of the main participants, but then you had some side members coming in with their pet issues about, you know, China or how they're hearing more back home from a hundred Biden-Jewenco-Keynes and golf and, you know, it just kind of... There was a was a big go cards or golf stories about golf with my dad and No cut Tom Carpher just can't he's like old Sammy Sneed remember him. Yeah, it was Is there a story I saw something about someone shooting 204? That was carper. Yeah, that was Garber. Okay. Yeah, God

I guess he had like three minutes and he told stories for two and then I think asked one to staff had written for him so this was definitely a It weren't of the the show we are type of hearing It was also a very like this was supposed to be I mean, it's just a subcommittee It's an old subcommittee, but it's not even a full committee. It was supposed to mean a pretty small room yesterday They Bumped it up to the biggest committee hearing room in Capitol Hill just because there was such interest in it. So there was reams of reporters, a lot of the public there. It was a pretty big show.

I got so excited to talk about this that I forgot to do our opening ad which our episode is brought to you by our friends at Woop, the official fitness wearable of the PGA tour and NUCO. I don't know yet. We got to figure that out. I guess the agreement's not all the way through here. But co I don't know yet. I we got to figure that out. I guess the agreement's not all the way through here. But if you don't know by now, whoop is a sleek, screenless wearable that tracks your sleep strain recovery, stress and more to provide personalized insights that help you reach your goals, whether you're obsessed with squeezing out a little more effort in the gym or

shoot you low, score this summer, which I just did this past week. If I may say or get those extra hours of sleep a week, who helps you better build better habits and make healthier choices. I can attest to this. KVV, you've been a big motivator for me. Not going to lie. You were, tell me a little bit about your health, you know, kind of some health changes you made out in California. I've made some, not similar changes, but some changes in my own.

And the whoopas helped me track that a little bit. I'm down five pounds already, which I feel good about. Hell yeah. Love that. You know, I love to see Ron Price's whoop score today. You know, I think it was nothing. I'll talk about that. That's what I mean. You know what I'm saying? Like I just, that would be fun to see what the, you know, because they're, they're measuring your stress levels on the whoop these days too, which is interesting data. I don't even think it registered on his, on his radar today, but it's got features like strength trainer stress monitor. You can finally track the intensity of your weight

lifting or your Senate hearings. And you can try whoop for one month, three and get ready to unlock the best version of yourself. Go to whoop.com, w h o o p dot com to get started, use code NLU to save 10% off your order. Neil, how much of the hearing did you get to watch today and kind of what was your reaction? I kind of paused it. I had a couple calls tried, you know, got a decent amount of actual work done today in between. And then when I wasn't, I put it back on. And I have to say, and I hate myself for this. It was good theater. And that's all, you know, in a lot of ways, that's all it was. I think my key takeaway is like everything is still on the table. A deal, no deal, like everything in between.

And that's exactly what Jimmy Dunn said. And that's what Ron Price said. And then there's a lot of like, you know, grandstanding, what about China? You know, we can get into all that stuff. But Jim, I'm curious as someone who watches these hearings a lot, like, what is the Senate's hammer here? Like what could like, if they had gotten up there and Ron Price cussed out Josh Holley and Jimmy Dunn passed out

and it was just a total disaster, like what is it that the Senate would do to stop this deal? Because as I understand it, the anti-trust stuff is with the Department of Justice, which is separate. And that's not what we're talking about here. Yeah, so there's a few different directions

these hearings can go. I think the main thing that Senator Blumenthal, and he told me this early on, I interviewed him when he was launching the probe. He was like, I'm just trying to get a little public interest in this, dig into it, see what more information we can get, put some sunlight on it, and see if that swayes public opinion.

So I think that's mostly what they're for is to try and just call public attention to something and sway it in a certain direction. If in their probe, they dig up a lot of documents that can be forwarded to the DOJ antitrust division or the FDC or any other government agency that might find actionable items here, you know, that's a way something useful can come out of this. So it kind of comes down to a recommendation that they're going to make on what will they say? Like we support this, we don't support this, or we support this if you do X, Y, and Z.

Yeah, I don't think it would be, they wouldn't make like a formal recommendation out of committee, especially like if you watch today, it's pretty polarized. So I don't think there's going to be a lot of consensus on the committee. But you know, anything they on earth, like another agency that's investigating this, like the antitrust investigation, they could use some of this stuff and probe further. You know, the last thing they could do is, you know, would you have a hearing like this and try to forge some sort of legislation

about the way to go forward? I don't think there anywhere near that, and I don't even know what that legislation would be right now. So I think this is mostly just about Bloomingthall, who has a long history problems with the Saudis, doesn't like this deal, trying to call attention to it.

Jim, we famously did not get Yasser Al-Ramayan, his excellency here in order to get Commissioner Jay Monahan. What is the committee's powers to actually subpoena those people if this sort of goes forward? Like can they force either one of these people to testify? So I'm curious. I talked to Blumenthal after the hearing. He said they were going to try to get the live side, whether that's Yasser or whatever other executives or mentions in that big document dump. He said they had scheduling conflicts.

I said, do you actually buy that? And he said, well, I have no reason to doubt it at the moment. But if they really refuse and he really wants them, yeah, they do have subpoena power and they can try to compel them. I think with Yasser, that would be complicated, you know, for his excellency to acquiesce to a congressional subpoena.

And can they do that? He's not a citizen, does that matter at all? Right, yes. I mean, I think it does matter. I don't actually know how you get him in the room unless he decides to be good PR for himself to show up. Maybe you could dangle in a custom membership to say, there you go.

Go to that best of both worlds proposal and pick a couple of, you know, just a couple of bullets out of that. I mean, can you imagine though if they tried to get Norman in there? Like, you know, after discovering today that like the PJ Tours is just trying to fire him, which people knew, I thought one of the, the strangest things about this probe early on was there are a lot of letters

being addressed to Greg Norman about we need information from you. As if he is involved in this anyway, and not just someone who's about to be thrown to the scraps, you know, but I think that would be a pretty compelling hearing. So, Blumenthala said he's gonna continue probing and there could be hearings, and they would like to try to find a way to schedule with some of the live people or anyone else who comes up.

But if they push back, yeah. Bryson Phil. Phil, Norman Bryson, let's get involved in there. It seemed to me, Jim, like, it maybe took a while for it to get to this point, but after maybe in like the third hour, I think it was pretty much by the time they drilled in, it was like, yeah, guys, this is pretty freaking early to be having this hearing. Like we're happy to answer some questions here, but there's not a deal here.

Like we have a framework agreement. I felt like I found myself nodding along to a lot of what Blumenthal was saying, like about the sports washing and everything that's happening. I'm like, yep, that's 100% happening. And found myself nodding along to Ron Johnson as well, talking about like, hey, this has got to be pretty hard to negotiate on in public currently right now. We don't have a deal. This is hard for you to speak on.

And it through a lot of the side show was a little bit distracting as we talked about up front, but a lot of these stuff from the, the ranking member, Senator Johnson, and from the chairman, Senator Blumenthal was like, yeah, they were kind of on the nose with a fair amount of it, I felt like. Yeah, I thought, I basically agree. I thought Blumenthal, when he was talking about the consequences

of, you know, are we really just going to acquiesce to the Saudi Arabian regime going wherever it wants and buying up stakes of major mayor institutions? Like that's a concerning precedent, and we should talk about that. But I thought where Blumenthal was falling short, was he was trying to suggest these alternatives and he didn't really get there, I thought.

He was saying stuff like, well, if you need money, why not try an IPO or go to private equity? Or, you know, and it's kind of just like, what are you doing, man? Like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, like that seems kind of half-baked and then the PJ tour members would respond, you know, even if we raise

that money, that does not take care of the issue of lives still being there trying to poach our players. Like, the only way out is through kind of. So I thought they were kind of running into a wall on that point. What do you, you've seen people sit in those chairs and answer questions with a lot of cameras on them. Would you think of how Ron Price and Jimmy Dunn did in their roles as as spokesman for the PJ tour? I thought they were kind of an interesting combo because price was the very Buttoned up corporate. I'm only gonna speak in the most proper terms. Thank you senator. Thank you senator

Yeah, yeah, and Jimmy Dunn was kind of like, okay, I see why this guy's a deal maker You know like he's just he seemed like he got looser as it went on. He was like slinging stories You know, I thought he was gonna do the I'll kill him myself again I thought I mean it was thunder and lightning a little bit like opposite. I thought I think I said this in our Slackerly, but I he sounded Jimmy Dunn sounded to me just like Christopher walking, you know, like I thought he was going to hit like a two mice in a bucket of cream, you know, start like, he was just, he would like pause before he answered, and his hands are up here.

He's like, you know, Senator, you know, when you have all a lot of something, you got to, you know, you're going to be sloppy. And these guys have a lot of money, man, you know, it's just like a lot of money. And what I said was, you only talk to the guy with the money, man. You know, it's just like a lot. That was like, and what I said was, you only talk to the guy with the money. Okay, that was my vice-de-j. Don't talk to the other guys. Only the guys with the money, yeah.

So I think that was, and as far as theater goes, that's effective. And that's kind of what this was. It was like, it felt like a theater today. So I think they played opposing roles pretty well. I don't think anybody fell on their face. I would say though overall a key takeaway for me is like, what an embarrassment for the PGA tour in general to have all this aired out. More so the documents,

solid that we, you know, that we've been going through all day of just like emails and what's that threads and just the way, you know, people are talking behind closed doors. Like, I don't think there's anything like egregious or cancelable in there, but it's just like, man, your private business is getting aired out in the public. And if I'm a player, I got to be furious about like, man, you guys have been doing this since March, since April, you've been flying to Venice,

you've been going to London, you've been flying together to San Francisco, you've been doing all this behind closed doors, and then you're just trying to try to like, you know, sneak a fastball by me and tell me in the policy board just, you know, rubber stamp this. Like that feels this all being aired out in such a public way is tough for the, for the comms team and the messaging at the tour. That's a, that's a big takeaway for me.

Even if Ron Price and Jimmy Dunn, I thought held their own there and, you know, they didn't freak out. I didn't think they got impatient. Mike counter that though. Well, how does this work? How does this work if someone finds out if you communicate this to a player, five players, 10 players, how fast that gets to the media? Like it is going to get out extremely quickly, no matter how confident you try to keep

it. I think that's totally fair. 100 member organization. I do not know the alternative. I don't know how you can then worry or tie you with that. I'll be back with five. I guess I don't disagree with that, Sully. But my issue is that, and I was really frustrated with Ron Johnson for just tossing these

softballs. Like when, when Blumenthal had to go take a vote, like everybody's coming and going, which that was bizarre. I don't watch a lot of these. That's normal. That is normal. I mean, the guys like are see, I'll be back in five. Yeah, and then get, yeah, it's like,

it's just, I was very abrupt exits. And so then Ron Johnson's just kind of vamping. And he's just, you know, basically like lobbying on these guys behalf with soft, not even questions, just like giving answers. Making the case for them. And what I, and he said one thing like quote, the Saudis have put you guys in this position. And I'm like, no, they haven't. They the

PGA tour deserves a ton of blame for that. And for where we are for, yeah, you started these conversations in March, you probably should have started them two or three years ago. And so that's where if I'm a player, I'm pissed that they got back into a corner like this. And the PR and the messaging and everything got away from them. So I totally agree with you that cards they had in their hands a month ago, you know, on June 6th is, hey man, I get it, you got to keep it confidential, but it's just bears repeating that like this was a colossal fuck up as far as like messaging goes over the last year

to two years. I think it's a case study in like just not dealing with like a hostile actor early and that's, you know, enough said there, that's, but that stuck out to me. What I thought was interesting was their explanation for why they had to keep it confidential was that they didn't want lives lawyers to learn about it. Like it's broader, rave lives lawyers to learn about it because then they broader rave lives lawyers to learn about it because then they would blab because

he didn't want to lose all of their legal fees, which I was, you know, that was an interesting way of putting it. I'm sure there are, you know, eight million reasons to keep it confidential, whether that was good or bad, you know, you've any one player hears it, it goes out, or, you know, the PJ tour lawyers might not one hear theirs, but that was just

kind of a strange way of saying it was just these money grabbing like live lawyers who were worried about losing their fees. That's why we had to keep it calm. Make the lawyers the enemy. That's a, that's a, you know, other easy street goat, but I, not you're a saintly lawyers. Yeah, our lawyers are within this for all true disagreements. No billable hours on our. I agree, like, if the players get wind of it, yeah, they're gonna, you know, it's gonna leak. I get that, but that doesn't replace, like, if I was a player, like, trying to think,

if I was on, you know, PGA tour member, I would be pissed. I'd be like, man, look at this clown show. If I was watching that, I'd be like, this is a joke, man. Like, how do you get, how do we get dragged out in front of the Senate like this? This is just a, it is just a bad look period. And then on top of that, hold on. I think if two, if you go back two years and the Saudis want to make a huge investment

into the PGA tour, probably with some major stipulations, probably that include a lot of what's going into this deal as well, some sort of control, some sort of representation, some sort of blah, blah. I think it's still garners the same attention from the Senate and from the government. I think again, I think they've made huge mistakes in how they have tried to win the public's favor and voking the 9-11 families. Basically, they fucked around and found out on a lot of stuff. They played way too many cards last year. That's well said.

That's way too emotional on it. They made it way too personal and they're going to have to just eat their words on a lot of that stuff and take their punches, but I still think like just taking this deal two years ago would look so different and it came with its own different set of problems and would it came with its own set of scrutiny that would not. I think the whole golf world struggles to have pictured the fight getting this serious. I guess I have a bit of sympathy for not for them underestimating the links the Saudis would go to to make this happen. Well, can I ask you guys just kind of where you are on this particular question at the moment because I wrote a story this time tomorrow about I guess today when this layer. You know, the main question here was kind of is there an alternative to it at this point? The PJ Tour is very much saying, no.

Dick Blumenthal was out there being like, I know some private equity people. Maybe they could come in. Literally afterwards, I asked him. I was like, what is the alternative? He was saying, I living British, Connecticut, I know people in private equity, they've been saying this might be a good deal for us to like, maybe make a counter on.

But did you come out after watching today's hearing and the explanations thinking, this path and reaching the definitive agreement is the best path forward, however ugly it might be? For the PGA tour, I would say yes, because again, that private equity money, because again, if that private equity money, and again, I'm, this is not my world, but that if I'm a private equity investor, like, and I'm going to be buying into this with out a full set of the world's best golfers.

And my opponent is the Saudi investment fund, which has shown to be able to light money on fire at an astronomical level just to make sure you lose. Probably a little hesitant to make that investment. I don't know if I'm jumping in head first to say like, yes, I'm going to take whatever seven tenths of the world's best players. And I'm going to make a league that I'm going to make a ton of money off this. I struggled to picture that. You may be understanding how dumb some private equity money. That's fine. But like their goal is to make money. Whereas like the, again, the PIF, we've talked about it a million times, like Vision 2030 is way bigger than just whatever the finance situation ends up on the golf line item

for their, their fund, right? And it's, it's, it's, I don't know, man, I kind of a Kruth-Rond Johnson a little bit saying like, do they, that's not, not usually where I am. That's what? Not usually where I am. Yeah. I know. I know he's a friend of the pod now. So I guess.

It's like a boy. I'm just a fan now. But why should I know to go through you to get to Richard Blumenthal? You did not respond to our rick, or you, to be interviewed. But, Tully, I guess I'm in a similar position to you. I think there's a few other takeaways that I had here. It's that I felt like Bloomingthal was was picking at the

non disparagement agreement. Pretty hard. That became like a kind of a sticking point. And I think they were kind of talking over, not over each other, but maybe talking about different things. Whereas the current non disparagement agreement is like in the deal, as the deal is being worked out, we're not going to talk shit about each other. That makes a ton of sense. I get that. I think Bloomingthal was saying, once this is signed, our PGA-Tor members, our members of your

organization are going to be allowed to speak out about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and human rights issues. Which is a great question. It is a good question. I think, if I'm, I would guess that question that I want it is a good question and I think you know if I'm I would guess it you know Ron Price and Jimmy Dunn would want them would not want a non disparagement agreement in there and I think by it was almost like following the the bread crumbs a little bit for me of like that probably gives the PGA tour a little bit of leverage on an issue like and maybe there's a few more of these an issue a bullet point bullet point like this to say, to go back to, you know, my excellency, look, you know, the Senate won't support us if we have this.

You know, it gives them a little more bargaining on certain points that have clearly been a sticking point, you know, which we've seen in the documents. So I think this hearing in some ways, even though it was kind of embarrassing, or it was embarrassing for the PGA tour, I think it probably helps them a little bit with seeing where the US government stands on a lot of this stuff

as they go back to the negotiating table over the rest of the year. And then at the end of the day, it's like, the only thing that's been agreed to is that they're not suing each other anymore, right? That's it. Everything else is just an agreement. Everything else is Jimmy Dunn said.

Everything else is aspirational, which I thought was a funny phrase of like, no phrase of like no solicitation of players through the end of the year as well. That is agreed to those two things. And so then, you know, we could end up with. I think that puts the tour in a decent spot because I still think that the I think the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the PIF, I don't think they want to run men's golf. You know, I look at Yosser's, the boards, he's on all the stuff he's doing. I think he's a pretty busy guy. Like, I don't know if, you know, I think they want the access, right? They want to be kind of, they want to be on, you know, you want to be in a gutter, basically,

or the story, right? Like that's what you really want, Patrick Cantlay in your ear 365. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's a bunch of BS, man. Like you're basically running a community of, you know, like spoiled rich golfers. Like that's tough a community of, you know, like, spoiled rich golfers. Like that's tough. That's, you know, excuse me, excuse me, his

excellency, I keep getting bad T times. And I'm wondering if you can handle this. Like, I know, I know you have other stuff going on, but I don't want to start at 10 on number 10 at pebble during the pro-amp. That's bullshit. So that, and I think that part, like some, I, I would think that they've seen it's hard to, you know, keep the momentum up with live. That's my perspective. I'm sure there's a lot of people on Twitter who would disagree with me and how exciting it's been. But I'm sure they're like,

hey, man, this sounds like we're gonna have a pretty sizable impact here. Now, where I disagree a little bit with Ron Price, he was very adamant of like the PGA tour will not sign a deal or recommend to the policy board, anything where the PGA tour is not in control. But I thought Bloomingthal and some of the other senators were pressing on like, man, how much are they going to invest well over a billion dollars. Buckets of money. That was the term that was used.

That those buckets are going to stop flowing. That's going to it's going to be hard to say no to those guys. So that that worries me a little bit of like, are we getting a fifth major in Neome in 2030? Like what does that mean? I know I'm ram a little bit, but those are some other takeaways I had. Again though, to be to clarify, there's Saudi sponsorship into the 501C6 and PGA Tor events, meaning like the grant Thornton level and all of that is basically what we're gonna expect to see out of a Ramco

and other, you know, Saudi companies. And there's the Saudi investment into Newco, which is going to be based on whatever percentage that they're going to be investing. I don't know if it's 20%, I don't know if it's 33%, all equal shares. I don't know. PGA tour contributes their assets, going to be likely valued in the billions. Those are going to contribute their assets likely to be valued in the negative billions. And the difference they're going to make up is with their cash investment evaluation. But that's that number is not determined. So when Ron Price is saying more than a billion, it's like the number that's been thrown around is two billion, right? If they want to, let's say the overall valuation of new co is $10 billion. And the Saudis want 20% of it. They could

they will be investing basically $2 billion in cash. And that's that's that. So there's nothing in there of any kind that would insinuate. I've not seen any veto rights or consent rights or anything that would expand on the deal that would show the PIFS ability to buy more control or buy the overall control. And to like the US government's point, I think that would be a serious hold up in this deal is if they put a deal in front of whoever has to approve of the government,

not even know how that works. And it shows the possibility that PIF could take control of the PGA tour. I think that would be a huge hold up, and I don't see any way that would get through a lot of different fronts on the US government. Well, yeah, just another side point about how these hearings work, you know, even if they can't change the world through one hearing. A lot of the tactic is used to get the witnesses to commit to certain things that then you can, you know, they're bound to, at least by their public word, and their image goes down if they break that.

So I think there's a lot of talk about the non-despairage of inagreements and stuff like that, and they were saying we would never even put forward a deal if something like that was in there. I think that was on the non-despairagement agreement maybe on some other aspects or whatever. But I think that's a kind of a way of the Senate trying to ensure certain mechanisms are locked into the final deal because even though they have this preliminary deal, who knows what they're writing right now? I mean, they could be writing from scratch.

So, I know that the tour finds that annoying that they're being locked down in certain positions. They were, run Johnson asked 20 times today, like, I know this is really hard for you during a negotiation. They're like, yes, sir, it is very hard actually indeed. But that is a center is prerogative. They are allowed to kind of press them and, you know, with a vital American company to hold to certain values like that.

So, can we talk a little bit about the best of both worlds, certain part of the document? Because if I'm looking on Twitter and I'm scanning this thing today, you know, I got off the red eye, fell asleep for a look for you, I was, I pick up my phone, I got 200 Slack messages and I'm trying to like discern what's going on. I'm like, wait, is he also getting a, like a gust of chairmanship out of this? And they're going to have tiger limping around for 10 events. Like what's going on?

What part of the, yeah, what part of the document was that? And can you kind of help clarify what that was? And how much of that was sort of real? Yeah, but I can, from what I can tell, looks like the earliest proposal from the live side, from PCP partners, Neil's Cooobries. PCP capital partners.

Which I mean, he can't make this stuff up, man. It's like, what a name. I would say it was a less than quality proposal, right? And I think that is a good time to bring up that our friends at Roeback, they do understand quality. And there's only one way to describe think that is a good time to bring up that our friends at rowback. They do understand quality. And there's only one way to describe them that is best fit, best feel. I don't think this deal was best fit, best feel.

I really don't think that was best of both worlds, maybe, but not best fit, best feel. It is, it's time we're kicked off summer. We're well into summer. Their performance polo is a rowback. You know about this. They are fantastic. Just got nine holes in and my favorite orange and black one orange and blue Maybe orange black. Not sure. It's got four-way stretch moisture wicking fabric. They will get you through a warm summer day on the course

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out with their story this morning, that was one of the first things I read. And I was like, holy shit, this is what's been agreed to. And of course, it never is. It just never is. But in the proposal, it would say that live is proposing that Rory and Tiger would own teams and play in at least 10 live events, which should send off your your radar for a lot of different reasons. That's all. That's all. That's a lot of it. What's the buggy? It's yasser to be the director of the International Golf Federation and to receive a membership at Augusta and the RNA, which is what all everybody cared about today on Twitter, which by my record, this is he has now tried to rent out Augusta National and tried to shoehorn a membership into a agreement with the PGA tour in DP World Tour for him to become a member at Augusta National and tried to shoehorn a membership into a agreement with the PGA

tour and DP World Tour for him to become a member at Augusta. Ask for what you want, Sally. You know, I mean, I got to appreciate my guy anchoring high. It was the opening offer. You know, why not? Just throw it in there. Come on. Why not?

Neil, imagine if one of his offers he could fix Nandia, like fix 17, you might be able to do that. Yeah, for sure. Let's talk. I mean, I was I'd look at some literature. Gosh, if this whole thing could have been avoided by just like somebody taking him out to go play a gust. That's the part that's going to really make me upset. But goes back to what we've heard all along.

He just wants to stay under the tree at the masters and be like one of the important people there. And it certainly seems like he will go to great. One of my favorite tweets today is this man will literally light $4 billion of his own country's money on fire just to get a membership at Augusta Dashel. But how much oversight do you think like MBS has like into? Have I imagined if I like was look, I don't think MBS is like in deep engulfed Twitter, but imagine if you like filtered through this and was like wait a minute. My guy spent how much to try to just be a getting a gust of membership. What the fuck?

Well, a couple of other things in that, you know, best of both worlds proposal was a, like a mega event with live PGA tour LPGA 16 team extravaganza. Can we, can we go back to best of both worlds, the name of this? Like, this seems like the best of one, one one sides world here. And then a minimum of two PGA elevated events to be branded under a Ramco or, you know, the PIF flag and one proposed to be held in Saudi Arabia. So they, they seem to really want golf in Saudi Arabia. And that's, there's some stuff from this best of both worlds proposal. It's probably going to, you know, they're going to ask for 15 things, some are outrageous, but some are probably like, you know, they'll get worn down and they're going to get some of them probably.

I came away with this honestly thinking that live is more likely to survive than previously. I mean, I do think some iteration of it will sort of limp forward. I don't think it's going to be what it is. I think the PGA tours proposal to like, A House Norman, which I think it looks like it was rejected, that even maybe he'd be in an advisory role, but he would, he wasn't, it was going to like totally roll over for the Norman thing. So I think. Is it here? Ron Price's language on that was priceless. I can't get exactly, but it was something like, Will Norman keep his, was that that side-groom and execute?

He said, no. Will Norman have his job and he said something like, we won't need that role. Well, under the new governing structure, that position will no longer be available. Well, no longer necessary. Yeah, yeah, it won't be needed anymore. So he will be, you know, there was redundancy in this merger. Oh, it's not a merger. It's not a merger.

To your point, though, KVV, I want to caution people to like a lot of what we saw today and looked at today is all prior to what eventually went into the framework agreement and was signed, right? So it is, I read that too and I was like, wow, wow. I had kind of the same reaction. Like, live is way more likely to survive this than I ever would have thought.

But just recognizing also what ended up in the deal is like, hey, all of live assets are getting contributed to NUCO, which is going to be controlled. That board is going to be controlled by the PGA tour. Now, doing a lot more digging on the revision. I tweeted something about this earlier that doing some digging into the track changes and the different revisions to the framework agreement over time was absolutely fascinating and how, I know there's meetings and stuff

that take place in between this, that lead to this, but just the blatant like adding of sentences by one side and deleting them by the next side, adding another one, deleting like the word not out of it to tell a totally different story to ultimately end up with like out the power structure or the veto rights fully defined in this agreement. It looks like it was a huge sticking point in it. And I honestly haven't gone through all the revisions in the document, but those are telling the story.

If you have the time to kind of filter through like the different versions of this story or a bit different versions of that framework agreement, you can kind of see what the starting points were for negotiation for a lot of these. And wow, was live holy shit optimistic of just like, oh yeah, here's what's gonna happen with criteria, the eligibility criteria, like everybody gets their membership right back, retroactive OWGR points,

retroactive Ryder cut points, like extremely aspirational and none of like their player eligibility provisions ended up making it into that actual framework. Well, so it's just to go back to the veto thing just to be very clear on that. That's basically there's a four member board for the new co, which would be his And they were asking for basically a veto power of, you know, if those three team up on Yossard, he gets to have some veto power. Is that what we're referring to? So can I just go without digging way too much into it, kind of just run through like a quick

history or what I've basically founded going through this, right? Is the starting point being Piff came up with, I only want to read all of it, but basically, you know, talks about the successful team format of live and a bunch of stuff that's like, all right, well, that's obviously not part of the deal. The next point, like, we don't have the track changes in the next version, but the May 23 edit made by the PGA tour side shows that the tour added language around them, being able to make a quote, a final determination as to the long term status and viability of live end quote. So that's the tour saying we're going to make the final determination. But in the May 24 edits from live the next day the language about the tour being able to make that determination has just removed like that is just gone in their version of what is proposed. And then coming back with the May 25 version from the tour there's now a line about determinations quote will be made by the new code board acting upon the recommendation of Commissioner Monahan and will not be subject to any veto or consent rights of the PIF as the first time I've seen any of that language in NAVs.

The version that comes back from live four days later just elites the word not. That's all it does. It just says which is sick, you know, like that. That was to the opposite. That my jaw dropped when I saw that. I'm like, is my following this right? They're just going through and just deleting the word not. So basically the live version of it will it says, the, you know, the new, the new code board acting upon recommendation of Commissioner Monahan and will be subject to any veto or consent rights of the PIF. Unsurprisingly, this did not make the final version of it. But the May 30 version from the tour

and in the final agreement, there's now no more language around veto rights or any more clarification as to how live's future is gonna be determined. But now again, what's already in the document is that again, the assets are being contributed to this and that board is gonna be controlled by the PGA tour. But certainly if you look at the variation

to this agreement, this was a hold up. And I imagine something that's still being negotiated and figured out. That's the whole straight right there. That is the entire future of golf right there. And I can't believe this wasn't a bigger story today. I really, I just, I want to go back into this more tonight to like see a little bit more of what the hell is going to happen.

I still, I still maintain what made it in the final agreement. Again, it's just a framework and it's not finalized. But what's in there still says the PGA tour control board is going to have the authority to make a determination live. And there's again, I'm ignoring and I'm not talking about the language that includes the empirical data review of live and all the stuff that we've already known is in there because that is still in the final deal. Like this didn't add more, I don't know,

it didn't add a ton of question mark. It just is like, hey, wait a second here. There is some like positioning still going on here. And team golf sounds like it is going to survive and be a relatively big part of golf going forward. I cannot, still cannot imagine a world where live is that, where it's the cleaks and where it's still a This contentious battle amongst the players that just still wouldn't make any sense to me

Well, there is one memo in this big dump of documents From Ron Price Jay Monahan where they're talking about you know here are some of the hangups that Piff still Has and one of those is that you know They're they're proud of living what they built and they don't want to see that completely erased when Jay Monhan gets to do his, you know, comprehensive evaluation of, of, of, of live future worth going forward or something.

So I mean, I think that shows you how they're trying to massage it in the process. But they will have to throw just out of pride, like a couple of bones, you know, like, of elements of live to, of live to go forward. Well, can I, can I just read that part Jim? Because this, I found this to be super interesting. The two concerns that Yasser had voiced, this is coming from an email from Ron Price to

Jay Mon has his concern one given that you will serve as both commissioner of the PGA tour and CEO of Newco. Piff sees potential conflicts of interest in the same individual feeling both those roles. Further, as a non-controlling minority investor in Newco, PIFC is concerned it can adequately protect its substantial investment given the potential conflicts of interest. Legitimate concern, I would say, a concern one. Concern two, Newco's board acting on your recommendation will determine the future of LivGolf.

LivGolf is important to PIFF but PIF as a minority owner has no decision making authority via veto or consent rights with respect to live's future. That is again, the concern. And they go in and outline and discuss kind of some of the responses to that. And I'm not going to read all of those. But how Ron ended that email, which is again, this is the weirdest thing to break down ever. People's private emails, but they had to know it was going to be public at this

much. But I found this to be kind of something I wish I would have set out loud myself, which is the most fundamental principle of our framework agreement is that we are stronger together under one umbrella. Further, we discussed the substantial commercial opportunities related to organic growth, a redesigned schedule and product and targeted M&A.

As we crafted definitive agreements that make us one entity, we must challenge ourselves to think holistically on how to drive maximum strategic and financial value to the enterprise. Done right, it will be less about how the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and LiveGolf operate today and more about how we can combine our collective assets into the optimal scheduling product

and commercial model of the future. I found that to be pretty interesting. Like, stop thinking about PGA Tour and Live because this is all gonna be under one entity, right? And they're gonna come up with something that I can't see the live name going on in this. I think the PGA Tour name in some way will go on, but thinking of, hey, how can we all create a product

going forward? Telled a story to me of like, hey, this isn't, I don't know if this is the PGA Tour versus live anymore. One thing I just keep hard and try to wrap my brain around is like this idea, probably that exists both with live and the PGA Tour is that we're gonna like increase the amount of golfers around the world by like three fold. Like that, I just am so skeptical and cynical

of that happening. It seems like such horseshit. Like, you know, look, we all, three of us here make our living off of golf and talking about golf. We understand like there are people who are very passionate about golf, but also we realize that it is never going to be

like perverse soccer or the NFL. And like some of these projections about, you know, look, if you just have like music at things, if you just have flashmobbs, if you just have shock and hurts, or you just have tiger play more events, like we could get so many people more into golf. Like, man, that just in gonna fucking happen.

And I just feel like overall, like what are we really chasing here? You know, how much, I mean, look, I then the goals might be noble certainly. I think it's kind of hilariously horseshit that study Raib is like, no, no, we want to get more women involved in golf. Like that'd be a great goal for us. But, you know, I just don't know that there's an actual audience out there.

The only I agree with everything you said, the only thing I would add or say could be a growth factor is a spectacle of an international sear, like an international tour where I'd be all in. I know. But then there's consequences to that. You're going to burn some current. You're going to have to burn the building down that you currently in to build the new one because, you know, who, who, you know, RBC keeps kitten, you know, short into this stick on when we announce this, that like some sponsor is going to get burned. We learned that they were very high in J's call list. Yes.

On. Yes. And I do want to say we haven't mentioned J. Monahan yet. And I would say that sorry. Before you change off that, I just want to, okay, one quick note on that Kevin is I do think people don't have the full grasp. And I know we don't we're working off a minimal amount of details here. But new co is like the private equity fund of golf. So again, I don't believe

them that they're going to triple the amount of people playing golf, but I think they're going to be like the golf company, like kind of what the governing bodies think they are or should be in terms of grow the game or whatever it's going to be like it's going to be an investment arm of they might buy the things have been thrown out. They might buy the LPJ tour. They might buy the PJ of America. Might buy the Ryder Cup. Might buy Pebble Beach. Might buy, it's a private equity fund of golf that the Saudis are investing in there. That I don't know how the pro game interacts with all that stuff. But again, it's just, it is separate from all of this somehow.

It's how I understand it. Sorry, Neil. Jaymanhand. Well, I was just going to say all of these ideas like Ron Price's email like that. Yeah, that's, you know, I'm kind of nodding along. Like, oh, yeah, there is some some opportunity here. But when it comes down to is just like people and like the commissioner, he's not even around right now.

Like he had to like, I hope he's okay. But like, I mean, he needs to get Ron Price, you know, talk to their proud partner at Rolex and get him something for just taking the heat today. Ron, I'm not proud of this. Did a great job, but like I think that I honestly think this and I don't mean any disrespect to Jay Monahan. I think he would have struggled up there for sure. Based on his TV appearances.

And so it's hard for me to be like cool. Let's have a four person board and he's going to be in charge of everything. Like at this point, it's like, man, you kind of got us into this mess. And in a lot of ways, like, I don't know if you're the guy that's going to be thinking strategically about, you know, M&A as Ron Price said or growing the game or doing innovative stuff. Like, I don't think that we're seeing any evidence of innovative stuff from him currently. I mean, he's not even, he's not even at work right now. So I think you gotta start to question like,

are we just gonna say, all right, we're gonna combine things and then it's the same leadership over the top of it? Like that's hard. I know it's, oh, let's get some new people in, but I'm just struggling with that fact. And if I was, you know, if I'm gonna put myself in the PIF shoes,

I might be asking that question too, of like, wait a second, like, you know, in some ways this guy couldn't handle the, this guy couldn't handle the heat, like he can't even show up for the, you know, he's not doing well, you know what I mean? So we can't even get him to suit the fits. What are we talking about?

Yeah, you know, and Jimmy Dunn's probably just like, I don't need this BS, like, what am I doing? I honestly, I think he's probably thinking that, like how did I get, what did I agree to here? You know, Randall Stevenson's like, fuck. I'm out of here, man. Yeah, like I think to Neil that one of the things I keep thinking about this African Union is like the tours messaging for years about this is a player run tour the players are control this whatever Obviously the players aren't really wanting to get into like the weeds of like mergers and acquisition stuff But I think the players pride has a real like like is it real potential that it's really hurt

by all of the fact that they were left in the dark by some of this? Yes. And I think that if it does blow up and fall apart, it will be because the players are like, you said there's a player run tour, like fuck you. Like this is, we're gonna show you like what's player run. We're gonna talk to private equity people.

We're gonna sort of form our own tour. We're gonna use the TGL stuff to sort of basically say that's going to be our version going forward of the tour. We're just going to put on tournaments. They're going to be indoors outdoors, whatever. I think that there's a real potential for that because these you don't get to be a professional athlete with having a lot of pride and a little bit of arrogance. And the idea that for you were just kind of totally blindsided by these corporate dudes who I mean, they're always the ones bitching about the USJ, but like, why are these 13 handy caps like run in our game, whatever. I'm sure there's a lot of dudes out there who maybe ate that smart or maybe they are really smart, but they're going to be like, look, I'm pissed off about this direction that we're going and we're going to band together and we're going to figure out our own

shit. But that, here's what I'll say to this. Like, the independent directors on the PGA tour policy board are put in place by the players, right? And what you're talking about a starting a tour or breaking off and all that is they're going to have to put people in place to be their representatives to do all the business deals on this unless Patrick Cantler is going to do all the board meetings and put these entire mergers and acquisitions deals together and all the private like that's what the PJ tour is supposed to be and like

What I've read of the the attempts to unionize back in the 90s There was an article recently on the athletic about that and the conversation Jack Nicholas trying to break off in 1983 with a bunch of PJ tour guys and What I've heard from so many players on all this. I'm like Guys, I don't know if you can do this as well as the rest of these guys can do it. Like, are you pissed about finding out about this the way you did? I'm sure, but those people aren't like equity stakeholders in this. They are the representatives that are supposed to be like doing your bidding for you, right?

And you've put those people in charge. You have elected five player directors to the board. And they have the right to reject this deal. If those independent directors acted out of sorts and in the wrong interest of the players and all that, but like starting your own tour and like doing all this, like honestly, good luck with all that, man. Like there's a lot of bodies buried. There's a lot of existing relationships. There's a lot of sign media deals that get you a fuck load of money when you go tee it up. And it's not as simple as probably they, that'd be my, that's my take. I don't know.

I, I saw that's a great point. But what I would push back on is, it's not so much like, we're going to break away. I would say, again, I'm going to put myself in the shoes of, of being a PGA tour player. I'm watching this hearing and it's like, man, I just got a note from Jay that he's coming back to work and he's feeling much better. But like, he's not up there. And like, he got like, he got like why I kind of think they're asking like, hey, can we vote on getting a new commissioner? Like I don't think they want to break away. I think they probably have, they probably know a lot of smart people.

There agents know a lot of smart people. Like I'm surprised the players haven't been like, you know what? Why don't we, why don't we just take over the ship for a while? And you know, not everybody, but like, you know, I'm not recommending they do that. I'm just saying, I gotta think that question's being asked. It, it, it's not, I'm wondering why. I think two side of the same things

and Jim Capri speak to this. The same populist sort of feelings that like make me hate my representative or whatever, even though I've elected him to sort of do my bidding or could very easily like surface in the future. A lot of the people who probably like voted for Ron Johnson voted for Cindy Blumenthal might also hate their guts because it like it doesn't function for me. Like I'm supposed to let them and have them do my bidding, but they don't.

They just go there and they grandstand, they make these deals in the dark, they talk to lobbyists, they serve their interests. I could totally see that happening with amongst the PGA tours, a bunch of rich guys being like, you know, what's screw this? Like we could do this much better, even though they might have no concept of the details and the hard work and the messiness involved in all of this. Yes, but I know I think they'll, you know, if the deal came together and there was, you know, to be a professional golfer, there's now one place to be a professional golfer and that's where there's tons of money now and you're going to be paid over and over again, you know, to be a professional golfer, there is now one place to be a professional golfer, and that's where there's tons of money now, and you're going to be paid over and over again. You know, I think there are feelings of

anger and kind of dismay pretty quick, and they'll just go back to playing golf for twice what they were paying for. Before. That's, if I'm, again, if I'm one of the top PGA tour players right now, and again, I could say, hey, the live threats going away, and a ton of a shitload of money is gonna come in and you don't have to like do the flash mobs And you don't have to go to Saudi Arabia. Hopefully to play golf if they're able to go shake that I'm like do this. Probably be a pretty fucking great place to play going forward

I and if there and if there's an equalization fund or something, you know some sort sort of reimbursement mechanism, even if it's just a pittance at least some some show of respect, you know, for having stayed in a vacuum. I agree with both of you. I just think there's a me just pontificating, but I just, to your point, you know, I think, I just see Jay's name keep coming up. And I'm like, God, he's not even, he's not even answering the questions today. Like it's, you know, again, I hope he is, all right, I don't know what's wrong with him.

I don't know what happened, but it's like, man, that's still like, hey, you know, if you're, if you're not there, like how are are we just going to sign you up to be the, the czar of golf, basically? Yeah. You can have empathy or sympathy for what Jay's going through health wise and still basically be cold blooded enough to be like, I want to do it. And if I'm a player, I've got to be thinking that, right? Like, man, the guy, he, like, seems like he can't handle the heat. So like, I got to find somebody that can. It seems like someone's head is going to have to roll after the way this is handled, after

the way people are kept in the dark and then had this switch of root played on them, you know. And I think just the idea of Monhan, who they think screwed it up to begin with getting a new title of another company. I mean, it was refreshing to hear Jimmy done say that. Like the comms were hand, I think he's just quote, like the comms were handled terribly. What did he say? He said, it said really bad, but I, it was very misleading and inaccurate,

which is everyone's fault. Like the, you know, the announcement was very misleading and inaccurate, which is everyone's fault. There is no merger, there is no deal. There's only an agreement to try and make a deal. And, and I thought they did do a good job, if that is true, which I understand to be. I thought they did a good job actually

really reinforcing that resetting what that was, that this was. But that doesn't give me a lot of confidence moving forward that like, hey, we can't even roll this out, like this announcement out, you know? And then you guys see, when you look at, you see catching strays on like, yeah, we're gonna set up a softball.

With the, you know, I mean, that was a, yeah, like, well, yeah, let's get the editorial director of CMBC at the end. It's just a hard question. And then you know, we'll go to this softball reporter, like naming that person, like, how's that person feel today? I know, that was so, that was from Liv's side, though.

That was from Michael Klein. Yeah, Michael Klein. And he was like, he was bullying Jimmy Dunn and they're like, we're doing it this way. And I get you got to think Dunn's like, God, what a circus that turned into. But yeah, it was so much, there was so much, I'm sorry, just one last but there was just so much optimism

in those initial talking points about, we've ended the golf wars. It's all over. We have this steel framework deal. We just need to iron out a few details because they were trying to project, just blow through all the haters kind of with this overwhelming force of happiness.

You know, they had their talking points like moving forward, solidarity, unity. And they didn't bother to explain, yeah, like they didn't bother to explain what was going on, which is they have an agreement to end lawsuits and then an agreement to talk further. Which, finally today, the guy ran to explaining. The tour's got to do that invisible ink thing

with some of these talking points, memos. They can't keep letting these get published. But so, the back of the monhanth thing, I think it's kind of a two-way street now. I've like, obviously, if there's a rejection of this proposal, which really isn't even Monhan's deal, it's more hurly-he-and-done's deal with Monhan signing off. A rejection of that is a rejection of this proposal, which really isn't even Monahan's deal. It's more hurly he and Duns deal with Monahan signing off. A rejection of that is a rejection of Jay, and that's the end of his tenure as the commissioner, right? I think that's pretty obvious, but I don't

know, I don't see how it makes sense to send this through the Jay plan, like the signature of all of this and putting Jay's name at the top and then also getting a new commissioner to fill that role, right? And I don't know how the deal goes through without replacing that name and I don't know if the tour slash the board is gonna put that through without with a new commissioners name on it. You know what I mean? Like I just think it's hard to accept that if the tour is the players end up accepting this deal to replace Jay off the top of it, I think that's a tricky. I find that to be tricky. Yeah.

And who wants that job? Who wants to walk into a job where they didn't make the deal and they just have to execute a plan that somebody else made? That's a fair statement. And I agree with your point of like, dude, I don't know if I would want that guy to lead like all of golf going forward. I don't know if I do. I would struggle lead like all of golf going forward. I don't know if I do. I would struggle to feel confident in that with all the howl. I mean, I really do think it's worth emphasizing how much better they fared with Ron Price and Jimmy Donnelly.

Sure. I was solid. Instead of Jay, I think Jay would have been sweating through his collar, you know, immediately. And just I he wouldn't have handled the, the, you know, interrupting questions, you know, immediately. And just, I, I, he wouldn't have handled the, the, you know, interrupting questions, you know, trying to, like, those senators, they're like, they're a dog on a bone, man, when they don't, they just kind of come at the same question a million times. And it, it, it, it seems like it'd be very easy to get flustered. They know you're prepared and they know the only way to break you from that is to kind of interrupt your rhythm. So stop you halfway here or stop you halfway there.

And then maybe you get frustrated and you admit something you don't want to. Or you just frustrate them and make them look like they're hiding something when they're really just confused, which I think is what, how Ron Price felt when Holly was going after him about China. But that was sick. Will, you condemn.

It, he sounded like us when we talk about airlines of like, so and so that American Airlines lost their back, Sally, will you condemn it. He sounded like us when we talk about airlines of like so and so that American Airlines lost their back. Solly will you condemn this? Well, that's a look into our internal slats, which hopefully that was looking subpoenaed. But I, I'll say this, solid quick digression. I just want to ask Jim, who is, who is the, who has gotten the most flustered, even to a lot of these hearings? Who is, who's just freaked the fuck out? Oh my goodness. I don't know. I wish I prepared for this question. You want to thank on it for thank on it for once.

Yeah, good. I was wondering that Ron Price was going the most I've seen sometimes in you know, like Supreme Court justice hearings where they really even though they've been through 30 hours or 30 days of murder boards, they're still just someone has something and they are just kind of blank

staring and then there's a headline like after you know 12 hours of watching this hearing until they like they had nothing on that question when it was probably just you know they had a little bit of a brain fart and you can see that I don't know I saw that with you know cap not and with Amy Coney Barrett couldn't remember like the Fourth Amendment or something. I remember she was like, forgot like one of the three principles of something. Yeah, then there's a press conference like she cannot be confirmed. But yeah, there's I mean, there was there. A couple of those recently where Judicial nominees asked her explain like what article two of

the Constitution is and they are like, I don't know. what article two of the constitution is and they are like, I don't know. I'll say this about Ron. He answered the questions. And with a period at the end, there was no bloviating. He wasn't going to over speak. He was going to answer the questions and confidently with no emotion at any point. He showed no emotion at any point. And it was like, I could see Jay in that spot would have said too much. He almost always says too much. That's how you end up saying things like we're going to take a competitor off the board and stuff you just end up regretting. And there's, I would say there's nothing in what Ron said that they're looking at tonight

and being like, oh, shit, that shouldn't have got out there. It felt like, if they, if anything, Jimmy seemed flustered at times. Well, I was going to say Jimmy, he was like a tightrope. Yeah. Because he would, there always be this pause and like his hands would go up. And like every picture that, you know, on golf channel afterwards, it was always like a tightrope. Because there always be this pause and like his hands would go up. And like every picture that, you know, on golf channel afterwards, it was always like a picture, Jimmy,

like with his hands up here, or like going like this, you know, and it's just, you're almost like holding your breath, like, what's he gonna say? You know, he's like, because he'd be like, Senator, you know, he'd be like, I find it hard to hate a guy you play golf with. I find it very hard.

I just think, you know, sunlight is the best cure for everything. You know, it's like, okay, where are we going with this? Ah! I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I. There's a bunch of he has a bunch of charisma with that. I can see how after a while though that can that can probably rub people the wrong way. I'm like, man, what's this guy talking about? You know, like this is the guy that's that's orchestrating this deal. Like if again, back to being a PGA tour player, it's like, man, we got like, what are we, what is going on up here? This is this is kind of like, I mean, it's a circus, man, is kind of what I'm getting at.

And then, you know, golf channel, you got to bring it on like foreign policy experts and, you know, rich learners. That's the, if anyone watched golf channel today, was there anyone watching all day? It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, I know, I was saying, they, they had, they have like a little booth at the Capitol, or were they, where they had their headquarters?

No, rich, well, they were at the headquarters, but then they go to rich learner who was like on a perch like over it looked like he was overlooking the, you know, the chamber. And he's has like this guy Michael Allen, like foreign policy expert. This guy's just got this like crazy expression on his face the whole time talking about Saudi Arabia. I mean, it was hoping I would see I would I saw rich learner being the capo. I was hoping I'd seem in the room, but I do actually know the staging area, probably where it he had blumenthal on afterwards too, and it was a decently intense back and forth of you know But minority investments in Uber and meta like the whole Conversation we've had back and forth so many times and heard so many times. I thought Rich did a great job

I mean, you know, it really did like they cut to him and he'd have kind of a heavyweight ready to go. So I thought a note I had was that Blue Minfel seemed to get a little tripped up between what he kept calling side agreements in this deal versus like what was, I think, just originally proposed at one point and not agreed upon, not made it into the final agreement. It sounded like when they started the show, let's call it the show. It sounded like there was all these side agreements so I was like, oh, here we go. Like let's hear what the actual agreement was,

but nothing seems to have been signed into effect that was actually a side agreement. I think that part was a little bit confusing if you watched the whole thing. But it was like he was pulling it out. Like the one about Norman, like the Norman one. The Norman one. A lot of the stuff that was proposed from the Saudi,

like the talk about a tournament being in Saudi Arabia was right off the very upfront. It was mentioned as being in a side agreement. When in reality, that was just in the best case proposal, best of both worlds proposal from the South. Yeah, I thought there was a lot of actual misreporting of the best of both world proposal today, because I was very clear, if you went through,

that was just an early wishless thing where their vision was, we will co-run golf together, and then each bullet point was actually like, no, but really we'll run the whole thing. But yeah, that wasn't not much of that advanced very far. We've got a long ways without addressing how the, you know, the cocaine in the White House and the biological men that are immersing how that affects how this deal is going to go further along with China's enslavement of Muslims as well from Senator Marshall.

But also Shout out to Gary Woodland was made from him as well, which I did not. Shout out to Rex Ryan. I mean, Roger Marshall had quite the smile poppin, man. Shout out to to Rex Ryan. I mean, Roger Marshall had quite the smile, poppin, man. Like, I kept getting blinded by the, by the veneers up on the, up on the stand. That was impressive stuff. It was, it was a window into what your life is probably like, Jim, because I watched like one of these centers pop in and just do their thing. And I'm like, dude, that wasn't about anything we're talking about. Or, or, and then go fall. Same thing. Just go to their profile on Twitter. And it's that two minute clip of them doing that.

It goes back to their constituents. It's like, ah, God, I totally, it's so sweet. No, I mean, if I've been watching golf media and golf Twitter the last year or so, just slowly see a little bit more of what my world is like. And like a tweet where you mentioned a path, something you touch as politics and you get crazy responses and you're like,

what did I do? And I was like, oh God, it's happening to them. I feel so bad for them. They have no idea what they're in for. And today was the apotheosis of that. Like it's fully merged. I feel so bad for you guys. Well, I would say this though, just on a lot of notes.

I like this shit. You don't want this. There is, this is, like I said off the top. I mean, it is great theater. Like even some of the names in this document dump, like you got Michael Devlin, the president of the Sunningdale, like he's the one brokering the initial meeting and the back and forth with him and Jimmy Dunn about getting a cup of coffee and what was the line of think, Jimmy, you had in your- Those super videos.

It was like Roger Devlin being like golf could be torn a thunder in proximity. Yeah. Just the way certain people write emails, like a window into powerful people trying to get business done. Or you know, this woman Amanda's stavely, who seems to be a power player, you know, on behalf of the the P PIF and, and with the, the stuff in the

Premier League, just seeing the way, like how she builds a deck, how she, you know, how she writes emails, like, it's just, it's kind of a really, it sucks for the people involved, but it's kind of a window into how this stuff gets done, which I found fascinating. Which the timeline's interesting, too, because the, the correspondence between him and Jimmy starts back in December of 2022 and Jimmy pretty clearly communicates like, yeah, I'm not interested at the moment. And then there's some favorable court hearings both for the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour between that and April and all of a sudden when the next inquiry comes in for a conversation, Jimmy's interest in having the conversation.

So the I think too we haven't even talked about the Rory meeting in Dubai. Yes, it definitely said this off. I mean, was, I didn't know if that was new. I thought that was in Rory had said that he, Bray had said, and I look, I think this was public that he said this, that he had met with Rioser and you know, he had previous points. He certainly said I've met with him in a press conference at one point. He didn't get specific about this Dubai meeting, but it seemed like that was somewhat news that he was sort of there at least to listen to. Some of it is to sort of like look if this Audi is going to keep spending money in golf that I would prefer that they spend it with us.

I mean, that's a press conference quote that I think that that sort of maybe hinted at the fact that there was some willingness to listen to the proposals. I mean, he has made it pretty clear. I think that he, you know, has some moral objections to some of this. And, you know, probably wouldn't play tournaments inside of your ABA going forward. And, you know, I think it's be interesting. I'd love to hear his thoughts. Probably going to try to track him down at the Open Championship next week and see what he thinks about some of this. But, um, yeah, that was a little bit some not surprising to me, but I think that that certainly was a news thing that he had been one of the catalysts that had kicked us forward to this point. Yeah. I, I feel like I at least knew or I didn't know that this had happened and I thought this was

relatively public information, but I think it could have been. I think it was a little more detail. Yeah, because I remember Roy saying, yeah, I had met with him in Dubai, but yeah, and him also saying that, you know, players who didn't go to live would need to be made whole in some way. Was another thing you said.

And so just for reference here for people that haven't combed through 276 pages of documents, the initial meeting happened in April. That was the London meeting that happened between Jimmy and Yasser and a lot of people that we've mentioned so far that there was a meeting in Venice, Italy, May 11, in 12th, that was Jimmy Dunn, Ed Hurley, he in Monahan with Yasser, Mohanad Abeled,

and Brian Julepski, and then from the PCP partners, Amanda Stavley, and Merad Abel-Ed and Brian Julepski. And then from the PCP partners Amanda Stavley and Merad Gaudowsi, as well as Michael Klein. And then at the end of May, May 28th through 30th, there was a San Francisco meeting with Jimmy, Ed, and Jay, and John Wolff from the PGA tourside, as soon as it's a lawyer. Yasser, the same people from Piff, and then Keith Pelley was involved in that,

the same PCP partners, and then Michael Klein as well. And then finally, June 5th and 6th in New York was Jimmy at Herley, he, Jaymon, Han John, Wolf and Lauren Neal from the tour side, Yasser and Kevin Foster from the Piff side as well as Stephen Cohen was also involved in that. It's a true hitters, hitters throw there. I mean there's there's stuff in there from like the vision 2030 deck and how like, you know, it's it's talking about Yosser's background. He's really close with Ray Dalio, Ray Bada House and Riyadh next to Yosser, their regular pals. There's emails in there of like some dad joke, because Ron Price and Jay loving that Jimmy's going to the Grand Prix in Monaco

and like, oh, nothing better than Jimmy and legendary. Hey, just like tough. I didn't really appreciate as a reporter having to go through this at like 11 o'clock last night, getting to page six year, whatever. And then, and then they're being one email from JV to J being like, this is interesting. It's just like the brochure about Vision 2030. It takes up so much in the document. I was like, okay, now we can crew it's a little bit. Well,

I was like, hopefully that this is not the first you guys have seen of this because I've seen this and I am not a gesture. No, that was another concern. It's like this year this year, you're learning about Saudi Arabia's long term plans. Okay, interesting. These

guys got some really cool stuff going on. You heard about the old. Yeah, when I was in the own place, man, they're going to have kids swimming to school every day and a ski hill and everything Guys, I think there's an important question. We haven't answered yet. This is what will Tigers live team. I thought it was gonna be what about Chaita I think let's think it maybe like you know the iron sides or like the renegades or the ghosts, you know ghost riders Something that I mean, I was a huge rafting

That's what it's totally gonna be the Ra, you know, ghost writers, some of that. The writers. I mean, I was a huge rough. That's what it's totally going to be the raiders. You can get to give you one second. Yeah. We're just working on, you know, surprise tactics. I don't know. We're being, you know, well, maybe the seals, uh, seals. I could see that as well. Um, any other details, uh, stick out that we, that Jim, neither to you that, uh, that we haven't covered yet.

I, I, I want to run through it in And the June 6 release was the must call this from each side. For Keith Pelley, it was Rolex, DP World, Johann Rupert, Dr. Moonjall, and Martin Slumberz, and Jay's was Rory and Tiger, Rolex again, FedEx, RBC, golf orgs and broadcast partners. Just thought that was interesting. So I mean, one thing that was interesting was that they wanted to delay this in part because Jay wanted to tell Rory and Tyga in person on the fifth, but then we're

going to go on the call is on the six. So did that. It does not look like that fifth meeting ever happened. Right. Okay. I don't know because they have I don't know how that would work because they were in New York for this meeting. I don't know because they, I don't know how that would have worked because they were in New York for this meeting. I don't know when they would have seen Tiger at Casa Sipriani. It sounds like that's a meeting space set up. I think I would have pulled Fred Ridley out of the golf orgs bucket list and before I started bringing them. Well, but then there's some other interesting stuff. They had this whole rollout plan where they were going to have Roger Gidell and the head head of F1, we're going to like release statements in support of this.

And then it sounds like from an email from Michael Klein to Jimmy Dunn. Klein's just like kind of bullies it into like, we got to go now. We're doing the CNBC thing tomorrow. It's a softball. Like we got to get out in front of this so the haters and losers don't like control the narrative. And that kind of nuke the timeline of the Monday meeting and some of the other stuff they wanted to do. I just curious what the haters and losers like scenario is

for them. Like who did they think was going to sort of criticize this to the point where, you know, it was gonna fall apart or what was there a sort of worry about that? Because they couldn't really couldn't have handled it any worse. I think from a sort of rollout perspective with their own membership with the media in general, like I really wonder what their worry was.

Like the New York Times op-ed page was gonna rip it. Like Ross Doe had was gonna write a fucking thing about it. Like what is the scenario here where they're their worst case scenario about it? I don't get it. I guess it's that it, I mean, it's probably all the stuff that they completely went through it.

No, it's all the stuff that's happening now probably all the stuff that they flew my thoughts into it. No, it's all the stuff that's happening now. It just happens before they're able to like make a big splash. Maybe it was going to say, it's the worst thing is if they could have announced it as a merger. If somebody would have been like,

if somebody would have had it wrong and said merger, which is exactly what ended up happening. God, seriously, some port PGA tour like in turn was like coding that headline and like just was like, oh yeah, merge, I mean, that means merger, right? Like I'm like the massive like dominoes that fall after that because of some like low paid employees, hilarious to me.

I also, one other thing I'd point out, I don't know how much time you guys have left, but just the, the, do you have, you have left? Yeah, seriously. We always say an hour and then we end up going for school. I never want this to end.

But note, the Q&A prep section of the documents where it's part of their whole release package of what they're going to do when the deal is announced and when they have interviews. And if Q&A prep, which I gather is for Jay Monahan, and I just found it kind of, you know, I know comms is a dirty business, but there was like four questions

that they had anticipated about the 9-11 families about Jamal Kashoggi, about Saudi Arabia's human rights record and it was broken down the way it was listed. It was like, if pressed, refer back to this. If pressed again, go to this. Which I thought was so... It's very solous. It's kind of, I know that that's their job

as con people to do, but it is very cold when you actually read that in person, especially as a reporter when I'm like, oh, this is what they're always doing on the other side, but also, I still feel like Jay didn't handle it well when asked about that in the interviews. So here's maybe a couple more follow ups. Good work. Well, just to be clear on all of this, this is the part where the PGA tour and their

execs and everyone that has to speak on this ever has to just eat shit because there's no good answer to any of this. You are complicit in sports washing. That's still 100% of what's happening here. Nothing has changed on that front. The Saudis are going to get out of this probably what they want. Again, this is this whole conversation is assuming this deal goes through. Like all these conversations are, but it's not any different than when you,

you said the quiet part last year, like you said the part out loud, the parts of concerns, the human rights concerns, Saudi Arabia are not going away because of this. And that's the hardest part of the Senate hearing for those guys is to take those questions from Blumenthal. Blumenthal was spot on by asking about him. He's on the nose by what the Saudis are hoping to get out of it. There are 100% still trying to sports watch their image. There's not a good answer to any of that.

And that's the part that there is like going to the other tour players for what you should say, dude, I'm sorry, there's not a good answer here. This is what And that's the part that there is, like going to the other tour players for what you should say, dude, I'm sorry, there's not a good answer here. This is what's happening. Do you want the money or not? I don't want to have a good backup option that not wanting the money, but this is what's going to come with the money as questions like this.

When it comes to like, you know, blowing up buildings or torturing people, there really aren't good answers. And you can see that like in the live press conference too, and from the flip side of it, it was like them repeating over the same talking, but no one here supports human rights violations. Like, to be clear, we're here to, I mean,

Grammack Dow, like basically, like, nuke this entire reputation by trying to go forward and being like, acknowledge some of the points of like, hey, look, I understand the Kishoggi situation. It was reprehensible. We're here to play golf, and we feel like we some of the points of like, hey, look, I understand the Kishogi situation. It was reprehensible. We're here to play golf. We're here to play golf, and we really can grow the game. Like, Graham, if you're listening, you did that yourself.

The media didn't destroy your reputation. You were the one who sort of went out there, and we had zero to do with the broader public sort of understanding of what you were pushing. But I just find that, like, in the end, there's no good answers to that stuff. And that's your shall I write you got it if you want to write on that die on that hill, you got to eat shit on it. And it just kind of maps out like basically guessing you'll be asked once

with two follow ups and then the let it go just say it over a couple of times, it'll move on. And that's where like which is some of these questions, you know, our players are okay. No, they know us. It's really scary. I'm not guess one, two, are your players okay with this? I've heard some are furious. I see that in there. It's like, again, I would go back to the players. Like, what's what is option B here? What is it?

Like layout option B for me right now. Do you want to play for 40% of the purse money and just say F the Saudis and probably lose more top players? Like, is that what what is option B? I want to hear a proposal from a player that is not in support of this deal to be like, again, you have to eat shit on all the other stuff. None of that's changed, but this is the situation that you're now in. What is the other option right now? I think I would, okay. So I'll pay to advocate and say the other option is, is basically hope that you can take Tiger and you can raise a bunch

of private equity money and basically be like, no, this is what we're going to have our own tour going forward. You're essentially walking away from BJ tour and splintering into something different and hopeful that Tiger and Rory are willing to come with you and do that and basically say whatever, it's not really about the morals, it's about the control of things going forward, that that's what we're going to sort of roll the dice with going forward. And the majors are all that really matter and so we'll let that sort of be what we hang history on, but in terms of the money making operation, we're going to sort of rethink this into. Okay, that would be what if you're peat amount naughty? I think you're screwed

in that sense, unless you are need seatholders for the future of this other tour going forward, I mean, like no one's buying a ticket to see Patrick Cantley, much less Peter Monardi. So like you need to sort of, I guess, decide that, all right, we needed a hundred people to come and we feel like the sort of strength of us in a union or something going forward in forming a new thing is like larger than the individuals of us going forward.

I mean, why did various things like the NFL splinter, the AFL, the AFL, those various, over this course of sports history, those entities learned that like their collective bargaining power was greater together than it was as individuals. And so if you could, I guess, convince a bunch of like super capitalists that they would benefit them, I could see that being an option B that they could get some serious private equity money and say, all right, like this is going to be half an indoor league, half an outdoor league. And Tiger is going to be at the fight in front of this. All anybody

gives a shit about his tiger anyway. That's what we want to go to because we can control that going forward. And we don't have to sort of answer to the other stuff. I don't think it would work. but I think that that's an option that they might sort of entertain. I feel like anything with private equity money is not going to involve writing Peter Monotti checks with two commas in them. I'm sorry to use Peter, but he's a representative on the board and has used the metaphor of the Peter Monotti's of the world.

So I think I think if I'm interested in breaking out private equity, wise for golf, I don't think it's going to include 30 guys subsidizing another 170, which is what happens on the PJ tour. So now we're talking about all the work that like Rory has done has been like look, has it benefited the top players? Yes. But he could have easily at any point at the last couple of years done, but a lot of the live guys have done and flip birds at the rest of the professional golf population and gone often done something a lot more selfish. And it's not been, that's, that's a, that was a sticking point with the PGL, something they learned of like, we're not going to get players to break away, all of them to break away because they don't want to like turn to their peer next to them and have totally fucked them, right? So these guys turned down

the opportunity the first time to kind of turn their back on the rest of the professional golf population. Is it a different scenario? Maybe it is. Maybe they feel differently. Maybe they do want to break out now at this point. But there's also a cold blooded nature of like Tiger Woods having his own PGA tour event now. And now is he going to break off from the PGA tour? And is it going to cease to exist? That's a big, that's a pretty damn big hurdle to clear versus the other one being like, hey, it's gonna potentially possibly reunify the golf world again with a lot of fucking money in it. I don't know. It, I think there's still a lot

of emotion in it, a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of, you know, I missed out on this bag and maybe these guys are going to be able to come back and play the same tournaments I have and they will've made more money from it than I did. So, that's why that's what I get back to. I think it's more simple. It's like some heads after a role. So, I don't think it's a breakaway thing. I think it's more like, do they let sacrifice me. Yeah, do they exert their influence on the board? Do they start like, you know, hey, what did they do say now we're just going to vote it down and let things run out this year.

And we'll see maybe they start up another try with the PIF and some other private equity involved. That's all speculation, obviously. But I got to think the players are kind of pissed at the guys managing this. That's where that's kind of what I got out of today. Definitely. Definitely. That's what I got out of today. I would be. One thing I can't quite square is why if live was willing to dump five billion more dollars into this, were they skimping on basic things like paying some of their bills?

You know, why were they sort of, we were hearing stuff all, you know, spring about how they weren't meeting certain obligations and some of the sort of money that they were supposed to get to the captain's wasn't wasn't coming through like it was supposed to and they cut off the travel expenses for the caddies and the families and you know all of these things that were sort of indications of like, okay, well, there's momentum is not building. Why was Liv drawing the line there and sort of saying, like, all right, no, we have these comms people who are working for us or whatever, who we're just, we're not gonna pay. Just because. I think that's because they can. Yeah.

Truly because, and probably because it's like, I don't wanna deal with this headache, and this is little stuff. It's like they wanna work on big deals and fun deals, and that's boring operational organizational bullshit that they probably realized the year in, like this sucks. And you know, why are we, like I'd rather go spend a bunch of money and make a big splash over here

and get on CNBC and, and you know, get credibility. I'll spend, they'll spend money on that, but like yeah, they don't want to pay caters. Like that's, you know, it's like, I got to think it's like any rich people stiff people all the time. Yeah. You know, take us to take us to court, figure it out. Yeah, yeah, come get 40% of what we owe you anyway. You know, subpoena me, you know, dick, bloomin' thal, you know, like what, what, what, like we said earlier, like I don't think they, they give a shit. Can we get to a couple of listener questions before we wrap here? We've answered some of them.

We got asked about private equity money, potential investment groups, blah, blah, blah, blah. But from unqualified CFP says, what happens if the deal doesn't go through? What do you guys think happens if the deal doesn't go through? Pain, chaos. I can't tell if I'm rooting for it to go through because that's the easiest solution in all of this.

It's like, I really still don't know what I think. But I don't think at all, I don't think if I'm rooting for it to go through because that's the easiest solution in all of this It's like I really still don't know what I think But I I don't think at all I don't think it's worth like falls apart completely like I think there's enough money in the coffers It like the 2024 season happens. I think I Don't think it would get What I wonder is if it doesn't go through is there a massive amount of animosity What I wonder is if it doesn't go through, is there a massive amount of animosity? You know, because the litigation can't start over. So then the tors just continue to do their thing.

So that's where it's like, do they just try to restart a new deal and rework it? You know, and make Saudis like a lesser entity so that they can get whatever the reason it falls apart, like they get other people involved to answer those issues. Well done to something in the hearing about how, you know, if it falls apart and we have to go back to compete, then that's what we'll do. We'll go back to competing, but, you know, I think they've kind of exposed themselves quite a bit here in this hearing, especially where they were saying, we can't keep up. It's an existential threat. We have nothing to do but do this.

I don't think that gives you a ton of leverage when you're in an active negotiation to say that we have no alternative here. So. But also, like if I'm not... I don't know. I guess maybe that is where a private equity option does come in, where if you need to go back to competing

and you need some reinforcements to get you through another few years until you think Liv might lose interest or something. I mean, that's, that's, I don't know if that's the only way. But also, I still come back to for Liv. What leverage do you really have when like, again, when you look at it, what is the actual goal of this, right? It's not for Liv golf to be successful and profitable because there's no path to that without getting all of the players. They've basically said that

as much through their consultants, right? So going back to competing for them is just going to involve them still lighting a ton of money on fire and not gaining the leverage they want out of the golf world. Like the end of all of this is not, you know, to see the competitive balance of the cleaks and the iron heads restored of the league and a great comeback story of the cleaks, right? It's, there's a bigger play here for all of this and what do you, live as your way into this position of influence with a recognized and respectable

and reputable global tour or somewhat global tour? But if this falls apart, you know, and then, I don't know, if you go back to square one and, and Jay Monhan, whoever is saying, well, I guess, I guess you're speculating he'd be gone in that case. But whoever they're saying, well, we still need to stay loyal to the tour. What tour players going to believe that anymore?

So then there would be much more of a rush to live. And then, you know, maybe you could come back and sue for another piece, but it would be much more in lives terms. So I don't think Liv wants to take the call to St. Patrick Cantler whenever I'll day. But maybe they do get, I don't know, the majority on the board and they deputize the PGA to just kind of run the vending machines or something.

I wonder from the live perspective, if, okay, so let's say it falls apart, what is it that makes your entity take off at this point? Because what was holding it back before? I still don't think you're going to get Rory or maybe you get you get Ron, whatever. But the ratings are so shitty and like outside of Spain or Australia, like the attendance has been pretty middling or given away tickets, whatever. Does that change in the future? Like is there suddenly a ground swell of like, oh, well, now the PGA tour did say the Saudis were acceptable, it just couldn't work out.

So now I want to go be a live fan. Like I'm struggling to get to the next point where like live is successful and what that looks like. We even with another $3 billion to sort of dumped in because for whatever Pete reason, people are resisting it. And I don't think that it's entirely the moral reasons. I think it's more players, you know, more big names and probably like if they were able to land a legitimate broadcast deal, you know, if that made

Viacom or NBC, you know, say, well, you know, the PJ Tours gonna work with them. So this could be good, you know Brawm or Rory left. So why like what we don't, you know, we don't have an issue with this anymore. I don't know. It is strange though, just the the the complete lack of this anymore. I don't know. It is strange, though, just the the complete lack of history or context of some of these events, even if you had the top 50 players in the world, you know, notwithstanding OWGR points, but if you had everyone doing a live event that's three days long or whatever, at Orge Valley National or Lando golf links or whatever it is, Valley National Orlando golf links or whatever it is. I mean, there's no. It's a

pretty good one. It was something like that. I mean, yeah, there's still it's not like, okay, all the good players are there now. I guess this means it's going to be a thrilling thing to watch. I don't know. It just stills

feels air airy and it's kind of like the replacement players of the 94 baseball strike. Right of like everyone replacement players of the 94 baseball strike, right? Of like everyone's playing really fast and loose with people's interest in professional golf, right? People are fucking busy. People have other things to do.

And if this falls apart, I don't think like a ton of people that like flipping on PGA tour on Sundays are going to necessarily try to find the CW and like find that as their entertainment on a Sunday. I just don't, I don't think it translates that easily. Like human behavior is really weird. The reason why these golf events still have to happen on CBS and NBC is just because all people put those channels on and the ratings are way higher on CBS and NBC than they are on golf channel just because of people's habits, right? And it just takes so long to change that over. It really does. And again, that's important because that's where value comes from in these franchises.

And again, it just all ties back to like why would live continued to invest in that if it doesn't give them a path to what they actually want, which again, is I think is still a huge part of all this. But I'm willing to offer Yasser membership at Mirfield, but not a cast to get this deal done. Like we'll go with RNA. I'll go maybe a hoi lake, but not the can't go Fisher's Island. Sorry. The big Mike will 22. What does this mean for Minotaur points? I've not heard anyone try to talk about the Minotaur in any of this. Just completely the forgotten man. And of course, can sport 171? How early are we in this?

And what about shorts? Are we gonna, are the PJ Twerp players gonna be a lot of wear shorts when they play? I'm curious about that. Yeah, man. I would not be surprised if they are actually negotiating that. Like maybe they are actually having that discussion talks.

Josh Hall has written a lot about manhood, Jim. I feel like the shorts discussion could have come up today in this. I know. I know. There's like little boys out there. But there's short pants. My staffers coming up with something here. So wait, you're telling me, you don't have plans for PGA tour China to come back. That's what you're telling me right now. PGA tour China is not coming back. Will you condemn the treatment of the Wigers? Will you condemn it right now? How about Holly's aid? He had the bangs going. The people watching on what's going on behind Senator Rand Paul and the socks that the aids wear in for Blumenthal.

There's just a lot of a lot of good stuff to be had on C-SPAN. The people watching in the room, I mean, there was like just, you know, a lot of the public came in for this one. There's just a guy like reading his newspaper the whole time. That's sick. God, Congress is such an insane, dysfunctional, amazing body. Well, I know, and I do love also, you know, the people watching when it ends, Jimmy Don gave it to give a polite handshake to Blumenthal, but then, you know, Ron Johnson comes down

and done and price are both like, my guy, like full, like, bear hugs, you know, Ron Johnson comes down and done and price are both like my guy like full like bear hugs, you know. I think they know. I think they'd had some meetings ahead of time. Just the whole like how shameless or how obvious these guys are and like pushing their agendas as a viewer as if like for not first time viewer, but it's very frustrating. It's like so transparent and frustrating to watch. I don't know.

I don't wanna comment too much, but it's just like, you almost have to be a freaking sociopath to wanna be in politics. I just think that sucks. Just that general statement, put it out there, like that just fucking stinks. Like all of you guys are fucking wire different. Like, it's just like, we need,

I need Katie Porter to win the fine scene seats. She can bring her whiteboard to the next thing. I'm just kidding. The next thing, like, yeah, this is why we need, I need Katie Porter to win the fine scene seats. So she can bring her whiteboard to the next thing, or just do the next thing like freaking. You know, whiteboard and get some of these like, they're, they're also freaking old or their nut jobs or their young nut, they're not your young weirdos or they're too old. It depends to on your ambitions, you know, like Holly, obviously is thinking about something a little higher than the Senate.

So he is trying to, you know, just shoot or shine into this and how the DT George complicit with China. What do you know? China is a literal about China moment. It's kind of like goes back to the Batman. It's a quit making moment. Yeah. I know.

And it's just like it's it's how I feel about politicians. So the Batman quote of like, I don't want the Joker. I want whoever set him up the leash. Like it's the, it's the election. It's a people that elect these people that no, you're right. I'm representing the group of people. That's the part that has been super demoralizing to me. But, um, well, I had one last while you're thinking.

So I, one last note, I forgot to mention this during the, the, uh, best of both worlds proposal. What it reminded me of it initially when I read it was the scene from the movie Armageddon when Harry Stamper Squad is negotiating what they want to go to the asteroid to drill and blow that thing up. You know, they're like, yeah, and they never want to pay taxes again. And it's just like, it billybob thorns like,

yeah, I think we can work on some of that. I just imagine the reaction in the first meeting of like going through that deck and the PGA tour squad be like, are you fucking kidding me, man? Like this is ridiculous. I remember what I was gonna say. I'll nodding along with both Blooming Thaw and Johnson, which is kind of wild, I think,

but it's a lot of what Johnson said about, hey, like, I don't, let's go ahead. Let's call it anti-trust. I don't care, but like that's the thing we need in sports. Like we need all of the competitors playing in one place. And I don't know how to phrase it any other way than like, yes, let's figure out a way like we'll call it antitrust, but let's ignore it. Right. Because it's the best thing for the sport was like, yeah, dude, like that is actually representative of how I feel about caring about professional golf. Right. I want to watch the top players compete yet at the same time, like, Bloomington all talking about these Saudis, you know, influence through blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that was like, yeah, dude, like that's, that's, that's a thing.

That's a totally a thing here. So, uh, so what's the next step here? So is there Jim, you know, like, what's the next date? What's the next, what happens next? They haven't scheduled anything next. I guess they're just gonna keep, I don't know, maybe they'll try to set a new hearing with some of the live guys, but he was like, we're gonna keep digging.

So I don't know. I think like Blumenthal, because he was, you know, he's very focused on this because of his history and coalitions he represents and it's good relationships with. I mean, he's from Western Connecticut near New York City. It's very close to the 9-11 families.

Probably knows a lot of people who were in 9-11, like in the city, working in the city. He's been very critical of Saudi foreign policy. So I think even if he doesn't think he's going to change the course of history in golf by getting this overturned, he's doing his constituents and his coalitions of favor by shining a spotlight on this. So I don't know exactly how far he takes it. I mean, I think he wants to gin up enough resentment

that this kills the deal. I don't think, and I talked to him when he launched this, and I asked him, will have you worried about, you know, what would be left in the wake if this deal was killed? And he had not thought about that. He was like, I. It's not my problem, you know?

I'm a chair, not my problem. He was like, I, I, it's not my problem, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know, uh, how he plans to expand this, but the Saudi Arabia issue aside, his broader point about how sovereign wealth funds You know especially Saudi Arabia's which has grown what? 20 times in the last 10 years or something and it's just kind of going around and buying Institutions and having influence, you know, I don't think it's xenophobic to want to take a look at that you know, these are repressive regimes and And and there's no real controls on that whatsoever. So I think he wants to get a conversation started about that trend. And the jump from owning teams to owning leagues is a tough one for me, which is where that

live was always a struggle. I guess my question is the antitrust is the other shoe. And so that doesn't come until there's an actual deal. Right now we have a deal framework. We have a agreement to drop litigation, but does the DOJ wait until there's a deal on the table? Do they wait until that deal? They basically send it to the DOJ for like approval? What's that look like? Well, I think the DOJ is looking into it

and then the DOJ, I hope we don't get this wrong. And the DOJ wanted to block it. They would sue to block it. So I don't know if it would get that far. Part of me also wonders, I'm a little conspiratorial about all this too. If this is kind of above like the antitrust division or the FTC's pay grade, you know?

I mean, US relationship with Saudi Arabia is like very rocky here. You know, maybe there's certain. And that's what that guy Michael Allen was talking about to Rich Learner of like, this is a soft power play. It's probably like in the best national interest of the US. If you're looking at this in a very soulless way of like bare hugging with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If you want the Saudis, you know, to increase oil production, you know, do you do you kill this thing? Um, I still can't believe it's a golf podcast. Like it's so fun. Yeah, don't don't worry about getting into strong gym because we don't fact check the last half hour. Yeah. That's just, that's philosophically, we've fairly self that. I'm asking all that is

like, I'm trying to figure out like, what's the next step here is like, okay, it almost sounds like the ball is in the PGA tour, you know, Piff court of like, you guys, yeah, let's see what they could do. What they could do together. Yeah, like, let's see the deal. Like, what'd you come up with? Like, when, you know, because that, I don't feel like the DOJ would do anything until they have a deal to like sue against. Whatever.

And if it happens, I hope we get more emails about how the with with track changes of revisions to see how this was negotiated and sorted out that that informed so much stuff. I'm going to spend more time in the traffic changes honestly because the first thing I looked into kind of ended up being pretty damn huge if you asked me and I'm sure there's more stuff in there that's worth checking out. So if you haven't read it, we have tweeted out the links to all the documents that we've been talking about in there. We'll probably drop a link as well in the show notes as well. So highlight some stuff on Twitter. And you can find read Jim's piece. Jim's piece as well. He posted had a piece today. And so this would be yesterday.

If you're listening to this and a piece today now on the 12th, if you are on Wednesday, if you're reading this as well is one you can follow Jim at Jim Nuel. Is that do I have your handle right for on Twitter? At Jim underscore at Jim underscore Nuel as well and what about threads? What I keep forgetting about threads? Same on threads on the same on threads. We need to we need to may I'd be able to automate posts between the two. I can't keep up with both. I need an intern. I need some help. Sounds like a business opportunity to make the two sites. I don't think Zuck and Elon are seeing head-to-head eye

on this. Well, they might end up on seed. They may need to play around a golf together. I think that's what they got to do. Yeah, come on. Cage match. Cage match. Softball interview on CNBC.

Let's go. Let's go. So Jam, well, thanks so much for some provides min sites that we could not have done ourselves. We greatly appreciated your your insights here tonight. Yeah, thanks for having me on this a lot of fun. We'll just keep you on retainer from now on, Jim. We'll get sending you like a sweatshirt here and there and you'll just keep coming back. All right, big promises. You can't have any like 20 of these and we offered

him a job. So you never know what will end up happening. If this deal stretches out for a few years, they need it. So gentlemen, good night. Thanks so much. And thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll see you back here regularly scheduled show. We've actually bonus episode this week. The schedule for tonight with Martin Ebert talking about where Liverpool changes for Open Championship next week,

which is about the golf. If you want to hear about the golf, that will be about the golf. We'll do Scotch open and whatnot recap this weekend. So thanks for tuning in. See you next week. Cheers That's better than most That is better than most Better than most

Better than most.