The sports world was shocked Tuesday morning to learn that the PGA Tour, the DP Tour and LIV Golf would be merging, ending an ongoing litany of litigation over the upstart, Saudi-backed league.
In addition to the ending of the lawsuits, the three golf tours will now come together as one entity backed financially by the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
On his BetRivers podcast on Tuesday, Mike Francesa said the golf world now is in Saudi hands.
"This is the future of golf. It might not sit with you well, you might be very upset about it," he said. "The bottom line is that it is over. The PGA sold out. There's no other way to say it."
There have been mixed reactions to the news, especially considering the PGA and its players spent a year railing against LIV Golf for poaching some high-profile names with tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in signing bonuses.
Francesa said the spending power of the PIF is unending.
"Your partner is a bottomless pit of cash, and the Saudis have made it very clear. Their stake in the world is through sports," he said. "They have their eye on tennis, they've already gone into soccer in a big way, and now they have, for all intents and purposes, taken control of the world golf order."
Now that the PGA has absorbed its one standalone competitor, pro golfers across the world no longer have other options to take their talents.
"There's nowhere else to go," Francesa said. "Now there's only one tour going forward in 2024."
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