The rich and the famous will be much happier without their fortune and worries.
It would be different if our lifespan is longer. I had seen the life of a few top 1%. I would never exchange my ordinary life with theirs.
Then again, no use to explain, if someone does not understand this.
Worried about fulfilling the obligations gives us something to do.
There’s a rumor floating around that Cam Smith—you know, that guy carrying around the Claret Jug right now—is just about ready to sign with LIV.
No idea if legit, or how much veracity to give the sources; floating it here for the lulz. It doesn’t seem like a thing this guy would do—AIUI, he doesn’t know how to spend all of the money he already has, nevermind what to do with a nine-digit USD payday—but there you are.
Well I guess we’ll see. The current governing bodies have already said they will NOT allow anyone on the 54 Camel tour to play in any major regardless of status. It’s their prerogative. If Cam cashes out good on him. I personally believe that would be a fools errand. If he wants to play there he’s welcome to, I don’t think he would be missed all that much, there’s a long line of players waiting for his spot on the list to play either Big Boy Tour
He might not know much about how to handle the money and the fame which came after the Win, but his family and manager will know to grab the money while it is available.
The huge amount of the sign up fee from the LIV will not be paid out in a lump sum, it will spread out according to the contractual term. The players have to be present at the “show”.
LIV might not be valid in a few years.
Well, if the goal of these young men is to make the money on Tour, then the LIV Tour will be an easier and faster way of getting to the end of the journey. Quote David Feherty, which he said at one time, he was on the Tour to make enough money to quit the Tour. I guess his joining the LIV Tour as commentator after his show was canceled was no coincident.
No different than medical doctors in it not because they like to help people but because of the pay check which comes with the profession.
Too bad we might not see how this young man grow in this sport and he might sold out himself short.
But in hind sight , looking at the top of the crop, Palmer and Nicklaus worked hard all their life to ended up with 300-500 M. and these player could have the same in a few years with no real work involved?
Pennies from heaven?
They should exam the contract with a practicing attorney to see if there is an escape clause for the LIV for the commitment. The very bad scenario is the players will lose out on both ends.
If I had to guess…looks like the LIV tour has most of the momentum and is likely here to stay for now. I think the key is what each major decides to do for who will and won’t qualify for them. Speaking strictly business, the majors benefit greatly from being the only events where golfers from both leagues compete against each other…just saying.
I liked Ernie’s idea of a negotiation where LIV happens during the silly season and the two co-exist.
1 Like
I have to disagree, unless there is significant improvement for generating commercial value, no backing has the endless funding for a back yard party.
Wait until the LIV need to pay out the second and the consequent payments to these players. 10 digits is not a sum one could blink eyes on.
If Norman and associates were counting on generating income as they go along; then, best be hurry.
Balloon installments are coming up. They got their commentators, live stream only or buy a network?
Hell, while they’re at it, might as well buy the whole world. Why stop at a silly golf game.
I’m confident there is a revenue stream plan. Part of that is attracting the top talent…it’s early, but they are succeeding so far in attracting top talent in a very short time frame. Most fans aren’t fans of the tour…they are fans of the players playing the tour. Whomever owns the talent will win.
We’ll see.
There is no revenue stream plan. The Saudis have a $50B fund~~~that’s with a B! To support this venture. Greg Norman, who has a major ax to grind with the PGA & Euro Tours for no apparent reason except what he has yet to reveal for 25 years now. Wayne Grady will attest to that. With that much cash 100% totally behind you there is no need for revenue streams. I don’t blame anyone for chasing the cash. I get it. There’s only a few golfers out there chasing history, the rest….well there’s no way on this earth you can make that kind of cash in this short of a period to just play mediocre golf.
1 Like
50 B. is a lot of moola. I had never heard of this much being the backing of the LIV, the royal family fund might be worth that much but not targeted for this venture solely.
No one, not even a wealthy country could spend that kind of money without thinking of return of investment first. Trust me, no one will just fund Norman’s personal vendetta. They are out because somehow they were convinced that this could be a way of making decent return for their investment.
As I stated, the royal fund management ( the royal family )had been seeking a way to retain their wealth from the sand, which will not last forever. They look at the PGA and other golf tours as a business with $$$. It all looked swell on paper, but no one dig deep enough to find out how long and how hard the Tours had been cultivating for success.
Someone just plan on walk in the room and take over? Not likely!
Most the fans are golfers themselves, they actually participate in the game of golf. Not like football or basketball, or boxing; as spectators.
One of the attraction of this sports is the uphold of integrity, the rules, the self governing, like no other sports nor activities.
Asking the “fans” to watch “the talent” on exhibition golf; please, I won’t be interested in streaming it even if I get paid for doing so.
I get it, if the commercial value is not important, why, let them pay the streaming viewer, why not?
Figure the sunk cost of keeping the LIV alive for 12-15 “exhibition tournaments”; it’ll probably burn half a B. not including the graduated pay off for the players. The venue, the traveling and housing cost, then the guys behind the scene for set-up, running the show and streaming + whatever they might use for generating the public interests.
I wouldn’t be interested, for one, who wants to go to an opera house to watch the gladiators fight, to pretend who will be the casualties that week ? You go to the colosseum to watch the gladiators battle, not in an opera house.
It lost all luster with their current format. They might wake up half way through their dream and realizing this, so they could change things in the near future.
Counting on paying the “talent” to attract fans is ludicrous! What talent?
Injured, has been, and a one show wonder? If it is true the current Claret Jag holder will sign up with the LIV, they will pay a very hefty bounty for it. If they paid Michaelson $150M, then how much will they pay this kid? $300M? For one year’s worth of showing? If the kid decided that it’s no big deal if he could not defend his title next year?
Don’t ever think because someone has a ton of money that they don’t know exactly how to use it to make more. I can see the LIV tour making money through multiple streams including sponsors and commercialization and media….just like the PGA. They just need time and talent…and have the money to have the luxury of both.
The enormous sums of money isn’t just oil money alone…it’s money accumulated through investments and diversification also. Their is absolutely a revenue plan in place.
Once again, $50B fund. A couple things, 1) there might be a plan on paper to be profitable…. If they use $10B of it you cannot compete. It’s like you own a hardware store in a small town. In comes Lowes and Home Depot within 1/4 mile on either side of you. You will not be able to coexist. Eventually, your customer base withers. That’s economy of scale, it’s just how it works. The only weapons the Tours have are the Majors and their membership. You have to hope those Major Tourneys and the Ryder Cup can fight this off. Look at Stenson, look at Feherty…. Someone offers you silly money to do what you are doing, you just gotta take it. Feherty famously said ”The only reason I play on the tour is to win enough money so I don’t have to play on The Tour”. I’ll make it easy for you. Who was the Ryder Cup captain in 1994? Don’t use Google. Does it really matter? It is Professional golf, it’s what you do for a living, I’ll watch the Masters from my yacht poolside. I mean what are the odds I would win it anyway? 2) revenue stream? Apparently you don’t have a good understanding of Norman or the Saudis! They DO NOT CARE. If they wanted to compete against the NFL…. They could shut that down too. I mean personally, look at it this way. If they came to you, a regular Joe and gave you $2M and the only catch was you can’t vote in an election for the next 10 years….what are you going to do? The Saudis we are talking about had an ax to grind against Kashoggi. How’d that work out for him? Globally, it made MBS and pals pariahs. Really? How’d that work out for them? They are sitting poolside on their yachts my man! There’s no lines to read between, no conscience there….Get Real guys! Most people who have an ax to grind cannot do so because of funding, but if someone comes along and gives you unlimited funding….it’s a whole new ball game ! Read or just skip to last paragraph
Dew…. Ya gotta sit back a bit and take a deep breath when it comes to cash. That fund is exactly that, a fund. It’s play money. Perspective… Bezos divorced Mackenzie. She got $35B. At the time he was worth like $90B. She immediately became one of the richest women in the world. Now, she’s already given away like $20B of that. Know what she’s worth today? $40B. Money begets money! Bezos went from $90B to $60B. How long did that last as he launches rockets to orbit the earth as a hobby. Does that put it in perspective for you. I mean again we’re talking they (the Saudis) could effectively buy the tours for like $4B. This is 100% a Norman ax grind. He’s wanted to do this for 30 years and he was just laughed off. What’s he worth $60M.going up against The Tours that are worth a couple Billion. Well someone gives you 5x what those tours are worth basically unlimited funds. Get it? I hate it, I strongly dislike Norman for ruining the game as we know it, it’s very sad. I’m just going to hope he goes away, but I also have a choice. I’ll continue to play the game. But I do have an off button on my remote control and I hope sports companies continue to make balls, clubs, Accessories etc for us to buy
It’s the “family horde” for the
royal family. Nothing to do with the people. It’s been proven with leaked out News that misuse and mismanagement of the funds happened often. The monthly/annual benefit for the family members had been reduced.
Hence the massive dumping of Real Estate investment, luxury yachts, private jets…
It is huge, but the source is not bottomless, so they realized and been very aggressive in recent decade to try to maintain their position. The desert has no other resources besides the black gold. One look at the “investment” they had done will realize an old saying. Someone will help the fools to part with their money.
Greg Norman is the most recent one to help them and to get what he wants. He does not want to start a new business model; what he wants is the destruction of the current system which he has a personal problem with. Someone is being used for his own purpose. I wonder if Norman put in a few dollars of his own fortune just to show faith in this venture.
We’ll see what happens in a few years. My personal preference is not daylight robbery. Since you mentioned Amazon, what does their publicized balance sheet looks like recently? They had ruined so many industry and lost hundreds of thousands ( if not millions) of job position.
Some will argue it will be the future, I don’t see that; I see a new unproven, will soon be unloved way of “taking”. This is not an improvement. In some small way it created convenience, but in no way of replacing tradition with semi-digital way of handling life events. Plus it’s basically a middleman sucking blood away from all the suppliers.
BTW, it’ll be good to find out where the listing came from and deal with them directly if one still wish to use the online purchasing format. I like shopping online also, but not everything in life.
These concepts are centuries ahead of it’s time. How long ago did the personal access to the internet become popular and available? My kids were born right in the midst of the revolution and they are good at using the “tools”, but do they use internet for everything ?
Not going to go too deep for those who won’t and couldn’t understand or see the picture.
The future will be here whether we like it or not, the timing is not there, just yet. Rushing it will not be such a good idea.
Amazon and AlliExpress could go down in a shockingly short time if one examing their business pattern and current business model. All it take is slow down or cut-off the credit extension. Where does the credit extension comes from? Equity value from the faith of the supporters ( investors), it’s what floats the value for the corporate to borrow from the financial institution. That, is fragile and could go away like in a flash. Being a middleman and built internet web and huge warehouses does not warrant any value.
Then again, I never thought the bottled tab water will have any value either, who knows. BTW, we stopped using the bottles water, love the convenience, we’re just doing our best not to put another plastic bottle in the landfill.
I agree, 50 B. is a humongous number, from our perspective! If you look at a Nation’s debt, it’s a drop in the bucket.
PGA was smart to allied with the R&A whilst developing their business model, for the first few generation of founders realized this game is not just based on hitting the tee shot long ( although that one is the major goal of most of the golfers ), scoring low ( a lifetime journey for most of us ); it is also the tradition, the rules, and the up-hold of integrity and honor. That intangible part of the game is the back bone of the whole thing, not part of it.
LIV can not muscle in with B.s to take over with just bribing the players and jumped in for live streaming and hope to get their investment back, or beyond to reach a payback. They’re doing everything this game is against in principle.
I don’t understand is why they would not present the business model to the PGA and the R&A to work out something instead of muscle in with daylight robbery type of behavior? Was it because of Norman wants it that way or they don’t have the patience to sit down and work out a deal with current system? Or maybe they believed they all might power in financial backing could step over anyone ?
If, for some reason the new business model succeeded ( I don’t see that in current condition ), it could be the end of this game for the current structure will collapse when the value is taken away. I for one will probably take up something else instead.
This was the last paragraph of a Saudi journalist referencing Stenson’s move. Stenson’s “lust for Saudi money” has left the Ryder Cup “in tatters”, Al-Samarrai added. The LIV “did not want” Stenson – they wanted a Ryder Cup captain as a means of “weakening one of the great institutions” of a sport they are “taking over with vindictive cunning”. What an “astonishing mess” this has become. You, me your children and grandchildren will be dead before they run out of oil. Ya gotta stop looking at oil as gasoline. It’s plastics! It’s golf balls! If the world went EV, they are still selling it big time and the price will still keep rising. They aren’t running out of funds. It’s not about golf, it’s not about anything except taking down the game. They aren’t friendly with Tours. They are friendly with Norman and he is grinding his ax. Billions are nothing to them. $50B in a slush fund. BTW I wasn’t talking about Amazon, I was talking the personal wealth of BEZOS. That’s not Amazon. He could spend $10B on golf and it’s nothing.
It’s too bad Stenson could not get a piece of the pie. Feel sorry for him, as he probably realized from his injury that good times will not last forever. The mentality of weakening institution to take them down is a very primitive suggestion. It shows where they are coming from.
Their mindset had not changed for 5 decades. Used to witness a Shek sent home a fleet of BMW for their servants. This was the time they only have less than a few hundred miles of paved roadways. Took the salesman on his jet to Europe for a grand time then dunked him just like that for no reason. They are not just that, also uncultured.
I have nothing to say about Bezo, he’s got the moola, but a failed human being. These people won’t realize it (some do not wish to) until they are on their death bed that it really does not matter that much. All the wealth will only make their time on earth seems a little shorter.
As far as the oil will last a long time; maybe be more than my lifetime.
The drying of their wells is coming, as people don’t believe the “greenhouse effect”. Albert Arnold Gore Jr. must be laughing at the fools now, or he would not care.
There is only one planet earth, no other planet we know could replace it. The alternative energy source will have to evolve for the current infrastructure and our way of living. I always thought the battery sourced electric power will not work, there must be a better way to harness the solar power.
You are more positive for the outlook with the crude reserve than the owner of the source. They had been seriously planning on investing their wealth for decades.
As far for plastic and out of all things- golf balls? Don’t worry, we’ll find replacement, you and I won’t see the need to worry for that in our lifetime. As people worried of running out of tree sap for gutta percha. There be new material to replace it.
In fact, the less we produce the by-products from the crude oil, the better. In our cities, just got rid of the plastic shopping bags for grocery packing; which should have been enforced decades ago.
If there is a better source to power the motor vehicle, I’ll be very interested. Many do not know the lithium battery is extremely poisonous, harder to break down, buried, burned… on the surface it’s more environmentally friendly, it is worse than burning crude oil. Plus, the application of the battery powered motor vehicle is not effective. Good for short distance driving and a nice toy. I’m not impressed.
Here’s a list of just a few of the companies the Saudi’s have been investing in and continue to profit from…it’s far more than oil in a desert: Boeing, Citigroup, Facebook, Tesla, GE, Marriott, Disney, Starbucks, Cisco, Bank of America…the list goes on and on. They are not just dumping money with no plan for revenue…and the LIV tour is certainly not the only thing taking money from the Saudi’s…the list goes on and on and on.
2 Likes
I agree, they know they can only rely on the oil for so long. Of course I hear the oil gets them $1B/day so it’s probably not going away as quickly as Blockbuster did. I have a feeling “sportswashing” is not the only endgame here. There is a lot of money in sports and it’s probably part of their diversification.
Also I’ve read that sports teams are one of the greatest tax write-offs EVER. If they can create something around golf teams maybe they can enjoy the tax advantages that the NFL, NBA and other owners get. Apparently every pro team loses money pretty much every year lol.
2 Likes
Yes, they do have a portfolio designed and manage by “experts”, you forgot to mention the blunders they had made in the last 4 decades.
Mostly wonton spending by the Royal members.
With their wealth, their asset count should be folds over the current status. But, have it and spend it to enjoy it was the way to keep peace in the clan.
They should have invest the sum in sports gambling instead of trying to muscle in a tradition themed sports like golf. Norman was the hand that pushed this into reality.
I think history will tell, if this move is a bold and silly move. If this ever succeed; then we might as well push over all the historical and tradition value.
Money or not, it is not the wise move to not try to see if the move into the future could be blend in with the existing structure.
Noman does not care, he wants revenge and destruction of the USGA. To this date, I could not understand what brought up all the hatred.
Very true about the tax loop hole and the money involved. The sports betting is more in the line of what they like to do. Instead of recruiting the players, managing the event, they could have set up online betting, which the regulation is more relaxed now than before. Any major sporting event globally will be over a big B. in value.
Their specialty of hiring web site designer, security measure and viaduct for the flow of funding… More suitable for them than trying to take over the professional golf venues.
I’m not knocking the sands region down, I just feel that they were used for someone else’s personal goal.