The new one Saudi Super Golf League (SGL) is a project that intends to compete with the PGA Tours from offering lucrative economic offers to players, and although the main golfers on the tour have ruled out their participation in the alternative circuit, its emergence made visible the need for PGA to improve your model. Now he analyzes extending the offseason of the players and created the Player Impact Program.
The SGL was promoted by Greg Norman67-year-old star of the 1980s and 1990s and endorsed by Phil Michaelson51-year-old golfer with 45 wins in the PGA Tours. The proposal is to have 12 to 14 golf tournaments a year in the United States and abroad, involving 40 golfers, with no cuts and guaranteed prize money.
This tour seeks to attract the best golfers with promises of huge signing bonuses and guaranteed cash. The main reason why Phil Michaelson seeks a counterweight to the current circuit, it is his dissatisfaction with the distribution of the PGA Tour’s income, his opinion is that the tour is withholding money and digital assets from the players.
According to Washington Postthe emergence of the SGL gave rise to the PGA consider making certain changes, starting with the calendar. The PGA Players Advisory Council (PAC) and the tour are currently analyzing possible changes to the competition schedule to have a larger preseason space.
Under the current format, the season starts in mid-September and ends in August; in the tournaments points are distributed to participate in the FedExCup And while higher ranked players can skip certain events, lower ranked players often find it necessary to play them to accumulate units. Which “creates two problems: a non-existent off-season for many golfers and fall tournaments with weak fields,” the outlet explained.
Golf Digest indicated that changes to the schedule could begin in 2023. Officials from the PGA Tours They also told players that tournament purses will continue to rise and that the tour will soon reveal details about its recently launched Player Impact Program, a $40 million bonus fund designed to compensate players who stimulate fan engagement and sponsors, based on public-viewability metrics like Q Score and social media presence.
As it is now, the PGA Tours owns the media rights to its players and their highlights. Mickelson has said that he believes that it is the players who should own those rights and therefore be able to monetize them. The veteran player claimed that only 26% of revenue goes to golfers, although the tour has claimed it is 55%.
“Players need to own all of that. We play those shots; we create those moments; we should be the ones to benefit. The Tour doesn’t need that money,” Mickelson told Alan Shipnuckthe author of his next biography.
Golf Digest explained that “golfers are independent contractors with no guaranteed contracts. Unlike other athletes, they can monetize their uniforms. Still, as members of the tour, they assign all of their media rights to the organization, giving the event an added package of intellectual property.(…) For example, if players could individually sell their broadcast rights live and archived, TV deals would be worthless.”
Speaking at the Genesis Invitational, PAC President, Rory McIlroy, disputed Mickelson’s claims saying that “maybe they’re not educated enough about it, maybe they have people who are giving them misinformation, but the numbers are right in front of the players. (…) tour finances are independently audited each year.”
Despite that, the PAC held discussions in February about how revenue from the tour will be divided going forward. Golfweek revealed in November 2021 that the PGA Tours plans to create a series of lucrative international tournaments that will offer guaranteed money to the best players in the world.
Mickelson told the author of his biography that he was willing to overlook the human rights record of Saudi Arabia to make the new league a reality and force the PGA Tour to be remodeled, which ultimately caused it to lose the sponsorship of the KPMG firm, which has business in Saudi Arabia and is a sponsor of some events on the PGA Tours; and Amstel Light beer.
“We know they killed (Washington Post reporter Jamal) Khashoggi and they have a horrible human rights record. There they execute people for being gay. Knowing all this, why would he even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape the way the PGA Tour operates,” he was quoted as saying by Shipnuck.
Last week, professional golfer Kramer Hickok said in a podcast that he thought 17 golfers had already signed on to the new circuit, while Shipnuck Jr. tweeted last week that 20 golfers had committed to the SGL, although none have. public. However, golf greats such as world number one Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Tiger Woods have declared their permanence on the PGA Tour.
The commissioner of PGA ToursJay Monahan has said that any player who signs up for the SGL will be permanently banned from competing in PGA Tour events. One of the provisions of the PGA Tour Player’s Handbook and Tournament Regulations is that the tour may prohibit one member from playing in another.
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