PGA Tour merger with Saudi-Arabian LIV to be investigated

General
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There hasn’t been any topics yet about the stunning news from two weeks ago of the PGA and LIV golf merger. For those of you who aren’t familiar here is a bit of background.

  • LIV is a Saudi-Arabian founded golf league established to compete with the PGA and normalize Saudi-Arabia as a source of funding in North America sports.
  • LIV attracted some of the largest names in Golf to join with absurd amounts of money. But not everyone. Tiger Woods turned down a contract reportedly worth $700 million dollars.
  • PGA publicly pushed back hard on the creation of LIV and working with LIV. The PGA banned LIV players from certain events. Leading to lawsuits between PGA and LIV.
  • LIV has had a hard time finding a broadcast partner. Eventually resorting to mostly streaming on YouTube and just recently the CW.

On June 6th it was announced that the PGA would “merge” with LIV. But basically it means the Saudi’s won and that the PGA will be owned and funded by Saudi Arabia. The deal was done in secret with players and officials in both leagues being kept in the dark.

It was just announced today that the Justice Department will start to investigate the deal. The PGA Tour and LIV Golf deal is now under federal investigation - CBS News

Considering how close it seemed like WWE was to being purchased by Saudi Arabia earlier this year it’s been fascinating to see it play out in another sport. Has anybody else been following along with the drama over the deal? Any thoughts?

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I don’t full understand the “merge” side of it. Has it been officially announced the the Saudis now own the PGA?

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Yes the announcement of the merger made it clear that the Saudi’s would be the sole benefactor of the new organization that owns the PGA and LIV golf. The PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan is the board of directors. And the executive committee is made up of PGA executives who created the deal.

But as of today the deal has not been finalized. The temporary name of the new company that owns LIV and PGA is NewCo.

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Thanks for clarifying. They were talking about it on local sports talk radio, but nobody seemed to fully understand it. Also, golf isn’t really a big subject here in terms of media discussion, so after the first day it really wasn’t talked about much.