Back in February, I had assumed the LIV tour was dead...but not anymore.
If they're willing to incur some heavy losses this first year with massive paydays to relatively weak fields (compared to PGA events), I think next year you could see a lot more top tier guys jump... and then its on.
I just don't see much of a market for their events, regardless of who is playing in them (unless Tiger was there, of course, since people will watch him do anything).
They're small team based tournaments (12 four man teams with no cut) where everyone is getting paid just for showing up. It feels like they're going to be glorified charity events where no one playing really cares all that much about how well they play.
Hard for me to imagine them drawing any more attention than a random Tour event, and that's just not enough to keep the money train going long-term.
Ed,
Pro sports has always been a delicate balance between ownership providing the venue and salary and players playing the game...but at the end of the day I've gotta believe its the players who putt butts in seats and drive people to tune in.
If the best players moved to this new Tour, pretty sure the fans, sponsors, tv, etc. will all follow. The only thing left to debate is how many it will take to achieve critical mass.
P.S. This season is most of the way done, and the 10th ranked guy on the PGA tour money list has ONLY made $3.5 million in 20 events. You don't think its going to attract top notch players if they offer a $25 million + signing bonus, plus earning double that in half the amount of events? When it comes to money, almost no one is immune to making a shit ton more of it...
The money will absolutely attract players, but I don't think the events themselves are going to be that interesting for fans. The majors are the biggest draws each year because they're the majors -- when guys like Jon Rahm etc. show up for smaller events, their ratings don't really get any noticeable increase. I think Tiger was the only person who provided that kind of ratings bump.
Combine that with the fact that the actual events are probably going to be relatively uninteresting (the format doesn't sound nearly as interesting as a standard tournament with cuts, but that's all subjective) with very little pressure, and I don't see them significantly outperforming regular Tour events, which means that kind of money won't be available for more than a few years. The investors aren't going to just throw money away indefinitely without seeing a return, and I think it will be incredibly hard for them to turn a profit with that much money going out for every event.
I just can't imagine the tour/series/whatever you want to call it can survive if they're getting the same kind of engagement as the John Deere Open. I don't think it could survive even if they were at the level of something like the Memorial (i.e. one of the biggest non-majors).
Who knows, though? We'll find out soon enough!