The Biggest Merger in Sports in a Generation
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The Biggest Merger in Sports in a Generation
LIV conquers the PGA and pulls off an unprecedented deal
So many questions emerge from this incredible golf merger. What does it say about the nature of sports as an investment for powerful countries? What does it mean for other leagues in the future? How big of a win is this for the Saudis, MBS and Phil Mickelson, and how big of a loss is this for Rory, Tiger, and Jay Monahan? It’s just crazy that this was kept secret.
Dan Rapaport has more at Barstool.
The initial reaction after the news dropped was one of pure shock. No one had heard a peep about this being a possibility in the near future. That includes players of all levels on the PGA Tour. Collin Morikawa had no idea. Neither did Joel Dahmen. And, it turns out, neither did Rory McIlroy or Tiger Woods.
Golf Channel's Todd Lewis reported that McIlroy and Woods found out this morning along with the rest of the membership. How is that possible, for an organization that claims to be "member-run," to make the biggest deal in its history without input or knowledge from the players?
Because the negotiations were between a very, very small group of people. I'm also told that LIV executives were not told about the deal in advance and, as of about 4 p.m. EST time, hadn't received any communication from leadership explaining the move, the motivations and what might come next. This was downright Succession-esque: just a couple rich dudes in a room reshaping the room.
On the PGA Tour side it was commissioner Jay Monahan—more on him in a second—Ed Herlihy, co-chairman of the powerful Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz law firm and golf powerbroker Jimmy Dunne, a senior managing director at Piper and something of a legendary figure within the game. Dunne is an Augusta National member, longtime president of Seminole Golf Club and close confidant to many top players.
Sources close to the negotiation tell me that Dunne played a crucial, if not decisive, role in the deal. He joined the PGA Tour policy board in November 2022, long after the beefing and the litigation began. His calculation was a cold one: the Saudis have billions of dollars to spend. Like, endless amounts, and their strategy was more or less to keep litigation going, continue to hand the PGA Tour legal bills and essentially pour money into LIV Golf to force the PGA Tour to do the same. But the PGA Tour simply couldn't—they don't have a $650 billion fund to dip into, so they had to get creative. They asked their sponsors for more. They dipped deep into their reserves, a move Monahan described as "betting on our product." Dunne and Herlihy first engaged Yasir al-Rumayyan, chairman of the PIF, without Monahan present. That laid the foundation for the deal.
"The first conversation that I was not a part of was what was the most important conversation because of the position I've been in and what we've been trying to do with our Tour," Monahan said Tuesday. "I wanted to rely heavily on those two fine gentlemen to have that first conversation.
"But when they came back and said it was a positive conversation and that I should have a follow-up meeting, I think that's when things started to develop."
The deal took about seven weeks to finalize, and Monahan, Herlihy and Dunne were the only participants on the PGA Tour side. The PGA Tour side feel they got a good deal—they now have the PIF money, which was going into golf anyway, under their control. There is no more litigation flying around. No more poaching of players. Just more money under the PGA Tour umbrella. And Monahan emphasized that the PGA Tour would continue to be in control of the PGA Tour.
"Ultimately (the move was) to take the competitor off of the board, to have them exist as a partner, not an owner, and for us to be able to control the direction going forward put us in a position as the PGA Tour to do and serve our members, and at the same time, again, get to a productive position for the game at large."
There was a players-only meeting at the RBC Canadian Open, and multiple players told me the mood inside was downright hostile. Players called for Monahan's resignation, and when he issued a half-hearted apology for his about-face, the reaction in the room, sometimes audible, was: own up to it. One player said multiple guys told Monahan they simply do not trust him and were wondering why they're listening to him.
Monahan, I'm told, maintained that the deal is in the best interest of membership. It wasn't a popular position in the room, nor in the media.
"I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite. Anytime I said anything, I said it with the information that I had at that moment, and I said it based on someone that's trying to compete for the PGA Tour and our players. I accept those criticisms. But circumstances do change. I think that in looking at the big picture and looking at it this way, that's what got us to this point."
More coverage from The Ringer’s Kevin Clark.
Chris Licht Out at CNN
Another readjustment incoming.
Now, after a year of leadership missteps, programming misfires, a disastrous Trump town hall and the near-total decimation of staff morale in the wake of a chilling all-access Atlantic story, Licht will be vacating the C.E.O. position. In the next 48 hours, I’m told, Warner Bros. Discovery will announce that Licht will be stepping down as chairman and C.E.O. of CNN, ostensibly bringing an end to one of the most turbulent periods in the network’s 43-year history.
Licht will be replaced for an interim period by Amy Entelis, the revered longtime CNN executive, talent whisperer and CNN Films chief who served as a loyal deputy for years to Licht’s predecessor, Jeff Zucker. Entelis, who is 72, will oversee all programming and editorial matters—and, perhaps more importantly, shore up staff morale—while Zaz works to recruit a new chief executive. Meanwhile, David Leavy, the Zaslav consigliere who was recently installed as CNN’s chief operating officer, will oversee the business side, including all commercial, operational, and promotional matters. Licht’s handpicked direct reports would appear to be vulnerable in the shakeup.
High Hopes and Deep Despair in San Francisco
Perhaps no aspect of life in San Francisco is as tragic as its drug disaster. From January 2021 to November 2022, more than 1,225 people died of overdoses in the city. Opioids, cocaine, and methamphetamines are all sold in the open. Most of the dealers are part of a powerful cartel of Honduran nationals.
Fentanyl is particularly prolific and cheap. San Francisco’s toleration of the purchase and use of illegal drugs has lured addicts from around the country; all too often, they end up homeless and at death’s door.
The situation became so dire that Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in January 2022 and opened the Linkage Center in UN Plaza. The intention was to connect the city’s exploding drug-using population to addiction treatment and other critical services. Mothers who had lost children to the streets of San Francisco were hopeful. Finally, their kids would receive the support that they needed to get sober and healthy.
Almost immediately, the Linkage Center descended into a ramshackle, filthy, city-funded place to get high. Workers distributed drug-use supplies and administered naloxone when guests overdosed. Hundreds of dealers congregated outside, doing brisk business.
The Department of Public Health denied that the center was an unlawful drug-use site, until independent journalists went undercover to confirm it. I was among them, and I witnessed people shoot up and smoke fentanyl in a space created to connect them to recovery care.
In response, the mothers, who had organized into Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths, staged a protest at the center. They were met by harm-reduction activists, who counterprotested. Not backing down, the women erected a billboard overlooking Union Square, bearing the message “Famous the world over for our brains, beauty and, now, dirt-cheap fentanyl,” set against the background of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Eleven months later, in December 2022, the center was shuttered. At a cost of $22 million, it had proved a humiliating failure for city officials. But the closure was a victory of sorts for the mothers who refused to accept substandard treatment for their children.
How to Fix the Military Recruitment Crisis
Today, there are about 1.3 million active-duty military members; they are its greatest asset. The services aim annually to match their respective personnel numbers to with their congressionally authorized “end-strength” headcount. As the largest branch (about 35 percent of the military), the US Army has a substantially larger recruiting goal than the other services. Since the start of the AVF, the services have generally acquired enough qualified recruits. But the 2022 fiscal year was the worst for military recruiting in the AVF’s history. The Army missed its recruiting goal by an astounding 25 percent. It received 44,901 soldiers, 15,099 (75 percent) less than its goal of 60,000. The Navy gained 33,442; the Marine Corps 28,608; the Air Force 26,196; and the new Space Force 532. While the other services met their fiscal 2022 goals, it was a tough year for recruiting. All bolstered retention efforts to meet their end-strength.
The bad news only gets worse. It was recently announced that the Army, Navy and Air Force will all miss their fiscal year 2023 enlistment goals. Throughout the active and reserve components, the Army expects to fall 10,000 recruits short, the Navy 6,000 and the Air Force about 10,000. Army active-duty numbers fell in 2022 and will again — perhaps by as much as 20,000 — resulting in a significant (up to 7 percent) decrease in force size over just two years. The current dramatic shortfall is part of a downward trend, particularly for the Army. In 2018, the Army missed its recruiting goal of 76,500 by 6,500. Then in 2019, 2020 and 2021 the Army met goals which had been lowered each year. Defense experts warn that the lack of personnel — especially for the Army — is a serious threat to readiness and national security.
A solid labor market has clearly hurt recruiting. Historically, the military faces greater recruiting challenges when the unemployment rate is low, as it is now. Covid worsened the problem. Military recruiting is recovering from two years of shutdowns and isolation, in which recruiters lost in-person access to prospects at schools, public events and military-focused youth organizations such as the Sea Cadets and JROTC programs. Virtual recruiting was less effective, and recruiters have found recovery in many in-person venues slow.
A longer-term trend that makes things difficult is a shrinking pool of eligible recruits. Only about one in four young adults between seventeen and twenty-four meet the minimum service entry requirements: citizenship or being English-speaking, green card-holding permanent residents within the age limits; a minimum score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB; a high school diploma or GED; medical and physical fitness, and good moral standing. Drug use, obesity and physical and mental health problems are all on the rise, while ASVAB scores are falling.
These problems should be surmountable. For example, obese, motivated people can get into shape. During one Navy assignment, my building was shared by a recruiting center. Several mornings a week, I saw groups of aspiring (and perspiring) overweight recruit candidates jogging in formation, a recruiter alongside them shouting encouragement. And the military has weathered a strong labor market before, is recovering from the Covid-era loss of access and, depending on trade-offs, some entrance requirements might be lightened. But a fourth factor makes today’s crisis particularly alarming.
In response to low youth eligibility rates, the Army’s vice chief of staff delivers the worst news: “Fewer still, we’re finding, are interested in serving.” DoD Youth Surveys on “propensity to serve” show that only about nine percent of sixteen-to-twenty-one-year-olds consider military service “likely” in the next few years. Despite a few upticks, this propensity has declined steadily since the 1980s. Over the past four decades, male service propensity dropped from the 24-27 percent range to today’s 11-14 percent range.
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Podcast
Quote
“Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.”
— Thomas Sowell