The most disruptive year in golf ended Tuesday when the PGA Tour and European tour agreed to a merger with Saudi Arabia's golf interests, creating a commercial operation designed to unify professional golf around the world.
As part of the deal, the sides are dropping all lawsuits involving LIV Golf against each other effective immediately.
Still to be determined is how players like Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, who defected to Saudi-funded LIV Golf for nine-figure bonuses, can rejoin the PGA Tour after this year.
Also unclear was what form the LIV Golf League would take in 2024. Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a memo to players that a thorough evaluation would determine how to integrate team golf into the game.
The agreement combines the Public Investment Fund's golf-related commercial businesses and rights — including LIV Golf — with those of the PGA and European tours. The new entity has not been named.
“They were going down their path, we were going down ours, and after a lot of introspection you realize all this tension in the game is not a good thing,” Monahan said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
“We have a responsibility to our tour and to the game, and we felt like the time was right to have that conversation.”
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will join the board of the PGA Tour, which continues to operates its tournaments. Al-Rumayyan will be chairman of the new commercial group, with Monahan as the CEO and the PGA Tour having a majority stake in the new venture.
The PIF will invest in the commercial venture.
Monahan said the decision came together over the last seven weeks.
We are a week away from the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and China has already faced a host of problems leading up to the opening ceremony of the Beijing games. DJ Peterson, president of Longview Global Advisors, joins Cheddar News to discuss the many concerns and controversies surrounding the event.
The Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will be the two teams competing at Super Bowl LVI after both survived their respective nail-biting conference championships. The Big Game will be held at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, home of the Rams, potentially granting them a home-field advantage. Frank Schwab, a sportswriter for Yahoo Sports, joined Cheddar to discuss what bettors should be looking for at this year’s NFL finale. "Super Bowl, unlike any other game on the NFL schedule, where if people bet once a year, it's going to be on the Super Bowl, especially with so many states having legal betting now," Schwab said.
It's a big weekend for sports betting, with the NFL conference championships and Australian Open finals expected to bring the industry even more traffic. And if record viewership of the divisional playoff game between the Chiefs and Bills was any indication, sports betting will only continue to grow as football season comes to an end. Joe Raineri, sports betting analyst at SportsGrid, joined Cheddar to discuss how these sporting events could impact the industry, which is expected to get even bigger in 2022.
Trysta Krick breaks down the Bengals-Chiefs matchup while Lester Ricard Jr. dissects what will be the third meeting of the season for the 49ers and Rams. Meanwhile, on the hardwood, Brian Bennett says that college basketball bettors should focus on a team's road wins as an early indicator for success in March.
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Trysta Krick, host of BetMGM Tonight, joins Cheddar Bets to break down her best plays in the AFC Championship game and gives a fix for the NFL OT rules.
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Wednesday marked two years since the basketball legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others died in a tragic helicopter crash. In remembrance, a bronze statue has been temporarily placed at the site with all of the passenger's names included on the memorial.
With the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics right around the corner, experts are warning that climate change is threatening not only the event but also the future of snow sports. Despite being the world's top polluter, China is hoping to use the event to demonstrate the country's commitment to fighting climate change, and pledging to host a "low carbon" games. Xubin Zeng, professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona, joins Cheddar News.
As the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics inches closer, sponsors are facing mounting pressure to pull out of the games with China is under fire for controversies like the alleged human rights abuses against its Muslim minority population and the disappearance of tennis player Peng Shuai. Rick Burton, professor of sport management at Syracuse University, joined Cheddar to discuss what he expects to happen once the games begin. Burton said China is too large of a market for American advertisers to ignore, and he doesn't expect any of them to pull out of the games. "Olympic sponsors right now I think are really just trying to hang on and get through these 17 days, come out the other end," he said.
As controversy dogs the run-up to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, China is hiring TikTokers and other social media influencers to promote the nation's history, culture, diplomatic efforts, and current trends.
Talent Resources Sports is partnering with ABG Entertainment to host Sports Illustrated The Party during the weekend of Super Bowl LVI, featuring musical performances by Kygo, Jack Harlow, and other guests. David Spencer and Mike Heller, co-CEOs and founders of Talent Resources Sports, joined Cheddar to discuss the details behind putting on the event. “We’re just really pumped that after all of the things that got canceled people will finally have a place to let some steam off in such an exciting moment, such a charged moment with the Super Bowl,” Mike Heller said about putting on the live event after previous COVID-related cancellations.
