Blog of the Week: What is the Super Golf League and Why It’s Good for Golf

The Super Golf League has had their name in the news a lot lately, including announcing that Greg Norman will serve as an executive in the league, making people second guess the potential legitimacy of this league. This has obviously started a lot of controversy since the league is funded by Saudi Arabian money and the moral obligations golfers face taking that money. There’s political stances that many want to stand with but at the end of the day we will find out who has a price and who doesn’t. I’m not sure if I foresee the SGL (or LIV? Not sure on that), taking over the PGA but I do think that they have the potential to shake up the golf world and help the PGA fix a lot of their bugs. I’ll go through the three main reasons I think the SGL will be good for golf and basically make my opinion on this throughout

Competition

For starters, this could be the first real competition the PGA has ever faced, it’s eerily similar to the Super League in soccer which was quickly dismantled but I think that approach was way more aggressive. Everybody has problems with the PGA right now, whether it be the TV coverage, the commentating, camera angles, payouts or the courses being too easy, there’s plenty of bones to pick with them. The SGL coming into play has potential to open people’s eyes for what golf should be like now that there is a younger crowd watching these days. The market is over saturated with golf content yet the PGA has done nothing to change anything about the game except try to make it a little faster after that one Bryson putt. By the SGL coming in and bringing some big names over, the PGA will be forced to step their game up and stop being so money hungry with TV ads and sponsorships and focus more on listening to the players and fans as to what the correct product should be.

TV Coverage

For me, the biggest thing is the TV and coverage of the PGA, I take myself as someone who watches a lot of sports and can easily say nothing is covered worse. If the SGL gives full access to watch group by group coverage, this could force the PGA to do the same. It’s insane that we don’t have this kind of access right now and they haven’t sold out to Amazon or someone to do this but the amount of golf we miss nowadays is ridiculous. We already pay for all the PGA live subscriptions yet we hardly get any premium access outside of the featured groups which seem to get worse every tournament lately. We’ve also seen how great it is when you can choose which group you watch during The Players so why can’t we just have it every tournament? There’s also plenty of Sundays where the only way you can watch is via stream and then they play a replay on CBS once the round is over which is one of the more preposterous moves in sports. I get that a lot of older people watch golf but let’s not act like they don’t have iPhone’s or any apps that will let them know who won already.

The Money

Just about every person in this world has a price and if the SGL really has $1 Billion ready to pump into this league they can easily pull some of the top 20 or so guys over. For example, a big target for the league is Rickie Fowler. Let’s just be honest, Rickie is a guy that should just accept his fate and take the money. I plan to write a full blog on why Rickie never should’ve turned down the $50-100 Million but we all know he has no intention on winning another tournament nor ever coming close to that kind of money so he really should’ve just made a statement and accepted it. That being said, if they’re willing to offer Rickie that kind of money what do you think they would have offered someone like DJ, Brooks, JT or even Phil. The rumor is that one of the US Ryder Cup players was offered 3 years/$150 Million and my guess is that it was DJ, JT or Morikawa. How you can turn down that kind of money is beyond me but guess some players truly care about their legacy and keeping their name in the record books. There’s some guys like Rory that would clearly never give in to selling out but I think the starting move for the SGL is to focus on the lower top 40-50 guys and see if you can catch an upcoming star or at least stir up some competition. For example, if someone like Hovland sees Harris English absolutely raking it in over there making five mil a tourney he might start second guessing his career path. I know it only takes one to start a movement, but maybe if they built a foundation for a likeable guy with more potential than Rickie, they might actually have something.

Overall, I don’t see the SGL taking down the PGA any time soon especially now that Tiger is almost back and the world is heading back to normalcy. They will likely steal a big name that we will eventually never hear from again since the PGA will ban them but at the very least I’m hoping they pressure the PGA to focus on their product and take a second look. With all that being said, I have full respect for those that have higher morals than I, but I will take this as an opportunity to formally announce that this company is willing to sell out. My current desk job does not pay me as much as these guys would to do something I love so we are more than open to providing sole coverage to the SGL and would be happy to take a pay check we don’t deserve. Please reach out if you know somebody that can help make this happen, or PGA, please make a competitive offer to keep us in the states.