#189. The Sub-Beacon Vs. the LIV
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This is a short bonus episode, not a movie review, in which Mike, Sonny, and JVL react to the stunning news that the PGA Tour is merging with — effectively being purchased by — Saudi-backed LIV Golf, and all three admit upfront that none of them fully understands the mechanics of what just happened. Sonny keeps circling back to confusion over the PGA's actual governance structure — is it a nonprofit, a union, a players' association? — and whether the antitrust lawsuit between the two leagues was ever resolved, while JVL argues that no reporter has explained who actually had the authority to sign off on a sale of this scale, drawing an analogy to how an NFL or Twitter sale would require owner or shareholder buy-in. Sonny eventually shrugs that professional golf is just capitalism working as intended — golfers play golf to win money, like in Happy Gilmore — since LIV offering nine-figure paydays is simply "getting the outcome they desired." JVL pushes back hard, arguing the real problem isn't the money but where it comes from: Saudi Arabia is a nation-state with a sovereign wealth fund using oil money to buy its way into American cultural institutions in a way no private buyer ever could, and he invokes a line from Syriana about the Saudis' wealth eventually turning to dust. Mike is the most viscerally outraged of the three, calling it "oligarchism, not capitalism," and zeroing in on the moral betrayal of players like Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods who were pushed by the PGA commissioner to take a public stand against LIV on principle, only to be made into "chumps" once the PGA quietly sold out to the same regime it had been demonizing — an institutional loss of shame he compares to the dynamics that produced Trump. The hosts repeatedly flag their own admitted ignorance of golf and PGA structure as the reason this is, in their words, a "weird and bad" episode.
From the show notes
Hey, sorry this is a few hours late, I just forgot to schedule it after uploading it. WHOOPS. My bad. —SB
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Welcome to the Sub-Beacon bonus episode, and we're talking about not Spider-Man, but golf PGA and live L.I.V. Are we supposed to call it live or L.I.V.? I think it's L.I.V. I don't know. This merger between them announced surprising everybody, shocking everybody who knows even just a little bit about what happened. The PGA Tour lost a bunch of its major players last year, some of them not so major, some of them sort of over the hill, many of them over the hill to join this Saudi-backed L.I.V. tournament. And now they are merging. Any thoughts quickly, guys, or questions or like what do we think about this? Seems outrageous.
Sonny00:00:55So the thing I never really understood about this story, even as it was happening, you know, over the last couple of years is. All right. So the L.I.V. comes to a bunch of PGA players, says we're going to give you a ton of money to play in our dumb league. And some of them take it and some of them don't. But the ones who take it were then forbidden from playing in PGA events. It was like if you take the live money, you don't get the L.I.V. We agree.
JVL00:01:20Just call it live.
Sonny00:01:20If you take the live money, which I don't know that that's how you're supposed to pronounce. It you can't play in the PGA and they sued. They sued. They were like, this is a violation of antitrust. And I'm pretty sure the PGA won. Right. Am I wrong? Am I misunderstanding that?
JVL00:01:36I believe it's pending.
Sonny00:01:37Is it still pending?
JVL00:01:38It is. Yeah.
Sonny00:01:39OK, so there was so there was some question about how that would all play out still. But I took to the best of my knowledge. I thought this had all been resolved essentially with PGA winning with the PGA having their. Having their league and the the live was not was not, you know, fully stocked to the point that they could do tournaments. And it just it seemed like the the PGA had the upper hand. So when news broke, when news broke this week that they were merging, which is to say that the Saudis really are kind of buying the PGA is how I understand this.
JVL00:02:17This is important to clarify. This is not a merger of equals. Live has purchased PGA. That that's what this is a takeover.
Mike00:02:26Technically, it's not live. It's the Saudis fund, which owns.
Sonny00:02:32So I don't understand. Again, I don't really understand any of this, except that the optics of it all seem really, really, really, really bad for the PGA, because the PGA had put up this big fight. They left a bunch of their members hanging out to dry. The ones who didn't take the Saudi money either on principle or because the PGA said, if you go, we're going to ban you from playing. Right. Or whatever, like for whatever reason, these PGA players didn't go. They have been kind of screwed by their own essentially union. Like the PGA is a it's a players association.
JVL00:03:07This is the key question. So this is a nonprofit.
Sonny00:03:11This is what none of us really understand. This is why this is going to be a weird and bad episode, probably because none of us really understand how this organization is structured and who makes the final calls and how much power the players. As a. Opposed to the board of governors or whatever, whoever runs the PGA actually has. I mean, I like I don't understand any of this. I we were talking about this before the show, but but like Mike, I don't really understand any of this, but I am angry about it, which makes me feel like a normal news consumer. My like rage exceeds my knowledge in ways that I do not usually suffer from.
JVL00:03:51So here's why I think there's something weird going. On I have spent a few hours trying to understand this and nobody is asking any of the obvious questions of the reporting and that that tells me that there's there's a bunch of missing pieces here, which is why again, it's just it doesn't make sense and things that don't make sense have problems with them. So, I mean, number one being as we were talking before the show. So who's. Who signs off, right? Is it is it that the only person who you have to convince is the commissioner of the PGA and he's allowed to make the decision that the entire thing, the entire operation gets sold. That doesn't make much sense. That was the end of it to draw to draw an analogy. And I again, I'm saying this for listeners because that's what I said to you beforehand. If I was trying to buy the NFL, I would have to, you know, I might talk to the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell. But ultimately. Goodell would have to get all of the owners to agree to to be purchased by Saudi Arabia or whoever. Consequently, if Saudi Arabia wanted to purchase a publicly held company like Twitter, they would have to, you know, there's a big shareholder meeting and people will vote to sell their shares to say, yes, we will sell our shares for X price.
Sonny00:05:18Who is the where are the decision point stakeholders in this?
JVL00:05:24Who says, yes, we are going to sell the business to this? And that is why, again, my understanding was that it's an association, that it is like a union. Why is it that it just happens if the players are unhappy with it? None of this makes any sense. And the fact that nobody seems to be able in the press to explain why it is makes me think we're missing something big.
Sonny00:05:51And this is this is one thing I from the beginning have. Not entirely understood about this story, which is that, you know, people describe whenever I would say, like, well, you know. The structure of the PGA itself, I don't understand, because when I would talk about the story, people would say, well, you know, the PGA is just the players, it's like a union, but that clearly isn't right. That clearly is not accurate. It's it would be like saying, well, you know, the MLBPA is also the. Organism. That like decides the rules and, you know, makes makes the decisions on what ballparks will look like and that sort of thing. And like the PGA, the PGA as an organization is clearly doing something separate from representing the interests of the players, in part because like players can be kicked out of the PGA like the like you if you don't have your PGA card, you don't get to be you don't have your tour card. Right. You don't get to be a member of the PGA, you you if you don't make enough cuts or whatever, like whatever the standards are for being a member of the PGA, like you, you can get kicked out in a way that like. I guess if you get sent to the minors in baseball, are you out of the major league baseball players? So, again, I just don't understand how any of this none of this makes any sense to me, but I am mad about it. I'm mad about it. And that's well, that's what matters here.
Mike00:07:22Here's here's what I can say. About what angers me about this, because I agree, I do. I don't quite understand it as by my pedestrian understanding of it is the PGA tour essentially organizes those those tournaments throughout the year. And it has sort of agreements with like the Masters and the U.S. Open. I believe they only sort of own the Ryder Cup and the PGA. Or it's a part ownership, the Ryder Cup and the PGA Championship. So I think it is a little confusing. It seems to be even confusing for the players themselves about what they have the power to do. But here's what here's what is infuriating me about this. It's it's it is the conversation around what happened and who wins and who loses here. Because I'm talking about conversations I've had with with friends, with colleagues. And it seems like it's all sort of an evaluation of who won out. And yes, it looked like PGA won the first battle. But now it's live who has won out. And those players who took those big payouts, you know, and were threatened by the PGA were the people who the players who could have taken payouts, who stuck with the PGA, who were sort of threatened, but also kind of co-opted into the PGA's, you know, public relations framework. Fight against live. They're the chumps because they are not getting paid what they could have been. All of that sort of like makes me feel disgusting because I don't mean to get selectively outraged about the Saudis because like there's a lot of bad actors out there. And and like there's a certain point where like all like money you could argue originates from some place or goes through. Passes through some unsavory aspect is where a globalized economy, blah, blah, blah. But I found the sort of wanton throwing around of money by by live and really that's just an extension of the Saudis. I found it so gross and so is so it's such an attempt to co-opt something that is frankly like blasphemous. Is is is the providence providence of like of like a free countries and of places where like we don't kill dissidents or make women, you know, don't allow women to drive until a few years ago. Like there's something so gross about just accepting that money and thinking those who accepted the money from this awful place from this awful regime are like the winners somehow. And those who didn't for whatever. Reason out of loyalty to the PGA, which is a whole separate thing like like they were loyal to this group and now they're chumps like I find like, you know, or just their loyalty to like to, you know, not giving into this kind of ugly nasty regime. Like I find the whole conversation about it to be so amoral and so it just makes me feel gross and maybe I'm an idealist and I'm again once again, we're proving in these shows an idiot. We're just saying this is the way the world works, but I don't look at somebody like Bryson DeChambeau and think, ah, that guy won that guy, you know, that guy like what about the guy's soul for God's sake, you know, I mean like this is I find it so disgusting and I'm outraged. I don't even know why I'm outraged. I just think too much money and coming from a bad place and the people with all the money won and that makes me mad. That makes me outraged.
Sonny00:11:25There was there was a clarifying moment called capitalism.
Mike00:11:28Michael, there was it's not. No, it's not capitalism. JVL. It's oligarchism is what it is.
Sonny00:11:34Yeah, there was a clarifying moment in this whole this whole thing very early on when I think it was I think it was Bill Mickelson had agreed to take the money and it was some enormous amount of money that he was getting right and it was just like, I mean, look, you play golf, you play golf to win. Money like like it is. They're playing golf to win money. They're playing golf to win purses and checks. It's like Happy Gilmore, right? Like the better you do, the more money you make. And that's great. And that's why they play. They play golf. They play golf because they like to make money. And so when somebody comes and says, we'll give you $100 million or $50 million or whatever the number was to play golf for us, that's an instant win in a way. That's just like they're getting what they have achieved. The outcome they desired. Which is to make an enormous amount of money. And that's why. And that's and like, I think it I think it really, you know, when we think of sports, we think of people who do it for the love of the game. And we think of the people who just want to compete. They want to. And it's fucking Pollyanna. And it's, you know, yes, there's there's massive rewards for being a great quarterback or, you know, all-star shortstop or whatever. But like, you know, it's competition and that's. And. With with this with this situation. And I really think it I really think it only works on in an on an individual sport level. You could do something like this with Formula One or or the ATP, the tennis tour, you know, or like or golf. I don't think you could do it in a team sport because they're structured so differently. But in a in a in a singular individualist sport where like the better you do and the better you play, the more money you make. You can get away with this because it. Is on a certain level, just like I am doing this to get the largest check possible. That's what I'm that's why I'm going to these tournaments every week. And my life fucking sucks a lot of the time, especially when you're coming up the ranks like it's miserable and you're you know, sometimes you don't get anything, you don't make the cut or you you get bounced before you get to the elimination rounds or whatever. And like. It it's a it's a clarifying, it's a clarifying moment as much as anything.
JVL00:13:54It's no, I mean, I, I actually think that the nature of where the money come from comes from is the real problem. If Vince McMahon had set up the XGA right there, he was going to set up with better golf and we're going to have, you know, hookers who are cheerleaders and it's going to be so much better. And he had paid, he had paid Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman and a bunch of guys to go do it. That would have been one thing. And I don't think. Anybody would have been too upset over it. Uh, the difference is that this is a nation state. That's the real, the real thing. And because we are a democracy, there is no sovereign wealth fund of the United States of America, right? Right. We don't, we, and that exists, this is a separate political and sociological system. Coming and. Insert. Itself into our lives and our system. Yes. And it can do that precisely because it represses its own people, right? This is, you know, and I mean, maybe that's not quite right. It can do this because it happens to be sitting upon a strategic reserve of, of dead dinosaurs and that the rest of the world needs. And it doesn't matter how bad they are. We need them. And also it's a dangerous part of the world and they're basically open. To working with the west. And so like, I'm sorry, it's not fair. It's not right. But so I understand for geostrategic reasons why America has to play footsie with Saudi Arabia, even though we don't like it. Yes, get that. But at some point you think, well, fuck, can't we tell them to get the fuck out of our culture?
Sonny00:15:42I do. I, there's a, there was, there's a line in the movie Siriana, which I only remember cause I saw it in about 1700 trailers for the movie that I saw. Where I think it's George Clooney is talking, it's either Clooney. I, I forget, I forget which character it is, but one of the characters says to a, uh, I think a Saudi or maybe some other, uh, era princeling some, some other princeling from, from that part of the world, um, uh, says, says something like, you know, uh, a hundred years ago, you guys stumbled onto imaginable, unimaginable wealth. And a hundred years from now, you'll be dust in the dust. Desert and we'll, we'll all have moved on. And I think, I think part of the resentment here is the effort by the Saudis, uh, to, to transcend that dust in the desert. Like we, we are, we are waiting for them to, we are waiting for, uh, to not have to deal with their nonsense.
JVL00:16:47And we, and, and this is a way for them to definition of capitalism, which is that if you have. Enough capital, the capital itself is so valuable that you no longer need to produce anything of value. If you can accumulate enough actual capital, but they're, but they're, they're diversifying.
Sonny00:17:09And that is, I think it's that diversification is, I think what is, what is kind of grading as much as anything else. Uh, I don't care. I don't care if this Saudis have oil money because whatever they, they lucked into it. Um, I do. I do. I do.
JVL00:17:25But if that oil money is enough to allow them to then have a chip stack that lets them push into everything else in perpetuity.
Mike00:17:36Are we cool with that? Can I say something about, okay, like I, yes, I think, I think you guys are both right. And sort of this, the, the way the discussion is going on the Saudi side on the PGA side of things. And I had a, I, I, oh, these guys are craving motherfuckers. So I know, I know somebody. Somebody who, um, uh, who's a lawyer who knows this kind of stuff, who suggested that the ongoing, um, lawsuits between the two, uh, PGA and L and live, um, that there might've been some things in discovery that came out or that, that, that PGA does not want out. Um, and so that this is a way to, uh, kind of sweep all of that under the rug. But when it goes, when it comes back to the disgusting, the gross nature of all of this. The, again, maybe I am naive or a Pollyanna or just a fool, but to have had the PGA commissioner make these moral arguments against live against his players going to live and then pushing players like Rory McIlroy out there, tiger woods out there to, to make a stand, which they almost certainly believed in fully the players. Did um, and then to just pull the rug out from underneath under them and it, it, it is such a, you, you know, with that, at the risk of bringing politics in this, it's like you wonder how you got Trump or you wonder how you get this. It's like the institutions, uh, undermine themselves and, uh, you know what, here we fucking are total lack of shame, right? That he can't, you know, he has to go on CNBC with this, with this new, uh, chairman, uh, from Saudi and, and be like, this is so great for the game of golf. Oh, everybody's just so happy about how golf is going to be so much bigger. We're going to grow the game. Like, fuck you get the fuck out of here. That just enrages me because Rory McIlroy does not need my sympathy on this, but like. I it's bullshit. It's bullshit. What they had done to my little boy here. And I'm angry about it.
JVL00:20:01I'm sure it's fine.
?00:20:07Yeah.
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