The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund (PIF) have announced a “landmark agreement to unify the game of golf on a global basis.” The transformational agreement combines PIF’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity. The details of the deal were not disclosed.
Specialized trade publications have already called the move to unite the world’s three biggest golf tours under a common umbrella “a landslide” in the golf world that no one had expected. In the past two years, the responsible parties had bombarded each other with accusations and lawsuits. There had been no sign of a conciliatory solution.
PIF will make a capital investment into the new entity to facilitate its growth. The newly formed entity is meant to ensure a cohesive schedule of events among the game’s best players. It does not yet have a name, but it will be dominated by the PGA Tour and PIF, which is behind LIV Golf, and will fundamentally change the professional golf landscape. The composition of the supervisory board is as yet largely open, as is the influence of the new umbrella company on the individual tours. PGA Tour Inc. will remain in place as a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization, retaining administrative oversight of events for those assets contributed by the PGA Tour itself. The DP World Tour and LIV Golf will retain similar administrative oversight of events on their respective Tours. The board of directors of the new entity will oversee and direct all the new entity’s golf-related commercial operations, businesses and investments. The announcement of the new entity will end all pending litigation between the participating parties.
All legal disputes have been resolved with immediate effect, according to a joint statement.
PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and PIF announce newly formed
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) June 6, 2023
commercial entity to unify golf.