DORAL, Fla. — Greg Norman is confident LIV Golf is soaring into the future and he is going nowhere.
Norman, the CEO and commissioner of the Saudi-backed league, is upbeat and confident LIV Golf will continue to grow and exist separately from the PGA Tour. In a session Thursday with small group of reporters, Norman spoke publicly for the first time since the framework agreement between Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which runs LIV Golf, and the PGA Tour was announced in June.
Norman was asked if he had any concerns about LIV’s future when the agreement, which he was not a part of, was announced June 6.
“No, no,” he said. “On Friday I had zero and today I have zero.
“I know exactly the investment in LIV and the long-term viability of the franchises, as well as the valuation of each of these franchises. Money has always been invested in this and it will continue to be
so. I know LIV will always exist. »
And Norman felt the same about his safety, even after Ron Price, the PGA Tour’s chief executive, testified at a July Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington that Norman is “unemployed”. if an agreement is reached.
“I know it’s not true,” Norman said. “There’s so much white noise floating around out there that I don’t even pay attention to it.
” Sitting in this chair today, I know that every step I take is for a good reason. Good reasons to play golf. Good reasons for independent actors. Good reason for many reasons. But golf is the main reason why what I did today was right. So I was never afraid that anyone would say anything or that there would be any hostility against me or anything like that.
Because the economic model works. US
LIV will soon finalize its 14-event schedule for 2024, including 8 international events and 6 US events.
“LIV’s position has never been stronger,” Norman said. “And the success of our players and our brand has never been better.
Bubba Watson on Thursday said “10 to 20 people” have asked about buying his team, RangeGoats, including three at the event in Singapore in April, which opened the “floodgates.”
Norman was asked how that process would work.
“There’s a lot of interest from individuals who want to buy into the team,” he said. “I would say five months ago that was completely off the table. Now we can sit back here and just entertain what would that mean. It’s the success of the product. And RangeGoats aren’t the only ones. There are other people who are interested in other teams as well.”
“(That) is part of this great job of building the LIV brand and each of these franchises. Our responsibility is to create as much value as possible in each of these brands. »
Norman mum on LIV, PGA Tour players on both tours
Norman did not comment when asked what’s a good outcome in the framework deal, whether it’s LIV players playing in a few legacy events on the PGA Tour and/or Tour players involved in LIV events.
“I have my own personal thoughts,” he said. “But I’m not involved with it. I don’t want to be involved with it. The smarter people are involved with that than I am. I just hope it does work. I really do. Always been a believer in that.”
Norman, though, would like to see players involved in both tours.
“That was the original premise,” he said. “You’re seeing changes in the Tour since LIV. So we’ve become a leader in helping everybody understand how to commercialize the game of golf.”
Much was made about Norman not being a part of the seven weeks of negotiations between PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Yassir Al-Rumayyan, the man behind Saudi’s PIF, that led to the framework agreement.
But Norman is not concerned.
“I’m not involved with the framework agreement. I’m just over here running and operating LIV,” he said. “I didn’t need to be involved in the framework agreement, because the success was happening here.”
Leave a Reply