Tag: Antitrust

Greg Norman on DOJ investigating PGA Tour: ‘A testament to (the Tour’s) stupidity’

“Has the PGA brought that on themselves or have we brought that on them? They brought it on themselves,” Greg Norman said.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — Greg Norman did not act surprised when told the Department of Justice is investigating whether the PGA Tour engaged in anticompetitive behavior as it battles the LIV Golf Series.

Why would he be? He called it.

“That is a testament to their stupidity quite honestly,” Norman told the Palm Beach Post. “Instead of sitting down and taking a phone call from us and just say, ‘Hey, work this out. We can do it.’

“It’s such an easy fix it’s ridiculous.”

Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens, is the CEO of the Saudi-backed LIV series. LIV’s headquarters are in West Palm Beach.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that players’ agents have been contacted by the DOJ’s antitrust division involving both the PGA Tour’s bylaws governing players’ participation in other golf events and the PGA Tour’s actions in recent months relating to LIV Golf.

Players who have jumped to LIV Golf have been suspended by the PGA Tour. The Tour, though, has not announced the length of the suspensions. That list includes Jupiter’s Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau.

“Has the PGA brought that on themselves or have we brought that on them?” Norman said. “They brought it on themselves. We haven’t done anything else other than putting together a business model and giving independent contractors a right to earn a living doing something else, as well as still being a member of the PGA Tour.

“The entire business model from the ground up was built to coexist within the ecosystem of golf, coexist within the majors, coexist with the DP World Tour, coexist with the PGA Tour, allowing the players to play here and play there.”

After the Tour’s decision to ban LIV players from playing in its events, Norman sent a letter to LIV players and agents accusing the Tour of monopolistic behavior. He wrote the Tour’s actions would “likely cause the federal government to investigate and punish the PGA Tour’s unlawful practices.”

“There is simply no recognized justification for banning independent contractor professional golfers for simply contracting to play professional golf,” he wrote.

A PGA Tour spokesperson confirmed to the Wall Street Journal the Tour was aware of the investigation.

Tom D’Angelo is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com. 

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Dana White expresses doubts about boxing venture

Dana White expressed some reservations and doubts about the boxing business in a recent interview…

Dana White has long teased that he was going to dive headlong into the deep waters of the boxing business. The UFC head promised a press conference last October to unveil his boxing operation. Yet October came and went. Then November, December, January … still nothing.

Now it appears he has cold feet.

In a video interview with Yahoo! Sports posted Tuesday, White was asked to comment on how he viewed the economic structure of boxing. He wasn’t so enthused.

“I hate speaking negatively about the sport of boxing,” White said, “other than the fact that it’s a mess – we all knows it’s a mess – and that it needs to be fixed, if it can be fixed.”

White continued: “I told you guys that I would have a press conference last October and announce all these things, but as I dove into this thing and started to look into the sport of boxing, the economics of boxing, that sport’s a mess. It’s a mess and it’s in big trouble. I don’t know. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”

What does White mean by “mess”? He didn’t say during the Yahoo! interview, but it doesn’t take a genius to grasp at least one of his objections.

As the largest mixed martial arts promotional group in the world, with nearly 600 fighters under exclusive contract, the UFC has considerable leverage when it comes to fighter compensation. The outfit signed a $1.5 billion broadcasting deal with ESPN in 2018. A few MMA experts, using publicly available financial documents, have estimated that UFC fighters take home anywhere from 13.6-16.3% of UFC’s total revenue in a given year.

The general consensus is that boxers do much better than that, which might be the reason for White’s reticence to wade in boxing waters. Promoter Bob Arum has been quoted in a recent UFC anti-trust suit as saying that his company Top Rank “pay[s] out 80%” of the revenue to fighters. According to Golden Boy’s financial documents that were brought to light during their anti-trust litigation against Premier Boxing Champions  (which was eventually rejected by the court), their fighter payout was 64% and 62% of total revenue in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

And it’s not a pattern that is likely to change anytime soon. In recent years, new players like the streaming platform DAZN have been doling out mind-numbing purses to fighters from all levels of the talent spectrum in an effort to bolster their presence in the market.

For White, who is accustomed to claiming the biggest piece of the pie, that’s a mess.