Rory McIlroy feels that a ‘fans first’ approach should be adopted by the PGA Tour going forward and that, in doing so, the product, the business and the Tour in general will be much better as a result.
“Yeah, so to me, like this is the problem with a members’ organization,” McIlroy told the press ahead of a practice round at TPC Sawgrass. “Things are created for the members. Then once those things are created, you’ve got to go sell those things to fans, sponsors, media. To me, that seems a little backwards. I think what needs to happen is you need to create things for the fans, for the sponsors, for the media, and then you have to go sell that to the players, tell them to get on board with that, because if they get on board and we’re all part of the business now, if the business does better, we do better. That seems pretty simple to me.”
Though the world number two is no longer part of the boardroom conversation having resigned his Player Director Policy Board position back in November, he remains close with a number of those involved in the Strategic Sports Group and remains relatively in the loop as to what the primary investors in PGA Tour Enterprises would like to see going forward.
“I think the on-site experience is something that they’re going to heavily invest in,” McIlroy explained. “So trying to get more — I don’t think every week has to be like a Phoenix Open, but I think having it be more of an event.
“You think of like Formula 1, for example, and it’s like, you go there and it’s a weekend of racing, but there’s so much else going on, and you get 400,000 people in through the gates on any given weekend. So creating more events like that where it’s a way to enhance the on-site experience for a fan. Even fans that don’t necessarily watch golf week in, week out, but you try to bring them to a tournament, get them introduced, and I think that’s one part.
“Then I think the television experience, and I think Jay referenced this with PGA TOUR Studios up the street — if I were a fan, I would want to watch the best players compete against each other week in, week out. To me, that seems like the lowest hanging fruit — well, not the lowest hanging fruit, but basically, okay, I think if you just unified the game and brought us all back together in some way, that would be great for the fans, I would imagine.
“I think that would then put a positive spin on everything that’s happened here, and like okay, get together, we all move forward, and I think people could get excited about that. Again, I don’t know what that looks like, and that seems like it’s probably further away than it should be, but that’s my perspective on it.”
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan addressed the media on Tuesday, and while he still remains tight lipped as to the state of negotiations with the PIF, he did admit that talks were ongoing. This didn’t stop several players taking a swipe at Monahan in their own press dealings, but McIlroy still feels that Monahan is a suitable candidate to lead the Tour going forward.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said when asked the question. “You look at what Jay has done since he took over. The media rights deal, navigating us through COVID, the strategic alliance with the DP World Tour. I would say creating PGA TOUR Enterprises, we were just able to accept a billion and a half dollars in the business, people can nit-pick and say he didn’t do this right or didn’t do that right, but if you actually step back and look at the bigger picture, I think the PGA TOUR is in a far stronger position than when Jay took over.”
“I think some of the reaction to June 6th was warranted,” he added. “But I think at this point it’s eight months ago, and we all need to move on. We all need to sort of move forward and try to bring the game back together.”
McIlroy has no regrets about the decision to stand down from the board and focus on his own game, but for the sake of everybody involved, wants the resolutions to come about quickly, saying: “I want the train to speed up so we can get this thing over and done with.”
But he still looks back on his time fondly, considers it an education of sorts, and would potentially be open to a return to board duties in the future.
“It didn’t really take a toll on my golf because I still feel like I played really good golf the last couple of years,” he explained, “but it took a toll on my time, time that I wanted to spend maybe doing other things, and that was a part of the reason why I decided to get off.
“It’s been an education. I’ve said this to you guys. I like being busy. I just like being busy doing my own things. It just got to the point — it’s different now, though. You’ve got two boards on TOUR. One is really a business board, and sort of that priority is growing the growth of the business of the PGA TOUR, and then the policy board, which I was on, was about making rules and slow play and whatever else.
“The business board to me would be something — if an opportunity came along in the future and I felt like it was the right time, would maybe be something that I would like to get involved in again.”
Leave a comment