This world-wide Corona Virus pandemic has been a scourge. It has taken a high death toll on the vulnerable. It has thrown economies into turmoil and it has taken sports away from everyone.
In Europe there’s been no premier league soccer. In the United States, everything came to a grinding halt — the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball and NFL mini-camps.
The PGA Tour called off its flagship event — The Players — and its stars have been on the sidelines since.
Same for the European Tour.
The PGA Tour, one of the world’s wealthiest 501-C-3 (charitable) organizations, has billions in revenue to hold it over. The European Tour? Not so much. Compared to the PGA Tour, the European Tour is a pauper.
One good result of this pandemic is that it most likely squashed the proposed upstart “Premier Golf League.” That proposed league would have attempted to suck star players away from both the PGA Tour and the European Tour — a lousy proposition for both tours.
The PGA Tour laid down the law to its members with Tour Commish Jay Monahan (aka The Sheriff Of Nottingham) proclaiming to his charges: “It’s either them or us,” referring to the upstart Premier League.
As a result, there’s whispering from around the golf world and those whispers are growing louder, that some form of consolidation between the PGA Tour and the European Tour could be forthcoming. Goodness knows European Tour boss Keith Pelley has his hands full keeping things going.
The European Tour surely needs it and the PGA Tour can get some benefit from said consolidation.
The PGA Tour is scheduled to resume play on June 11th at The Colonial.
The European Tour won’t be back in action until July 30th at the British Masters, same date as the scheduled WGC-St. Jude event in Memphis.
Both tours needs to get going. The three-month suspension of play has cost the PGA Tour millions of dollars. Of course, its coffers are fat enough to weather that sort of delay. The European Tour is another story.
Both tours need the revenues from television, sponsorships and ticket sales, not to mention those expensive corporate boxes and hospitality setups.
One big carrot that the European Tour can dangle in front of the PGA Tour is the Ryder Cup.
As it stands now, the big dollars from the Ryder Cup flow to the PGA Of America and the European Tour. In fact, it’s the Ryder Cup cash that helps keep the European Tour going and that’s a big reason the matches will most likely be played this year — even if fans are not allowed on site at Whistling Straits.
Truth be known, the PGA Tour suffers from “major envy.” It gains nothing from the four major championships. Augusta National Golf Club owns and stages The Masters and makes a mountain of cash from that prestigious event. The USGA owns and stages the U.S. Open, the R&A holds the keys to the castle that is the Open Championship and the PGA of America gets all the loot from the PGA Championship and shares the Ryder Cup riches with the European Tour.
At the end of the day, it would be a great thing to see the PGA Tour work out a deeper, more meaningful relationship with the European Tour.
It would help guarantee that stuff like The Premier League will simply go away for good.
And yes, the European Tour could sure use a little of that PGA Tour wealth.
