'We're The First' - Tiger Woods Excited To Be Making 'Sports History' With PGA Tour Equity Deal
Tiger Woods says he's excited to be making "sports history" with the new deal allowing players to become equity owners of the new PGA Tour Enterprises company
An excited Tiger Woods proclaimed the PGA Tour's deal with SSG as "sports history" when addressing the playing membership shortly after the huge $3bn investment was completed.
Players will take part ownership of PGA Tour Enterprises, a new company running the sport, in the form of equity shares, in a move that Woods is said to be thrilled with.
The Strategic Sports Group consortium - led by Fenway Sports Group and also including New York Mets owner Steve Cohen’s Cohen Private Ventures, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, and former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry - is preparing to inject the money into PGA Tour Enterprises which will increase the for-profit entity's valuation up to around $12 billion.
And according to Golf.com's Sean Zak, Woods was fired up at the prospect of making sports history with the players owning a piece of their sport for the first time.
According to Golf.com, Woods addressed the players via a conference call when announcing the deal, firstly saying: “Thank you, SSG, for believing in us and believing in our sport. Believing in the potential growth that we could enjoy together.
"Golf is an amazing sport," Woods added. "It has allowed communities to heal and grow. And we, as a team, are going to offer that according to what we believe is the true compensation and meritocracy that our sport has been built upon for all these years.
“As has been described earlier, as the Tour grows, we grow. So the more we invest into the Tour, the more we get the benefits of it.
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"Which has never been - it’s never happened in sports history. So we’re the first. Exciting for me to be able to be part of that.”
Equity will be shared out to PGA Tour players depending on certain factors such as “career accomplishments, recent achievements and Tour status, with grants vesting over time" according to Jay Monahan.
And even though players like Woods and Rory McIlroy will likely get a lot more than the average PGA Tour player, fellow Policy Board member Peter Malnati says it's still an exciting deal for players like him just as much as the elite.
“I’m going to tell you that, as a guy who has been on Tour for 10 years and has never finished better than 86th in the FedEx Cup, this deal is equally exciting for me as it is for Tiger," said Malnati.
“I have seen and felt and been a part of the frustration, the distrust, the chasm in our organization.
"And I can sit here today and tell you honestly that today is a day to celebrate. Today is a day of incredible optimism. I’m exhausted from this process, but I am so energized by what is to come."
Paul Higham is a sports journalist with over 20 years of experience in covering most major sporting events for both Sky Sports and BBC Sport. He is currently freelance and covers the golf majors on the BBC Sport website. Highlights over the years include covering that epic Monday finish in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor and watching Rory McIlroy produce one of the most dominant Major wins at the 2011 US Open at Congressional. He also writes betting previews and still feels strangely proud of backing Danny Willett when he won the Masters in 2016 - Willett also praised his putting stroke during a media event before the Open at Hoylake. Favourite interviews he's conducted have been with McIlroy, Paul McGinley, Thomas Bjorn, Rickie Fowler and the enigma that is Victor Dubuisson. A big fan of watching any golf from any tour, sadly he spends more time writing about golf than playing these days with two young children, and as a big fair weather golfer claims playing in shorts is worth at least five shots. Being from Liverpool he loves the likes of Hoylake, Birkdale and the stretch of tracks along England's Golf Coast, but would say his favourite courses played are Kingsbarns and Portrush.
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