Jon Rahm Exits LIV Golf: What’s Next for the League?

And the first place I'm going to start, Smiley, I've got a list of names, I mean, obviously, the biggest one that I'm going to ask you about first is Jon Rahm. But there's all sorts of interesting contractual stuff going on here that's tied to both the bankruptcy filing of LIV 1.0 and then subsequently the funding that could or could not happen via BC Partners, depending on how many players get signed. And the way that some players already, Sergio Garcia, namely, have been able to get out of their contracts and other players are attempting to file suit. But, of course, the most recent and biggest piece of news I just mentioned, Jon Rahm announces he will not be part of LIV 2.0. And I just want to start a big picture for you of, you know, we talked a lot about the direction this league has been headed and what we thought was going to happen. This does not bode well for the future. What are your thoughts on this announcement from Jon Rahm and where the league goes from here, if it is going to exist at all in any shape or form in 2027? it gosh so he joined LIV in December of 2023 and I remember him getting on the TV was it MSNBC or something then he went on he's wearing the LIV jacket looks like yeah the letterman jacket straight out of Greece and it just looked like this was a guy who wrestled with a decision that he I think in his heart was probably against but he just couldn't inevitably turn it down And I think where he ended up at that point was thinking that he could be the reason or the needle to eventually tip the scales to where LIV and the PGA Tour would have to work together to where Rom can double dip in both worlds. And I think now when we zoom out, now it's been a little close to three years now. Jon Rahm was very successful on the LIV Golf Tour, won plenty of times. I think he was the player of the year multiple times. You might have to check the stats on that one. But for the most part, he was always inside the top five or the top ten. And I think where we will probably debate the most is whether Jon Rahm lost years in his peak years, especially from the major championship season. Come off that first year, there seemed to be a little level of discomfort, whether it was him wrestling with his mind, being at a major championship, feeling like he had more to prove with the decision that he made. I felt like as the years went on, did it not feel like Jon Rahm had gotten more comfortable with where he was at in LIV Golf? But I also will say that he was... Kind of towards the end, it felt like the things that he was saying in the media wasn't quite as strong as they were maybe in the beginning where he was... you know, when you're the top dog in the league, you got to be a bit of a spokesperson, if you will. And towards the end, it kind of felt like he was just, he's like, guys, there's people that run the league, that we have executives, we have players that want to be involved. That's not me. I just want to go out and play golf. And that was kind of the writing was a little bit on the wall at that point of like, I'm just here for as long as my contract is currently negotiated for, and I'm trying to get out. And then luckily for him, you know, PIF pulls out their money and next thing you know, you got bankruptcy courts and Jon Rahm actually has a way to get out of LIV Golf. And that's kind of where we sit now here in October 2026. I hope I'm not zooming out too big picture here. But when I think about what you just said, the way Jon Rahm carried himself in those press conferences, I think a lot of what we try to do, at least in the media sense, even in the fan sense, is make sense of maybe who the bad guy is or who do we need to blame for this whole thing or what sort of impact did it have on the greater golf ecosystem. I can't help but feeling for a Jon Rahm or even a Scott O'Neill who we know that when they're sitting at those podiums in the final months of LIV, knowing what they know behind the scenes, all they can do at that point is carry water for a number of reasons. namely they're hoping that a CVC Partners or some other equivalent you know investment firm can come in and float the thing and get it to another year maybe even if it doesn't look even if it's half as lucrative as the previous Live 1.0 was at least there's something there whereas right now I highly doubt we're seeing even a tee-shot hit in 2027 the rate we're going and if we do I mean I don't even know if you can call it a glorified mini tour at this rate if the players that are leaving that that are rumored to leave or reported committing to leaving If those players leave, this is going to look nothing like the previous iterations of Live So that's where I start first is like, I feel, you know, it's how bad can you feel for a guy not knowing what happened behind the scenes of like, hey, you're guaranteed whatever it was, 300 plus million up front You know, it sounds like depending on the report, he got 80 of that guaranteed, but the rest was sort of backloaded