Jay Monahan to leave next year as PGA Tour turns to NFL exec Brian Rolapp as new leader
CROMWELL, Conn. — Jay Monahan is leaving the PGA Tour next year after a decade that ends with a league fractured by the Saudi riches of LIV Golf, turning it over to top NFL executive Brian Rolapp in a new role as CEO.
Rolapp, the chief media and business officer for the NFL and a key executive for Commissioner Roger Goodell, was introduced Tuesday as CEO, a position that had never existed in the tour's six decades of existence.
'Players are central to everything we do, and making sure they are supported and heard will be a top priority,' Rolapp said in an open letter. 'At the same time, we are going to keep challenging ourselves to grow the game in new ways, reach new fans, and create a tour that reflects the future of sports and entertainment.'
Monahan announced last December the search for a CEO. Still unclear was Monahan's role until the announcement of Rolapp.
Monahan will shift his day-to-day responsibilities to Rolapp and focus more on his position on the PGA Tour board, along with the commercial PGA Tour Enterprises board, through 2026.
Rolapp was introduced two days after the U.S. Open, one of four times a year all the best players are together.
Monahan, who guided all of golf through the COVID-19 pandemic, was criticized for not taking a meeting with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia when it wanted to invest in golf with a team component.
LIV Golf began in June 2022 and lured away over the next two years Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson.
Monahan and two board members, Jimmy Dunne and Ed Herlihy, then secretly met with PIF leadership and reached an agreement in late May 2023 that was geared toward bringing golf back together. That infuriated PGA Tour players who stayed loyal.
The framework agreement was never finalized. The PGA Tour and PIF are still negotiating on an investment deal, and not even President Donald Trump could smooth the way after a meeting in February.
'Brian is the perfect choice for the next chapter of the PGA Tour,' Monahan added. 'His arrival strengthens our leadership team and reflects our shared commitment to the TOUR's continued evolution. With Brian's expertise and vision, and the trust we've established with our players and fans, I'm more confident than ever in the future we're building.'
golf: /hub/golf
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
32 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Rahul Jain's on 6 large & midcap IT stocks to bet on, explains what's driving sectoral outperformance
Rahul Jain, Director, Dolat Capital, favours LTIM due to its order book growth and potential stability following a CEO change, anticipating a return to pre-Covid growth levels. HCL Tech's consistent outlook and Infosys' potential guidance increase also make them attractive. In the midcap space, Mphasis, KPIT, and eClerx are favored for their growth potential relative to valuation. ADVERTISEMENT We have seen Nifty IT outperforming the rest of the market this month. What is driving this sudden strength? Is it just pure sector rotation? Is it the churn that we are seeing or do you believe fundamentally this has merit in terms of the way Nifty IT has been outperforming? Rahul Jain: A part of this could be related to the kind of correction that we saw in the February-March period when the expectation for the sector in terms of growth in earnings were much higher and subsequently the valuation corrected. When the earnings started, we got a mixed set of commentary where some companies saw a lot of impact related to the macro or the tariff kind of a thing, while many other companies said that they have seen very limited observation in terms of any deterioration related to that. Since the earnings, one-and-a-half, two months have gone and we have not seen any further deterioration, rather on the tariff side, there is a lot of normalisation that has happened with many countries. Some bit of ambiguity will come into play as tariffs eventually come into picture. But for now, no bad news has acted as good news in the space. Valuations were low, growth expectations are low, and valuation can see some room for upside if the growth eventually improves. The market is anticipating that as the year progresses and there is no incremental bad news shaping up in the sector. The growth assumption in the sector will eventually improve and will drive the valuation. So, that is something which is finding value in this space at this point and should continue as the year progresses. The valuation comfort is still there, but also gives us some sense how the deal momentum is picking up. Is there anything incremental that you are picking up right now because back in the earning season, we have seen quite a mixed commentary coming in especially with respect to discretionary spending in the US. Has anything changed in terms of the pickup over there? Rahul Jain: We keep getting those press releases by the respective companies where they announce important deals once in a while, so that is a usual activity. But we do not hear from our recent interaction with companies where they are seeing the stalling of the ramp up. Stalling of the ramp up has been a bigger pain point in the last two years, more than the deal gaps itself. I agree that the deal win momentum is quite mixed across players and it is not very uniform. But we could also see that there was a lot of ambiguity in the mind of the spenders also in that period. Now those things are getting streamlined to some degree and may happen more in Q1 as tariffs eventually take into action. Then probably there could be an opportunity of pent-up demand coming starting from Q2, Q3 onwards. ADVERTISEMENT There is also one very big trend on the Gen-AI side where the adoption is coming closer on, the timeline point of view, which itself could also be another round of trigger for tier I vendors to begin with in India. Those are the two triggers pending and whether they happen after Q1 or later in the year, is something that we need to work on. So far with the expectation coming into play, so far giving the opportunity that is available to us, we are in the bottom part and we would only see things improving here on. What is your sense on how much the AI disruption is already in the price or how much of it is yet to be seen because it is such an evolving landscape out there? Rahul Jain: It is very difficult to measure it in a very precise manner, but going by the past cycle of various technology trends that has always been perceived as a risk to the sector. So we have seen that when there was too much talk around blockchain in digital or many other technology trends in the early stage of adoption, there are a lot of boutique companies which play roles which are very tech savvy, very individual led, smaller setup, doing pilots for a lot of companies. ADVERTISEMENT But once these global enterprises decide that they need a mass rollout, and scale this technology enterprise wide, then their key support vendors are the same top 10 companies. So, when the mass deployment of those technologies has to happen, they eventually rely on the likes of Accenture, TCS, Infosys, and the like. I think that is what will happen with AI also eventually. Are we six months away from that trend? Are we one-year away from the trend? We do not know. But the smartest people on the AI side talk about how we will see mega adoption within 12 to 24 months. Some of that early trend could happen in the next six months and it may scale up 18 months from now based on those understanding, but it is very difficult for any one of us to single out that this is when there will be a big shift. ADVERTISEMENT Even when we are talking about the entire outperformance in the Nifty IT space, there is one basket in particular that is midcap IT which has outperformed the overall basket. Do you still see valuation comfort over here? If you had to place your bets in the entire IT space, would the midcaps be making it to your radar? Rahul Jain: The whole logic of why IT midcap has been doing so well for so long over tier I names is the sheer difference in the growth rate of these companies and these companies are growing anywhere between 12% and 18% on organic basis and in some cases, there is inorganic element as well. While the largecaps are at a very reasonable valuation, their growth in the last three-five years except for one year in between because of Covid – their 10-year CAGR – is in that high single to mid-single digit basis. So, for a lot of companies, the filtration of investment would only come if the growth can compound in early double digits at least and that is the reason people are seeing more value in stories that can become large and can grow faster. So, the likes of Persistent, Coforce, KPITs – which are reasonable in terms of size with close to $500 million to $2 billion revenue band, are behaving like larger midcaps. They are not midcap or tier II as such, they are good in size on their own and where there is a lot of money can be deployed. So, those are the areas where people are parking money because of the growth rate differential. ADVERTISEMENT Over a period of time, once the growth differential is also narrow, the valuation differential will narrow as well. That is something we are waiting for. Once we see a better IT cycle, the growth differential will narrow. In a troubled environment that we have seen in the last two, two-and-a-half years, companies with much higher execution and much smaller size become an advantage and that is what we have seen in some companies. While a largecap does take a hit because of the macro spending factors, that explains why that differentiation has happened. Would you elaborate on that? What is your pecking order in terms of your preferred list from within it? Rahul Jain: There are three-four names which we like and these have a lot of short-term as well as long-term reasoning behind. Within the larger caps, we like LTIM. Here the order book growth has been decent on the closing basis of FY25 and a CEO change can probably bring in some kind of stability on the top layer which has seen some attrition in the last 12-18 months. That is something which we like and the companies historically pre-Covid also have been doing better in terms of growth versus the tier I peers. So, it is where a large business which can do well and is reporting below its potential for the last two-three years, has good potential to do better from here on. So, that is one largecap name that we like. We also like HCL Tech given its consistent, decent confident outlook for this year and we also see potential for Infosys to gradually scale up its guidance later in the year. These are the two-three names that we like in the tier I pack. Other largecap companies we like less. On the midcap side, some of the good businesses are very expensively priced. So, leaving those aside, right now we like Mphasis, KPIT, eClerx. These are some of the companies where growth versus valuation provides an opportunity to make money even from this point. So, these are the names that we are liking within the mid-tier to smallcap. (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel)
India Today
36 minutes ago
- India Today
Simone Inzaghi downplays Al-Hilal agreement timeline: Gave everything to Inter
Simone Inzaghi has insisted he gave everything to Inter Milan before taking charge of Al-Hilal, responding to comments from the Saudi club's CEO that suggested the deal had been agreed upon prior to Inter's Champions League final defeat to Paris Italian manager left Inter earlier this month after the heavy loss in Munich, which brought their European campaign to a disappointing end. During his four-year spell in charge, Inzaghi led the Nerazzurri to a Serie A title, two Coppa Italia trophies, and three Italian Super Cups, though he ultimately fell short of delivering continental CEO Esteve Calzada told the BBC that an agreement with Inzaghi had been in place prior to the final but said the coach had asked to delay the announcement out of respect for his then-current club. "It might look like it's something that came quickly, but it's the result of hard work," Calzada said."He was playing a massive match and asked (us) to keep things aside until after the final. It was decided but not signed before the final, just because out of respect he asked us to wait, which is certainly fair enough."The revelation prompted speculation in the Italian media, with questions raised over whether Inter's players were aware of Inzaghi's decision before the final and if it had any bearing on their ahead of Al-Hilal's Club World Cup opener against Real Madrid on Wednesday, Inzaghi dismissed any suggestion that his commitment to Inter had I heard - or heard about - all sorts of things, as has often happened during the four years I was at Inter," he said at a press conference."If this was the price to pay for my four years at Inter, I'll gladly pay it. But it's nothing compared to the good I received from the entire Inter world - I mean the fans, the management, the players, everyone at Inter."I know I'll miss it - I'll miss everything, even this - even the most unfair accusations that were made over these four years. But I was truly happy. I gave my all."Inter President Beppe Marotta declined to be drawn into the controversy but reaffirmed that the club's future does not hinge on any one person."I don't chase after rumours, denials, or other people's behaviour - everyone knows what they've done," Marotta said ahead of Inter's Club World Cup clash with Monterrey."A cycle has ended and we thank Simone Inzaghi for all he's given us, but now there's a new cycle to open and focus on. Inter's story moves forward and doesn't depend on individuals."
India Today
36 minutes ago
- India Today
Sensex, Nifty rise as markets stay calm despite Iran-Israel flare-up
Benchmark stock market indices opened lower, but quickly shed losses to trade in green as investors remained cautious due to rising tensions in the Middle East between Israel and S&P BSE Sensex was up by 118.37 points to 81,701.67, while the NSE Nifty50 gained 61.65 points to 24,913.45 as of 9:28 VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Limited, said that the latest tweet by President Trump and the US defence movements in West Asia signal the aggravation of the "However, there is no panic in global equity markets and it appears that the markets' assessment is that this conflict will end soon without impacting the global economy," he BSE Sensex showed a mixed start to Wednesday's trading session. IndusInd Bank led the gainers with a 5.05% jump, followed by Maruti Suzuki up 2.10%, Mahindra & Mahindra gaining 1.97%, Bajaj Finance rising 0.92%, and Titan adding 0.76%.Adani Ports dropped 0.80%, Kotak Mahindra Bank fell 0.70%, PowerGrid declined 0.65%, Infosys was down 0.45%, and Nestle India slipped 0.27%.It is important to understand that after the Covid crash which took the Nifty to a low of 7511 in March 2020 we are in a bull market which has been climbing all walls of worries. The market is likely to climb this Israel-Iran conflict worry, too. Despite the high valuations, particularly in the broader market, the market is likely to remain resilient supported by sustaining strong liquidity and hopes of turn around in earnings. The 24500-25000 range will hold in the near-term and is likely to be broken on the upside when positive news relating to the West Asian conflict comes. Buy on dips strategy will continue to
