Latest news with #FutureCompetitionCommittee
Express Tribune
9 hours ago
- Business
- Express Tribune
Woods to head PGA Tour committee
Tiger Woods will head a new player-led committee aimed at overseeing a radical shake-up of professional golf in North America, PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp announced on Wednesday. Speaking on the eve of the season-ending Tour Championship, Rolapp said Woods would act as chairman for a nine-member Future Competition Committee aimed at designing the "optimal competitive model" for golf. Rolapp, who only recently took up his post with the PGA Tour after two decades with the National Football League, said the committee had been charged with leading "significant change" to the sport's existing model. "The purpose of this committee is pretty simple," Rolapp told a press conference. "We're going to design the best professional golf competitive model in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners," he added. "The goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change." Woods will be one of six players serving on the committee alongside Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell. Three business advisors on the panel include John Henry, the billionaire owner of Fenway Sports Group which owns the Boston Red Sox and English Premier League champions Liverpool. Rolapp said the committee would be driven by guiding principles that promoted competitive parity, creating more tournaments where the top players face off against each other and designing a season that was simple to follow. "I think the focus will be to create events that really matter, and how we do that, what that number is, we'll determine," Rolapp said. "But that's certainly the goal. "How do you actually drive a competition schedule where every event matters, that is connected to a postseason, but do it in a way where the best golfers can get together and actually perform well?" Rolapp said. "I think that's all an open question -- and those are the things we're going to look at with an open mind." In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, Woods said the committee would examine all options. Possible changes could include fewer events, smaller fields and higher stakes, the Journal reported. "Nothing's off the table," Woods told the newspaper. "We're going to run through a lot of different scenarios and a lot of different things that could happen." Woods, 49, who has not competed this year, as he recovers from a torn Achilles, hinted that the PGA Tour was poised for momentous changes to its format. "It's one of the most exciting times in our sport to be able to create something that is truly transformative," Woods said. "Sometimes you never get an opportunity like that in your entire career. But we have that moment right now." Rolapp did not give a timeline of when a new-look Tour -- which has already released its 2026 season schedule -- would be rolled out. "We will take as much time to get it right," Rolapp said. "I would like to put in the right competitive model as soon as we can. "But we want to do it right, so however long it takes, we'll do, while moving aggressively." Rolapp meanwhile did not comment on how the PGA Tour's planned shake-up would dovetail with the ongoing talks aimed at unifying the sport following the rise of the Saudi Arabia-financed LIV Golf circuit. "I think my primary focus is going to be on strengthening the Tour, and blank sheet of paper, means blank sheet of paper. Whatever does that, I'll pursue aggressively," Rolapp said when asked whether finding common ground with LIV Golf was a priority.
New Straits Times
10 hours ago
- Business
- New Straits Times
Woods to head PGA Tour committee to overhaul golf
MIAMI: Tiger Woods will head a new player-led committee aimed at overseeing a radical shake-up of professional golf in North America, PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp announced on Wednesday. Speaking on the eve of the season-ending Tour Championship, Rolapp said Woods would act as chairman for a nine-member Future Competition Committee aimed at designing the "optimal competitive model" for golf. Rolapp, who only recently took up his post with the PGA Tour after two decades with the National Football League, said the committee had been charged with leading "significant change" to the sport's existing model. "The purpose of this committee is pretty simple," Rolapp told a press conference. "We're going to design the best professional golf competitive model in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners," he added. "The goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change." Woods will be one of six players serving on the committee alongside Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell. Three business advisors on the panel include John Henry, the billionaire owner of Fenway Sports Group which owns the Boston Red Sox and English Premier League champions Liverpool. Rolapp said the committee would be driven by guiding principles that promoted competitive parity, creating more tournaments where the top players face off against each other and designing a season that was simple to follow. "I think the focus will be to create events that really matter, and how we do that, what that number is, we'll determine," Rolapp said. "But that's certainly the goal. "How do you actually drive a competition schedule where every event matters, that is connected to a postseason, but do it in a way where the best golfers can get together and actually perform well?" Rolapp said. "I think that's all an open question – and those are the things we're going to look at with an open mind." In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, Woods said the committee would examine all options. Possible changes could include fewer events, smaller fields and higher stakes, the Journal reported. "Nothing's off the table," Woods told the newspaper. "We're going to run through a lot of different scenarios and a lot of different things that could happen." Woods, 49, who has not competed this year, as he recovers from a torn Achilles, hinted that the PGA Tour was poised for momentous changes to its format. "It's one of the most exciting times in our sport to be able to create something that is truly transformative," Woods said. "Sometimes you never get an opportunity like that in your entire career. But we have that moment right now." Rolapp did not give a timeline of when a new-look Tour – which has already released its 2026 season schedule – would be rolled out. "We will take as much time to get it right," Rolapp said. "I would like to put in the right competitive model as soon as we can. "But we want to do it right, so however long it takes, we'll do, while moving aggressively." Rolapp meanwhile did not comment on how the PGA Tour's planned shake-up would dovetail with the ongoing talks aimed at unifying the sport following the rise of the Saudi Arabia-financed LIV Golf circuit.
NBC Sports
14 hours ago
- Business
- NBC Sports
Tiger Woods to lead new Future Competition Committee, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp announces
ATLANTA – Brian Rolapp's first announcement as CEO of the PGA Tour was predictably bold, with the former NFL executive announcing Wednesday at the Tour Championship the creation of a Future Competition Committee. Rolapp said the committee's goal is a 'holistic relook of how we compete on the Tour,' and will focus on both the regular season, playoffs and off-season. The nine-member committee will include six players and will be chaired by Tiger Woods, who also serves on the policy board and the PGA Tour Enterprises board. He will be joined by Joe Gorder, the chairman of both boards; John Henry, the manager of Strategic Sports Group; and Theo Epstein, the former MLB executive who is an advisor for Fenway Sports Group. 'We're going to focus on the evolution of our competitive model and the corresponding media products and sponsorship elements and model of the entire sport,' Rolapp said. 'The goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change.' The committee will focus on three areas of the Tour's competition model including parity, scarcity and simplicity, which is noteworthy given the circuit's ongoing struggle to create a compelling postseason model despite nearly two decades of trial and error. In May, the Tour announced it was eliminating the starting-strokes format at the Tour Championship, which essentially handicapped the field heading into the finale based on the post-season points list. Last year, for example, the points leader, Scottie Scheffler, started the week at 10 under followed by No. 2 on the points list at 8 under. This year's Tour Championship is using the traditional 72 holes of stroke play with each player starting at even par, including points front-runner Scheffler. 'I guess no more sandbagging for me at the end of the year,' Scheffler laughed. 'I was not a fan of it. I didn't think it was a good way to end the year, for a variety of reasons. I'm much more happy with this format. Having a good golf tournament on a really good golf course to finish off our season is extremely important, and I think when you look at it this week, we're going to have a difficult test, a good test to golf to finish off the year the right way.' The move to create an all-encompassing committee for a possible overhaul of the competitive model is on-brand for Rolapp, who pointed out that in his former job at the NFL, innovation and change were part of the culture. '[At the NFL] we did not sit still, changed rules every March. We changed the kickoff rule. That's what I mean by honoring tradition but not being bound by it. That level of innovation is what we're going to do here, and I think that's one lesson I've learned,' Rolapp said. 'I will say in talking with all the stakeholders, everyone seems excited about that, and I think realizes that given the strong foundation we have, if we apply some of that, we think we can make it better.' Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott and Camilo Villegas – who are all policy board members – along with Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell – who are co-chairs of the Player Advisory Council and will ascend to the policy board next year – will join Woods on the new committee.
NZ Herald
20 hours ago
- Business
- NZ Herald
Tiger Woods to head PGA Tour committee to overhaul golf
Tiger Woods will head a new player-led committee aimed at overseeing a radical shake-up of professional golf in North America, PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp announced today. Speaking on the eve of the season-ending Tour Championship, Rolapp said Woods would act as chairman of a nine-member Future Competition Committee
USA Today
20 hours ago
- Business
- USA Today
Lynch: New CEO Brian Rolapp just ended the PGA Tour as we know it, even if he didn't say it out loud
As the owner of more than 180 patents, inventor and businessman Charles Kettering knew of what he spoke when he said the best way to kill an idea is to get a committee working on it. Yet collective panels often serve a purpose for those who convene them, as evidenced by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which exists to provide air cover for what a powerful chief executive has already decided will happen. The CCP has 205 members, and 204 of those votes don't outweigh the one of Xi Jinping. On Wednesday, the PGA Tour's new CEO, Brian Rolapp, announced the creation of the Future Competition Committee, which is charged with aggressively re-examining the Tour's entire business model. It could be airily dismissed as a talking shop, an exercise in keeping minutes while losing months, but Rolapp's star chamber has the potential to author — or at least sign off on — the most seismic shake-up in the organization's history. Not a bad tease for 24 days in the job. In some respects, Rolapp will have less executive authority at the Tour than existed in his past gig. The veteran NFL executive spent over 20 years in a sport with one authority, with players who are contracted, where fans and broadcasters know who's playing each week, and where his outfit owned the biggest event. Now he's in a sport with multiple bodies running things, with talent that isn't contracted, in which fans and broadcasters have no guarantee who will play, and where — despite being arguably the most influential entity in golf — he controls none of the game's five biggest events. Tackling that inequity head-on is a fool's errand. Players will not consent to being contracted, and even armed with a billion-five from Strategic Sports Group, he'd struggle to acquire the PGA Championship or Ryder Cup, given how many PGA of America snouts would need to be dislodged from the trough. So other than creaming off a percentage of the revenue generated by the majors — and make no mistake, the Tour is coming for its share of that — the best he can do is streamline and elevate his own product. What does that look like? In both public comments and meetings with staff, Rolapp has said that every successful sports league requires three things, and that the PGA Tour currently only has one of them. That's competitive parity, notwithstanding Scottie Scheffler performing on a different plane than his contemporaries. The two elements he believes are lacking are simplicity and scarcity. The Tour doesn't have simplicity in any realm. Not in the structure of its season-long points race, not in the format of its playoffs, not in the eligibility criteria for issuing cards and filling fields. Until a change was announced in May, there wasn't even simplicity in the scoring system for the Tour Championship finale. This muddied administrative system is the product of decades of compromises and sops to the membership and other constituents. Flicking away that scab will be painful for many. The most crucial of Rolapp's philosophical pillars is scarcity. The Tour's 2026 regular season schedule has 38 stops, not including the Fall tournaments, and features four weeks when two events are staged concurrently. That's closer to saturation than scarcity. Rolapp's committee is a mechanism to right-size a product that has long been based (and its executives bonused) on one criteria — creating playing opportunities for members. In short, the Tour incentivized its leaders to dilute the product for parochial interests. 'I don't think we have a particular number in mind,' the CEO replied when asked about reducing the number of events. 'That's an important part of the work that we'll work with the committee on. I think the focus will be, as I mentioned, to create events that really matter.' 'Events that really matter' is the type of outwardly anodyne phrasing that will chill the blood of tournament directors and sponsors who already fear their tournament doesn't really matter. Even if Rolapp isn't saying it aloud, his goal is obvious: to dispense with operating principles more befitting a trade association than an elite league. Midwifing that process won't be easy as various stakeholders see their privileges and fiefdoms endangered. Like top players, who will be asked to give more to their business than signing a scorecard and posing for selfies. Like rank-and-file members, who will have to fight harder for less. Or tournaments and sponsors deemed surplus to requirements. And employees at the Tour's GloHo, who will no longer be aligned to business priorities. That's a lot of potentially aggrieved constituents, but Rolapp knows he'll never be more powerful than he is now, that those who hired him are forced to back him or risk looking like a bush league backwater ill-equipped for the modern sports economy. He's clearly intent on being a radical change agent, and the vehicle for that change is the Future Competition Committee. It's an exercise in consensus building, sure, and a potential incubator of ideas to improve the product, but really a means to ensure no one can complain about not being heard. But even powerful factions will find out that being heard no longer means being indulged. The players who wrestled control of the PGA Tour in recent years are about to learn that they sunsetted a commissioner who was of the golf ecosystem and was historically answerable to them, for a modern, aggressive CEO who isn't and, well, isn't.
