The tech-driven venture will focus on live events and original media geared toward cultivating a younger golf audience.
Despite the standoff raging for just a few short months to date, the LIV Golf vs. PGA Tour skirmishes have been numerous. And two of the sport’s foremost stars aren’t about to sit on the sidelines as the bad blood builds and boils.
On Tuesday, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and Golf Channel President Mike McCarley revealed TMRW Sports. As noted by John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, TMRW is a tech-driven venture that will produce original content, perhaps like live one-day golf competitions during the winter months outside the PGA Tour season. The project will place a specific emphasis on growing the game of golf among a younger generation of fans and players.
Eamon Lynch of Golfweek was first to report details of the live event series Sunday, and that the PGA Tour would be formally involved. The events are expected to begin in 2024.
Key investors in TMRW Sports include:
- Tiger Woods’ TGR Ventures
- Rory McIlroy’s Symphony Ventures
- Future Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald
- Ferrari Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz Jr.
- Dick Ebersol, former NBC Sports Chairman and current NBCUniversal Senior Advisor
- Former NFL VP John Collins
- Former NHL COO Eric Grubman
- 25madison founder John S. Daly
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While the thrust of the news is positive — finding creative ways to leverage technology and the PGA Tour’s offseason months to share the game with new audiences — there’s no doubt that the scope and timing of the news takes the rapid, controversial growth of the LIV Golf Invitational Series fully into account. Top players like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Sergio Garcia have been deeply unapologetic in embracing the financial guarantees from the breakaway competition backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, and have received sweeping bans from the PGA Tour and its events as a result, including from the lucrative FedEx Cup Playoffs.
From the beginning, Woods and McIlroy have been unequivocal in their commitment to the PGA Tour. Today, they take one major step toward ensuring the most sustainable, innovative future for the organization in a global golf marketplace that’s as wide-open and uncertain as it’s ever been.
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