and trying to attract a new, younger audience around the world and one of the things that we ve seen liv golf introduce is fresh ideas, a shorterformat. they ve brought in a team format into golf. they don t have a cut. and, of course, the biggest, perhaps, innovation is these huge signing on fees millions and millions of dollars thrown at players in the form of signing on fees and, indeed, in prize money as well and so, on top of that, it s brought to an end what has been a very damaging era and period of litigation as well. so, for the first time in well over a year, there seems to be some unity within the sport. i think also, its part of a much broader trend that we ve seen in the last decade or so of middle eastern investment into sports. now, talk to middle eastern countries such as saudi arabia and others and they say that this is designed to prepare these countries for a post oil world, designed to boost tourism, designed to enhance participation at the grass roots level, an
unprecedented bombshell merger. we know that the investment, the financing will be provided by the pif through liv golf and that the head of the pif, the man who stands at the top of liv golf, yasir al rumayyan who is also the chairman of newcastle united will be the chairman of this new for profit entity. but counter to that, al rumayyan himself has said that the governance, the control in that sense will still lie very much with the pga tour. do you think this kind of thing is a good idea? many in the sport think that it s a good idea because it, according to many, represents an opportunity to innovate a sport that is trying to grow and trying to attract a new, younger audience around the world and one of the things that we ve seen liv golf introduce is fresh ideas, a shorterformat. they ve brought in a team format into golf.
a sport that is trying to grow and trying to attract a new, younger audience around the world and one of the things that we ve seen liv golf introduce is fresh ideas, a shorter format. they ve brought in a team format into golf. they don t have a cut. and, of course, the biggest, perhaps, innovation is these huge signing on fees millions and millions of dollars thrown at players in the form of signing on fees and, indeed, in prize money as well and so, on top of that, it s brought to an end what has been a very damaging era and period of litigation as well. so, for the first time in well over a year, there seems to be some unity within the sport. i think also, its part of a much broader trend that we ve seen in the last decade or so of middle eastern investment into sports. now, talk to middle eastern countries such as saudi arabia and others and they say that this is designed to prepare these countries for a post oil world, designed to boost tourism, designed to enhance participat
a groom at garcia s wedding. they now don t speak. that sort of thing will be shipped to 1 s side. what we wait to see is what shape men s golf is going to take going forward. they will be going forward with a significant cash investment from saudi arabia as part of the backbone financing it. aha, saudi arabia as part of the backbone financin: it. , ., financing it. a number of considerable financing it. a number of considerable questions l financing it. a number of i considerable questions that understandably are yet to be answered. one that rises to the top apart from the player issue is the competition issue. liv runs a 5k hole tournament over three days with teams. it s 72 holes individually in the pga and dp world tour will they play everything all of the time? they will have to thrash out the calendar. the dp world tour and the pga tour had said today that they see the merits in the team format. they see also that liv have been transformative liquid for golf. that s an extrao