00:00And the first place I'm going to start, Somalia, is I've got a list of names.
00:03I mean, obviously, the biggest one that I'm going to ask you about first is Jon Rahm.
00:07But there's all sorts of interesting contractual stuff going on here that's tied to both the bankruptcy filing of Live
00:121.0
00:13and then subsequently the funding that could or could not happen via BC Partners, depending on how many players get
00:19signed.
00:20And the way that some players already, Sergio Garcia namely, have been able to get out of their contracts
00:25and other players are attempting to file suit.
00:28But, of course, the most recent and biggest piece of news I just mentioned, Jon Rahm announces he will not
00:33be part of Live 2.0.
00:35And I just want to start big picture for you of, you know, we talked a lot about the direction
00:41this league has been headed
00:42and what we thought was going to happen.
00:44This does not bode well for the future.
00:47What are your thoughts on this announcement from Jon Rahm and where the league goes from here,
00:51if it is going to exist at all in any shape or form in 2027?
00:56Gosh, so he joined Live in December of 2023.
01:01And I remember him getting on the TV.
01:03Was it MSNBC or something that he went on?
01:06He's wearing the Live jacket.
01:08Looks like, yeah, the Letterman jacket straight out of Greece.
01:11And it just looked like this was a guy who wrestled with a decision that he, I think, in his
01:20heart was probably against.
01:22But he just couldn't inevitably turn it down.
01:25And I think where he ended up at that point was thinking that he could be the reason or the
01:30needle to eventually tip the scales to where Live and the PGA Tour would have to work together to where
01:38Rahm can double dip in both worlds.
01:42And I think now when we zoom out, now it's been a little or close to three years now.
01:48Jon Rahm was very successful on the Live Golf Tour, won plenty of times.
01:53I think he was the player here multiple times.
01:55You might have to check the stats on that one.
01:57But for the most part, was always inside the top five or the top ten.
02:02And I think where we will probably debate the most is whether Jon Rahm lost years in his peak years,
02:12especially from the major championship season.
02:15Come off that first year, there seemed to be a little level of discomfort, whether it was him wrestling with
02:21his mind, being at a major championship,
02:24feeling like he had more to prove with the decision that he made.
02:28I felt like as the years went on, did it not feel like Jon Rahm had gotten more comfortable with
02:34where he was at in Live Golf?
02:37But I also will say that he was kind of towards the end.
02:43It felt like the things that he was saying in the media wasn't quite as strong as they were maybe
02:48in the beginning where he was, you know,
02:50when you're the top dog in the league, you got to be a bit of a spokesperson, if you will.
02:53And towards the end, it kind of felt like he was just he's like, guys, there's there's people that that
03:00run the league that we have executives.
03:02We have we have players that want to be involved.
03:05That's not me.
03:05I just want to go out and play golf.
03:07And that was kind of the writing was a little bit on the wall at that point of like,
03:11I'm just here for as long as my contract is is currently negotiated for and I'm trying to get out.
03:17And then luckily for him, you know, the PIF pulls out their money.
03:21And next thing you know, you got bankruptcy courts and John Rahm actually has a way to get out of
03:26Live Golf.
03:26And that's kind of where we sit now here in October 2026.
03:31I hope I'm not zooming out to big picture here.
03:34But when I think about what you just said, the way John Rahm carried himself in those press conferences,
03:41I think a lot of what we try to do, at least in the media sense, but even the fan
03:45sense is make sense of maybe who the bad guy is or who do we need to blame for this
03:50whole thing?
03:51Or, you know, what sort of impact did it have on the greater golf ecosystem?
03:54I can't help but feeling for a John Rahm or even a Scott O'Neill, who we know that when
04:01they're sitting at those podiums and the final months of Live,
04:04knowing what they know behind the scenes, all they can do at that point is carry water for a number
04:10of reasons.
04:12Namely, they're hoping that a BC Partners or some other equivalent, you know, investment firm could come in and float
04:18the thing and get it to another year.
04:20And maybe even if it doesn't look, you know, if it's half as lucrative as the previous as Live 1
04:24.0 was, at least there's something there.
04:26Whereas right now, I highly doubt we're seeing even a tee shot hit in 2027, the rate we're going in.
04:32And if we do, I mean, I don't even know if you can call it a glorified mini tour at
04:36this rate.
04:37If the players that are leaving that are rumored to leaving or reported or committing to leaving, if those players
04:42leave,
04:43this is going to look nothing like the previous iterations of Live.
04:46So that's where I start first is like, I feel, you know, it's how bad can you feel for a
04:52guy not knowing what happened behind the scenes of like,
04:55hey, you're guaranteed whatever it was, $300 plus million up front.
04:58You know, it sounds like depending on the report, he got 80 of that guarantee, but the rest was sort
05:04of backloaded.
