The main headline above it read, "PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and PIF announce newly formed commercial entity to unify golf." "We removed it because it basically said the same thing as the (main) headline," the team said. She said that team replied by saying it was simply an editorial decision to unclutter the page and avoid redundancy. Neal of the PGA Tour said she hadn’t been aware of the removal and asked her digital team about it. USA TODAY Sports asked the PGA Tour about removing the word "merge" from a secondary headline in its initial press release. Penn State law professor Steve Ross called it "semantics" and noted there are "slight" differences in the proof the government needs to challenge mergers under Section 7 of the Clayton Act and agreements between rivals under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. This is what happens when you play telephone. The lawyers talk to business people who talk to the PR folks, who talk to the media. By that many steps down the road, the message is gibberish as the speaker doesn't even understand the relevance."
"So, for antitrust purposes, none of this matters. "The word 'merger' for antitrust purposes means both merger and acquisition," Baruch College law professor Marc Edelman told USA TODAY Sports Thursday. Therefore the PGA Tour might like to avoid calling it a "duck," even if it still quacks, walks and looks like one. Department of Justice also had been looking into possible anticompetitive practices of the PGA Tour after the Tour tried to fend off LIV Golf as a rival league and punish players for joining it.īy merging, the new combination could dominate golf and become an even bigger target for antitrust regulators, who could try to block or delay the deal. Last year, LIV Golf and several golfers sued the PGA Tour for alleged antitrust violations, calling it a monopoly throughout their 118-page complaint. There are sensitivities related to government scrutiny of this deal for antitrust reasons, legal experts told USA TODAY Sports. He referred instead to being "partners" even though the press release quoted him as saying the partnership "combines" those businesses and assets. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan also never used the words "merge," "merger" or "combine" in a news conference about the deal Tuesday. also posted a "public service announcement" on Twitter Wednesday that said, "The PGA Tour and DP World Tour did not merge with LIV Golf. They partnered up with the PIF." He said the Tour "still controls how and where the money goes." "This is NOT a 'merger,' " Tour golfer Michael Kim said on Twitter. That still doesn’t make it a merger to some who echo the Tour’s company line.
"The new entity (name TBD) will implement a plan to grow these combined commercial businesses," the release stated. Meanwhile, the same PGA Tour press release (now without the word "merge") still says these businesses are being "combined" into one. A merger is "any of various methods of combining two or more organizations," according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. The simple dictionary definition of "merge" is to combine into one. So isn’t that still a merger? And what does it matter anyway? The same press release still says the agreement "combines" those businesses and rights into a "new collectively owned, for-profit entity." She said this entity will include the Tour’s commercial assets, the European DP World Tour, LIV Golf and other golf-related commercial businesses of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF). We have created a separate, commercial entity – underneath that structure." remains intact as it was prior, as a 501c6 (tax-exempt organization). "I know it’s been called a merger as shorthand, but that is not accurate," PGA Tour spokeswoman Laura Neal said in an email Thursday to USA TODAY Sports. That description and other details in the release led news outlets around the world to call it a "merger." But by the end of the day Tuesday, that headline and that word – "merge" – were removed from that press release on the PGA Tour website.Īnd now the PGA Tour is saying its deal with LIV Golf and the DP World Tour is not a "merger." The PGA Tour announced its shocking new deal with LIV Golf Tuesday by issuing a press release under a bold headline that said it would "merge commercial operations under common ownership."
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