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.”
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.
And now the PGA Tour is saying its deal with LIV Golf and the DP World Tour is not a “merger.”
“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. “PGA TOUR Inc. remains intact as it was prior, as a 501c6 (tax-exempt organization). We have created a separate, commercial entity – underneath that structure.”
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).
The same press release still says the agreement “combines” those businesses and rights into a “new collectively owned, for-profit entity.”
So isn’t that still a merger? And what does it matter anyway?
It depends on whom is asked.