Lynch: Jay Monahan gave a press conference for an audience of one. But will he listen?

The political scientist Ivan Krastev defines transparency as being less about restoring trust than managing mistrust, a theory that came to mind Tuesday as PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan held his annual press conference at The Players. 

Over the 21 months since he signed a framework agreement with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, Monahan has fielded countless questions about the negotiations and stiff-armed every one of them, insisting that he wouldn’t conduct talks in public. Another 16 such inquiries came today, and the commish responded by telling his inquisitors only what he wasn’t going to tell them. No particulars on where things stand, no details on the challenges involved, no specifics on the potential outcome. When asked what PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan might want from an investment, he just stopped short of suggesting the  reporter place a call to Riyadh. 

“I think that's a question for him to answer, not for me to answer,” he said, knowing full well that Al-Rumayyan hasn’t offered even an unsatisfactory update since the initial agreement was signed in June ’23. 

While reiterating his desire to consummate a deal, Monahan added a new caveat: “We're doing everything that we can to bring the two sides together. That said, we will not do so in a way that diminishes the strength of our platform or the very real momentum we have with our fans and our partners.” He repeated that more than once, and in a tone that implied he’s about done with managing the mistrust that stems from secretive, painstaking negotiations that never seem to progress, much less reach a destination. 

This was a press conference aimed at an audience of one, two if you count the federally mandated fluffing of Donald Trump for his “exceedingly generous” contribution. But will Al-Rumayyan listen? 

For almost an hour, Monahan emphasized the Tour’s highlights — commercial wins with sponsors, increased viewership, growing tournament revenue, team league success with TGL — each of which stood in stark contrast to LIV’s failure to find traction in those same lanes. He painted the picture of a platform that doesn’t need Al-Rumayyan’s money. They’d like it, but don’t need it. And not as much as Al-Rumayyan needs the Tour. 

When Monahan says he won’t accept deal terms injurious to the Tour’s product, he may be referring to the potential inclusion of team golf, which Al-Rumayyan is convinced has enormous untapped revenue, despite a lack of supporting evidence. Perhaps Monahan is no longer willing to bulldoze the Tour’s core schedule to accommodate a team off-ramp for the Saudis. Or he could be referring to finances. The latest proposal — delivered to PIF at the White House, and which hasn’t yet received a response — valued LIV at $500 million, a figure so farcical that it would have any sentient being dashing for the fainting couch. But even that generous estimate offended Al-Rumayyan. The man who has shoveled $5 billion into a furnace didn’t care to hear that figure, and his retinue of fee-taking parasites are disinclined to tell him the truth. 

Since the White House meeting, there’s been a palpable mood change among Tour executives, players and board members. They’re tired of waiting around with a life raft for someone apparently determined to go down with his ship. Al-Rumayyan needs a face-saving solution for his LIV problem, but wants it on his terms. Yet he doesn’t have the leverage he once enjoyed. 

LIV can’t really spend its way out of its current quagmire. The three players who might make a difference if they jumped — Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler — are going nowhere. The potency of the pocketbook is diminished. Two years ago, LIV was an existential threat. Now it's not even a threat. Al-Rumayyan faces contract renewals and a lengthy tail of expenses with vendor commitments, with not a single metric pointing in a positive direction. 

There’s also the great unknown of his support at home. Al-Rumayyan himself has said that PIF’s foreign investment (the category that includes LIV) would be reduced from about a third of its portfolio to 18 percent. Bernie Madoff couldn’t conjure accounting creative enough to help LIV survive any assessment that places profitability over pridefulness. And while PIF must be party to a multitude of commercial disputes daily, only one has been elevated to a White House summit, which means the Crown Prince is paying attention to this colossal failure, perhaps for the first time. The belief that there’s a bottomless purse and that Al-Rumayyan will always have a green light to support LIV is suspect. 

Against that context, Al-Rumayyan will have noticed that Monahan today seemed less on defense than has been the norm in recent years. He might also have been pleasantly surprised by the fashion upgrade (a casual vest replacing an ill-fitting jacket) and the slightly more relaxed body language (presenting more like a school kid backchatting a teacher than his customary slouch suggestive of someone in the dock trying to plead his way out of a misdemeanor). But mostly Al-Rumayyan would have noticed the change in tone, which communicated a readiness to converse but not so much a willingness to concede. That part of the Monahan messaging was new, and the guy it was aimed at probably didn’t much care to hear it. 

But then Monahan knew that before he chose to say a lot by saying not much.