Gary McCord breaks down the PGA Tour in the for-profit era and says, 'Follow the money'

Follow the money, says Gary McCord. 

It’s one of the oldest maxims in business and McCord, veteran pro, longtime TV broadcaster and player director on the PGA Tour’s policy board back in the day, used the premise to explain how he envisions Strategic Sports Group (SSG), the Tour’s private equity partner, will reap the rewards of its investment.

SSG poured $1.5 billion into the Tour last year for a 12 percent stake in the Tour’s new for-profit entity known as PGA Tour Enterprises. That investment could double to as much as $3 billion. McCord and I were discussing the move to trim the Tour’s number of full-exempt cards from 125 to 100 beginning in 2026, and I made the point that it should have the effect of making players hungrier to grab their share of record purses – 120 players and counting have made at least $1 million this season with Scottie Scheffler leading the way with more than $27 million in prize money – and maintain their seat at the table; scarcity would force players to work harder to stay in the big leagues and fields would be more competitive. McCord interjected and said, “Yeah, I've heard that story.”

McCord said players are 'so hungry you can't believe it'

During the first part of our conversation, McCord recounted how he conceived of what became the All-Exempt Tour, expanding the number of Tour cards issued each year from 60 to 125 – a number that will be reduced to 100 for 2026. In fact, he stumbled upon an old briefcase while “screwing around” in his office that contained his notes and research that he presented to Tour brass more than 40 years ago in 1981.

“That story is bullshit,” he said of why the reduction in cards could be the Tour’s version of less is more. “I've watched these guys, they're so hungry you can't believe it.”

And that’s when McCord shifted the conversation in a different – and more thought-provoking – direction.

“OK, let me ask you a question,” McCord began. “Why is SSG putting up $1.5 billion with a topper of another $1.5 billion to get in the business? What are they going to do – sell more T-shirts?”

Before I could respond, McCord answered his own question. “They own and build franchises. That’s what they do, OK, so, what do you think they're going to do in golf?”

McCord believes each PGA Tour event should be a franchise

This was another rhetorical question and McCord pushed on, making his pitch that each tournament would be treated as its own franchise. Imagine the value of the WM Phoenix Open, he said, for example.

“If you start looking at the revenue streams that are in the Phoenix Open and what they make, holy dear God,” he said. “There's the model, so go get it, boys. That's the model for the Red Sox. That's the model for the Dallas Cowboys, who are worth $10.5 billion despite not having won a playoff game in 10 years.”

While he readily admits he hasn’t participated in a single meeting and isn’t privy to insider information, his view as a former player who is the father of the All-Exempt Tour and understands the business side better than most is worth hearing out as we try to envision where professional men’s golf is headed in the future. McCord was rolling now and I was lapping up his take on SSG’s endgame: “The community runs the tournament, they do everything. The Tour supplies the players and are responsible for the TV deal. Why wouldn’t Phoenix and the Thunderbirds (the charitable entity that runs the event) own that in an equity position and own the franchise. You do that 47 times and it gets interesting. Then they build equity in that franchise, build it bigger and bigger and bigger, and television rights go up and up and up and everything goes up and up and up and there it is, and I don't see any other reason SSG is involved, none. I've talked to five tournament directors, and I said, ‘OK, here's a proposal. Would your tournament buy that franchise if it was available and try to build equity in it? Get the players you want in it?’ All five said yes, they would do it.”

McCord said the business of golf has endured a major shakeup since the creation of LIV Golf, which has invested $5 billion to create a competitor with seemingly unlimited financial resources. Another reason he expected the Tour to create a franchise model? He predicted the Tour eventually will be forced to surrender its 501-c6 non-profit status.

“We're gonna lose it, OK? Every league has lost it. They have to go for profit and when you go for profit, what do you have to do? You have to pay 1,800 volunteers, OK? So how are you going to take that off your bottom line? That was the question I put to tournament directors, and they came up with a very easy answer. In their process, they said, yeah, we’d buy our franchise and take it and run with it. We think it's a very viable sport that lends itself to our clientele.”

SSG's hiring of Rolapp a sign of things to come

It's not by accident that SSG supported the July hiring of Brian Rolapp, a veteran at the NFL who spearheaded incredible growth in the league’s media rights, as CEO. The Tour is redefining how it creates and distributes content at its state-of-the-art, 165,000-square-foot, three-level multimedia production facility located adjacent to its headquarters, which opened in January.

“What did the Tour just do? They built a whole TV city out there in Ponte Vedra. It’s 10 acres or something for doing their own television,” McCord said. “All you got to do is peek through the cracks and you can see where this thing's going. This whole business is changing. They are in a perfect position with the (current) TV contracts running out in 2030. This whole ball game is going to change totally at that point. Network television as we know it, it's gonna be gone soon. Netflix, Apple and Amazon will be the leaders in media and what do they want? They need product, OK? And what's the biggest product in television? It's live sports. I think the top 40-rated shows on TV last year were all live sports. So, they have five years (or less based on when negotiations commence) to figure it out (for when the current TV contract expires).”

To McCord, the story to watch isn’t the potential Saudi Public Investment Fund deal that seems as if it will never be consummated, but rather how SSG restructures the Tour under Rolapp, who already cited three governing principles that will guide the competition committee he created to make the Tour even stronger – parity, scarcity and simplicity. Rolapp also said he would honor tradition but not be bound by it. “The goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change,” Rolapp said.

“The Saudis are doing what they’re doing with LIV,” McCord said. “There’s money there. How long that money stays there, I don’t know. You can’t be losing $5 billion in three years with no revenue streams. But that doesn’t matter. What I’m interested in is the business model and what is SSG trying to do here? Why are you investing in the PGA Tour? They say, yeah, we love the game. Bull. You’re all billionaires. What are you doing here? Otherwise, you tell me, why is SSG involved in the Tour?”

Is McCord onto something? Time will tell, but it’s an interesting take.

“That's just me kind of waving a wand and looking and wondering why these guys are in the business right now and why they took over the Tour real quick, real, real quick,” he said. “I got no basis whatsoever on it, but to me it just adds up, everything adds up. There are too many things pointing in one direction if you’re an investigator. Just follow the money. They're not dumb at all, so follow it, just clear your nose and just start smelling.”