Pair of senators ask Attorney General to review PGA Tour-LIV Golf partnership
This merger, Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden said in a letter, would result in a monopoly over professional golf
LOS ANGELES — A pair of United States senators are asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to review the PGA Tour’s planned partnership with the DP World Tour and LIV Golf.
And if it comes to it, they want the justice department to oppose the deal if it reduces competition in violation of federal antitrust laws.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote a letter to Garland and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter on Tuesday, according to ESPN’s Mark Schlabach. Though they admittedly don’t have all of the answers about the proposed merger of sorts — nobody at the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club this week seems to have the answers, either — the “red flags regarding antitrust concerns are clear.”
“[This partnership] enable[s] the Saudi government's efforts to 'sportswash' its egregious human rights record,” the senators wrote, "[and it] raises an array of potential legal and regulatory issues, including relating to the PGA Tour's non-profit tax status and antitrust law."
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced last week plans to merge with LIV Golf and the DP World Tour, a stark change in his long battle against the Saudi Arabian-backed league. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will now back the new entity, which has led to massive criticism from inside the Tour and out.
The announcement prompted an investigation earlier this week separate from the justice department's investigation into antitrust concerns that was raised last year.
Warren and Wyden, per ESPN, pointed out that the Tour has already bashed LIV Golf for not “competing fairly to start a golf league,” and that it was simply trying to “sportswash” the Saudi Arabian government's alleged human rights abuses, the murder of former Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and more.
"The PGA-LIV deal would make a U.S. organization complicit — and force American golfers and their fans to join this complicity — in the Saudi regime's latest attempt to sanitize its abuses by pouring funds into major sports leagues," the senators wrote.
This proposed deal between the Tour and LIV Golf, the senators said, would violate two acts that are in place to prohibit the restraint of trade and commerce and unlawful corporate mergers and acquisitions. They compared the deal to the attempted partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue, which was struck down last month by a federal judge.
"A merger also would give the newly formed entity monopsony power over golfers," Warren and Wyden wrote. "When LIV was still a threat to the PGA Tour's dominant position over golf tournaments in the United States, the two were in fierce competition for golfers and offered increasingly higher tournament prizes as a result.
“This merger-to-monopoly intentionally eliminates LIV as a potential competitor and would likely cause the new entity to reverse the pattern of newly increased tournament prizes for its golfers … While the PGA Tour apparently has attempted to backtrack from its initial statement by removing the word 'merge' from the press release announcing the deal, its impacts cannot be erased: it would result in a monopoly over professional golf operations in the U.S. and potentially beyond.”
Monahan, who is currently recovering from a medical emergency, has stood by his decision despite all of the backlash. In his eyes, it’s the best path forward for the sport after more than a year of chaos.
“I understand the criticism I’m receiving around the hypocrisy and me being hypocritical given my commentary and my actions over the last couple of years,” Monahan said last week. “As we went forward and reached a compromise, that was obviously one of my great considerations. But any hypocrisy I have to own, nobody else. That’s on me. It shouldn’t be directed at the membership, that should be directed at me. As we sit here today, I’m confident that we’ve done something that’s in the best interest of our sport and ultimately in the best interest of PGA Tour members.”