Tiger Woods, a professional golfer, was asked a question about Phil Mickelson during his press conference. The question came from the Associated Press‘s Doug Ferguson, who wondered, did Tiger share Phil Mickelson’s gripes with the PGA tour over its usage of his media rights?
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Tiger took a deep breath, then delivered a 320-word soliloquy in which he didn’t take sides but did reveal a striking amount of insight. Below is his answer, in full:
Tiger Woods Image Source: Wikipedia
“Yeah, that’s something that — we’ve struggled with that for decades really. If you remember Larry [Rinker] wanted to unionize our Tour and we went through that whole process.
“Probably what we didn’t understand at the time even when I first came out here over 25 years ago is where our Tour would go, where our media would go. We barely had cell phones, barely had the internet.
Tiger and Earl Woods Image Source: golf.com
“Media rights is a big thing. A lot of us are concerned about what is the direction where we’re going and how can we have more control over that. There’s been a lot of talk from whether it’s the PAC or the board or from players internally. Everyone has their opinion about it, but we need to come to a collective decision.
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“Jay has taken it all in to try and figure out what’s best for each and every individual player because we’re all independent contractors, but again, what is best for the Tour as a brand as well. Trying to put all that together.”
Tiger continued to say “meanwhile still grow the Tour at the same time and all the different media rights that have come about over the last 10 years, whether it’s streaming, which didn’t exist, where do you go on that, where does the Tour go, who owns those rights, how much do you share of that, where does it go.
“But I have to say that one of the things that allow our sport, what separates our sport so much is, one, the fact that we were able to have the best retirement plan there is in all of the sports, and we have an opportunity to play well past our playing days and still earn well over a million dollars well into our 50s where football players are done at nine years.
“Yes, there’s give and take, okay? We just need to find — there’s a balance of what’s best for the players and what’s best for the brand.”
Just weeks after Phil’s explosion at the Tour for being what he sees as the gatekeepers of untold billions in media assets and the Tour’s subsequent assertion of the business realities that led to their grip on player media rights, Woods plunged his stake firmly into the middle ground.
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