Breakaway Super Leagues: Evolutionary or Revolutionary?
Breakaway Super Leagues: Evolutionary or Revolutionary?
Massive shockwaves reverberated throughout sporting spheres in 2021 – secret meetings held between players, teams and organisations – top lawyers sharpening pencils for monumental legal paydays – organisations typically at war with one another aligning against a perceived new threat – and, the inevitable fan protests. What has caused this? Breakaway super leagues. The Premier Golf League has plans to start directly competing against the highly lucrative 91-year-old PGA Tour. The European Super League for football (soccer) has plans to directly compete with the highest level of club football – The Champions League. Are these breakaway leagues just about money or will they really grow the game and provide more exciting competition?
Breakaway Super Leagues: Evolutionary or Revolutionary?
This article will analyse two new breakaway super leagues: the Premier Golf League (PGL) and the European Super League (ESL). Football and golf are both hugely rich sports with long histories and these proposals will have significant implications/ramifications to all involved in not only these sports but all sports. Throughout this article the leagues will be judged either evolutionary or revolutionary as well as the differences and similarities between the two new proposals.
First, this article will look at the proposals of the PGL and ESL. With the actual existence of the PGL and ESL inevitably being ruled/fought in the courts (it’s already begun), Competition Law will be explored, delving into the European pyramid structures currently in place. Next, money. Billions and billions of money is involved, and analyses of the money involved in the PGL and ESL will be presented. Finally, the ‘new’ formats will be discussed to determine if fresh ideas are at the heart of these leagues.
Below is a summary of review.
1. Super League Proposals
The PGL is a new project run by the British-based World Golf Group and is aiming to revolutionise the professional game from January 2023. The PGL will have 18 tournaments targeting the top 48 players in the world with event prize money totalling $20m (£14.4m) with $4m (£2.9m) going to the winner and last place picking up $150 000 (£108k). It is to marketed as a world tour with 12 events in the USA and the other six chasing the sun. Following a similar style to Formula 1, the PGL would have two championships, a team and an individual. The team element would see team principals choose two individual scores (before the round) from the four-man line ups.
Without any argument, the PGA Tour is where the best players in the world play most of their golf and the table below highlights the main differences between the new PGL and the PGA Tour. The table uses figures from the 2018/19 PGA Tour due to the interruption of the C-19 pandemic in the last two seasons.
Officially, The Super League, referred as the European Super League (ESL), is a proposed annual club football competition that would see 20 European clubs compete against one another. It has been formed by the European Super League Company, to rival or even replace the UEFA Champions League. The ESL comprises of 15 founding clubs and five annual qualifiers. The competition will see two groups of 10 clubs, each playing one another home and away. Following the Group stage, the top four clubs from each group (eight in total) will proceed to a knockout tournament, two legs for the QF and SF and then a single-match Super League championship. The matches will be played mid-week and all clubs will remain in their domestic leagues.
Solidarity payments are expected to grow to €10 billion in line with revenues during the initial commitment period and be subject to full transparency and regular public reporting. The table below shows the main differences between the ESL and both the current and new proposed UEFA Champions League.
Is history repeating itself?
The PGA Tour was founded December 2nd, 1929, and has seen many changes take place throughout its 91-year-old history. Has it ever faced a threat like the PGL before? In short, yes. In November 1994, Greg Norman – at the time arguably the best and most marketable golfer – went public with his idea for a World Golf Tour: eight events with $3 million purses for the world’s top 30 players. For some context, the mean average purse for the PGA Tour in 1994 was $1 314 773 (including the four majors).
The proposal was seen as a threat to the PGA Tour and unsurprisingly daggers were drawn. In 1996, the PGA Tour Commissioner joined with the European, Australasian, Japanese, and South African tours to form the International Federation of PGA Tours. The ink was still drying when the new federation presented plans for a series of new international tournaments: the World Golf Championships (WGCs); maintaining it was anything but a carbon copy of Norman’s proposal. What became clear was that any new venture seeking to coral the world’s best male players required money, lots of it, to take on the incumbent ‘masters.’ Going forward any proposed changes to the global order of professional tournament golf would need to take note of the PGA Tour’s interests.
The UK Football league has witnessed similar intrigue. In 1972, the then Conservative minister for sport was reported to have held a private meeting to convince it to launch a European equivalent, an evolution considered to be “inevitable”. Increasing speculation in the 1980’s regarding UK domestic and European leagues led to talk in 1990 of an agreement in principle between 16 European clubs, with Liverpool and Rangers representing Britain.
Selling The Super Leagues
The PGL website states that “leagues are the lifeblood of sport”. It believes that leagues will engage fans seven days a week in a way that isolated stereotypical PGA tournaments do not. Each tournament is being billed as a festival of golf with plans to involve both women and junior events. In supporting to help the game of golf grow, the PGL are declaring 50% of the funds to be pumped back into the golf community. Furthermore, the PGL has boldly asserted that “global stars” and the “best players” will take part but it has yet to name the players or team principals.
The ESL’s motto is “The best clubs. The best players. Every week”. It claims that ‘By bringing together the best clubs and best players in the world, the Super League will deliver excitement and drama never before seen in football. Following the Group stage, 8 clubs will qualify for a knockout tournament, playing home and away until the single-match Super League championship, in a dramatic four-week end to the season.’
A ‘World’ or ‘European’ super league is not uncommon in sports. In 2005, the Premier League Darts was launched where ten (top four PDC Order of Merit plus six wildcard) of the biggest names on the PDC circuit compete in a double round-robin format with matches held in European venues. In 2007, The Euro Hockey League was launched for the top hockey clubs in Europe. In 2010, The Diamond League was launched, a series fourteen invitational athletics meetings drawing the worlds best.
Nearly all breakaway leagues state the same two aims. First, to ‘enhance the game’ and, second, to provide ‘more exciting competition’. The PGL and ESL are no exceptions. Thus, these two aims are not revolutionary in themselves. All current sporting federations across all sports are always looking at ways to enhance their game and provide more exciting competition. Sometimes getting it right. Sometimes getting it wrong.
As mentioned above, one angle the PGL is pushing, really pushing, is the ‘league’ element both in terms of individual and team. It sees the PGA Tour as just isolated events, though this is not entirely true as the PGA Tour does have a league: The FedEx Cup. This is even highlighted whenever a player is taking a shot (see below). Historically, golf is seen as an individual sport. At the same time, golf is steeped in history and has huge history in team events: The Ryder Cup (USA vs Europe) and The Presidents Cup (USA vs The World). Whilst acknowledging these events are held every two years, the PGA does have team events every year such as The Zurich Classic. However, all these team events are standalone events.
For the ESL, it’s about guaranteeing matches between European heavyweights, something the Champions League does not guarantee because of the small leagues of four teams in the group stages. And, of course, that teams can be knocked out from the L16 as opposed to the L8 (QFs) in the ESL. Below is a table showing how many times each of the twelve founding clubs (also known as the ‘dirty dozen’) have played one another in competitive Champions League matches in the last six seasons. The second row shows how many times the team has actually qualified for the Champions League in the last six seasons.
From the four teams that have qualified for the Champions League in each of the last 6 seasons, FC Barcelona have played the most matches (24) against the ESL’s founding clubs, followed by Juventus and Real Madrid (19), Atletico Madrid (15) and finally, Manchester City (13). Annually, this equates to 4 matches for Barcelona, 3.2 matches for Juventus and Real Madrid, 2.5 matches for Atletico Madrid and 2.2 matches for Manchester United. Whilst noting these teams have had other matches against other big clubs such as Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain and Lazio, in terms of the number of matches against one another, it’s low.
The ESL will comprise of 20 teams, but let’s assume, hypothetically, it was just these twelve clubs split into two leagues of six. Even if a team did not qualify for the knockout stages, each team would be guaranteed 10 matches per season against other founding clubs. The proposal of the ESL drastically changes the number of times these 12 founding teams will play one another each season. As noted earlier, the Champions League will be revamped in 2024/25. Clubs will compete in just one league playing 10 different teams (five home fixtures and five away fixtures). This modification would increase the number of times top teams go head-to-head and somewhat counter the threat of the ESL’s proposal.
However, this will only help the top teams if they qualify! And currently only four teams per country can qualify per season. (Which is impossible for the six English clubs.) The ESL also has another selling chip to pass on to its founding clubs: relegation immunity. The ESL’s founders are ‘immune to relegation’ for 20 years, whereas the Champions League each club must qualify every single season. On the one hand, the immunity will be a selling point to the league, though on the other hand, fans will be strongly dissuaded by the lack of competition.
Evolutionary or Revolutionary?
The main proposals behind both the PGL and ESL are not new. The PGA Tour has already seen off a very similar threat which ‘inspired’ the WGCs. The PGA Tour already offers a league through the FedEx Cup, has team events and events outside the USA. The ESL idea has resurfaced once again. FIFA and UEFA continue to be threatened with a European super league of some sort. Whilst the ESL certainly does guarantee significantly more annual matches between some of the European heavyweights, the new Champions League format lessens this. The verdict: both the PGL and ESL concepts are borne from the past and thus, both proposals are evolutionary not revolutionary.
2. Super Leagues challenge Competition Law
With billions and billions of money at stake and the fact that competing interests are fighting for the same best teams and/or players, there is only one place that is deciding the fate of breakaway leagues: the courts. (They already have begun.)
Pyramid Structure – a monopolistic approach
Traditionally, sport is organised in a system of national federations. These systems are hierarchical whereby the governing bodies (typically one per country) are linked together in European and international federations.
The institutional structure of these federations is by design monopolistic and has historically been considered to be the most efficient and fair way of organising sport within national boundaries. Consequently, most rule books stipulate that members may only participate in events organised or authorised by the governing bodies. Thus conflict surfaces when the interests of some members might be better served outside of the institutional straightjacket.
EC Treaty provisions and ECJ judgements may lead to a tightening or loosing of changes to federation rule books. Such changes have the potential to impact the European system (Pyramid model). In a recent decision, the Court of Arbitration for Sport drew attention to the governmental and regulatory structure of sporting bodies and it therefore followed that such principles would govern their actions in all aspects of the sport. The maintenance of this structure was thus considered vital in ensuring clarity and integrity in governance from grass root engagement through to topflight professional. Access to all and the ability to progress were thus key drivers in maintaining stability and fairness as well as delivering a sporting spectacle.
A Non-Monopolistic approach?
Below shows an illustration of the monopolistic pyramid of golf that is being challenged. At the top of the pyramid (light blue), the principal tours stand, creating the PGA Tour as one of its competitions. The PGL is not a part of this pyramid and wishes to facilitate a competition (green trapezium) that would see the top 48 players in the world compete. To note, the PGL does not wish to compete with the majors or the Ryder cup, and only wants to compete for the best golfers on the PGA Tour, hence its position.
UEFA currently sit in the second-tier of football’s pyramid. They currently organise the Champions League which is the top club competition in Europe. Below is an illustration of the ESL as a rival competition. The difference here to the PGL is that a new competition is being proposed by individual clubs who are within the pyramid. However, what is key is that both new competitions for both golf and football are being proposed against the pyramid’s will (i.e., not their own competitions).
A key feature of the pyramid structure is the interdependence between the levels. Thus, teams or individuals can earn promotion as well as suffer relegation. Earlier, it was pointed out that the founding clubs of the ESL are immune to relegation for the first 20 years or so. This is more in keeping with a US model of closed championships. Two points must be considered in challenging their motto of “The best clubs. The best players. Every week”. First, are these really the best 12 clubs in Europe right now? Looking at results on the pitch over the last 6 or so seasons does not support this. Second, even if the first 20 teams were the best (which they are not), can a semi-closed championship really have the best teams in 5, 10 years’ time?
Is it possible for the PGL and ESL to successfully go against the established pyramid?
In 1977 Kerry Packer, the legendary Australian media mogul revolutionised world cricket by setting up a series of day-night matches for his Channel Nine Australian TV network and secretly recruiting the top players of the day. Outraged cricket authorities swiftly banned players, but later overturned their decision along with accepting the new competition due to overwhelming public support. In the early 1990s 16 top ranked players formed the World Darts Council (WDC) to counteract dwindling audience numbers. Once again, the incensed authorities (BDO) responded by banning all 16 players from BDO-sanctioned events. In 1997, after a lengthy legal battle, the BDO relinquished their fight and allowed players to compete in all competitions.
More recently, in 2017, a team-based professional swimming series called The International Swimming League (ISL) was founded with a budget of $20m by a Ukrainian billionaire. FINA, the sport’s global governing body threatened to ban swimmers and urged national federations to refuse to cooperate with the ISL. The threat by top professional swimmers, already unhappy with FINA’s governance of the sport, to form a separate union forced FINA to permit participation in non-FINA sanctioned competitions, including the inaugural season of the ISL in 2019.
Following the announcement of the ESL in April 2021 universal condemnation erupted from the people (fans, players, managers, pundits) and institutions (UEFA, FIFA, Governments) Elitism and the lack of competitiveness were cited, the ESL comprised of only high-ranking teams from a few European countries. Opposition for these two new super leagues has certainly been strongest in football, with fans play a huge influential role in their club. As a result, nine out of the original 12 founding clubs announced their withdrawal from the ESL. But did they? And does that mean it’s dead? Court rooms open…
Super Leagues in Court
Unlike the ESL, the PGL battles have not (yet) entered the court room. However, publicly, golfers have been threatened with life bans as well as receiving no world ranking points when competing in the PGL. On the subject of expulsion, the boss of the PGL said:
“Individuals shouldn’t live in fear of exclusion of not being able to work. Competition law exists to ensure there is a level playing
field and everybody in these circumstances can compete for the services of the best players in the world. Different bodies create their own
sets of rules to protect what they have and then it’s a question of whether the rules that they have in place are fair and that’s
when you look at the relevant law.”
After the announcement of the ESL, nine clubs (Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Atletico Madrid) swiftly distanced themselves. All nine clubs were handed financial punishments by UEFA in May. In addition, the six Premier League clubs agreed to make a separate “goodwill” payment totalling £22m in June. In July 2021, the three remaining clubs (Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus) claimed that a court in Madrid supported them in that no punishment should be given to any of the founding clubs by UEFA. After the court hearing, Real Madrid’s president, who is also the chairman of the ESL, said:
“Clubs participating in European competitions have the right to govern their own competitions. We are pleased that going forward we will no longer
be subject to Uefa’s ongoing threats. We are aware that there are elements of our proposal that should be reviewed and, of course, can be improved
through dialogue and consensus. We remain confident in the success of a project that will be always compliant with European Union laws.”
UEFA has not accepted the ruling of the Madrid court and are confident of winning the legal case against the clubs involved. The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg will now take the case, reviewing UEFA’s monopolistic position over European football. Interestingly, Real Madrid’s president has stated all 12 founding clubs have “binding contracts” and “cannot leave“. Furthermore, despite the nine clubs publicly stating that they have withdrawn from the ESL – some were clearer than others – it appears that none of the 12 founding clubs have given up on the ESL, according to the Madrid Court. Something of which worries the LaLiga president.
Getting Messi in LaLiga
Lionel Messi's first day as a PSG player 💙❤️ pic.twitter.com/Eydfx94vG0
— GOAL (@goal) August 10, 2021
Does Messi signing for PSG have anything to do with the ESL? Quite likely, yes. In brief, Barcelona was struggling to afford to resign Messi – arguably the greatest footballer of all-time – due to poor financial management over several years and the impact of the pandemic. With time running out, a timely cash offer of about (€40m) from LaLiga was offered due to a cash injection of €2.7b (£2.3b / $3.2b) from CVC buying 10% of LaLiga. To keep Messi Barcelona simply needed to accept it. However, it came with a condition (in effect): no ESL (for at least 50 years). So, Barcelona was given an ultimatum: choose Messi or the ESL. It appears they are all-in on the ESL.
Two things need to be pointed out here. First, Barcelona and Real Madrid continue to be named in 2021 as the world’s richest football clubs, with Barcelona’s total revenue at €715.1m (£608.4m / $843.6m) and Real Madrid’s €714.9m (£608.2m / $843.3m). Despite this, they are both massively in debt. Barcelona’s debt is now reportedly standing at €1.21b (£1.03b / $1.43b) with Real Madrid’s debt as €765m (£651m / $768m). It is also worth pointing out that Real Madrid had previous debt of €208m (£170m / $245m) wiped off by the Government in connection with a training ground sale in 2001, a deal regarded suspicious by many.
Second, forming new super leagues is not new to Real Madrid and Barcelona. In 2000, both played a pivotal role in the formation of the EuroLeague Basketball – an elite, club level competition. The authorities, FIBA, reacted by creating their own SuproLeague, but without the support of leading clubs, who joined the EuroLeague. In 2015, FIBA attempted once more to pull back Europe’s tops clubs with the Basketball Champions League. Again, with no success. Both competitions co-exist, with the EuroLeague favoured by the top clubs.
Evolutionary or Revolutionary
Will the European monopolistic model hold up in court? Should federations be allowed to compete? In a nutshell, this is what it will boil down to. In this section, a number of new breakaways have been highlighted and despite the initial bans or threats of bans, the examples given highlighted three specific reasons why the governing bodies reversed their decision: public support for the breakaway; giving up the fight in court; and players threatening to form a new union. Such motivations as came to the aid of the new breakaways may also prevent the PGL or ESLfrom forming.
The verdict: whilst there are many examples of successful fights against sports who operate in the monopolistic way, both from within the pyramid (dart players) and from outside the pyramid (cricket and swimming), the PGL and ESL are not revolutionary. However, football and golf are absolute sporting juggernauts and to fight UEFA and The PGA all the way isrevolutionary.
3. Lots of Money in Super Leagues
Money Trees. Money Talks
In the proposals for both the PGL and ESL, vast amounts of money were announced. The PGL have published more details on the money involved than the ESL. Starting with the event purses, the PGL has stated that each event will have a prize fund of $20m. Money is always rising in golf, so is this new purse evolutionary or revolutionary? Below is a graph showing the increase in purses in the PGA Tour since 1938 (data from PGA Tour website).
During the 2020 season, the PGA Tour’s average prize purse was $7 454 512. This is some way short of the $20m for the PGL. During the late 1990s, they were significant increases which has been dubbed the ‘Tiger effect’ with each year increasing on average about 6% until 2008. The increase has slowed down to an average of about 3% over the last ten years. Assuming a 3% annual increase in prize funds continues on the PGA Tour, it would take the tour 20 years to reach average prize purses of the PGL. To note, the top 48 players tend to compete in the most lucrative events on the PGA, which average about $10m dollars though. Thus, the PGL purse is about twice the size at the PGA Tour for the top players.
Furthermore, the PGL’s prize fund it split between only 48 players. A typical PGA Tour event will have about 130 players competing for the prize fund, but only the players who play well and make the cut end up getting paid which is about 70 players. So, the purses on the PGA Tour are not only significantly smaller but spilt between more people. However, this is a relatively small amount of the overall prize fund. On average, about 96% of the total purse on the PGA Tour is taken by the top 48 positions that week (see below).
The PGL has announced the winner of each event will earn $4m. Basic maths tells us that this is 20% of the $20m prize fund, which is similar to the PGA Tour. The pay structure for the remaining 48 players has not been published but assuming similar to the PGA Tour we can estimate what each position would earn on the PGL. A PGA Tour average of the top 48 positions were calculated as a percentage of the purse collected by the top 48 players. Below is a table showing the percentage of the prize purse that the top 5 earned in four PGA Tour events.
Again, this is only an estimate, nevertheless it gives a good comparison between the earnings of the top 48 players on the PGA Tour and PGL. An average was then calculated and applied to the PGL purse. See graph below.
If a player won on the PGA Tour, they would expect to earn about $1 917 928 compared to the $4m on the PGL. This is roughly 50% more. As expected, this theme continues throughout the positions. A sixth position on the PGA Tour would expect a return of $361 895 compared to the $744 903 on the PGL. Now, to earn on the PGA Tour a golfer has to play well that week, i.e., beat (most of) thier competitors. Thus, not only does the PGL double the players’ income, but it also guarantees it being double (assuming similar performance from individuals). The average prize money for the top 12 players on the PGA in 2019 was $5 843 125. These players could expect to earn about $12m (double given events and performance were similar).
Less is known about the prize funds for the ESL, but a statement from the 12 clubs said: “Founding clubs will receive an amount of €3.5bn solely to support their infrastructure investment plans and to offset the impact of the Covid pandemic.” It added that economic growth would be significant and payments in excess of €10b during the initial commitment period are expected.
One way I suspect the ESL to bring in further revenue would be to play some of these ESL matches in other countries. This has already been done between London and the NFL. Yes, scheduling these in for midweek matches will be demanding, but the money other countries would pay for a ‘competitive’ match would be extortionate. Whilst this is only a speculative thought and has been done it previous sports, and it would be revolutionary to have ‘home’ football matches in a different stadium in a different country.
Seven years ago today, 109,318 fans showed up to watch Real Madrid play Man United in Michigan.
Still the all-time attendance record for any football match in America 🙌 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/MttVvcj7U0
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) August 2, 2021
Bonuses
The bonus structure for either the PGL or ESL have not yet been announced. In terms of a single event, the PGL would see golfers guarantee that they earn twice as much. However, this does the PGA Tour a slight injustice. First, the FedEx Cup’s (the league for the PGA) prize money is not officially counted in the prize funds. The FedEx cup pays out an additional $60m a year to the top 125 golfers on the PGA Tour, with the winner taking home a whopping $15m. Second, there’s a new Player Impact Program which will hand out $40m in bonuses to “recognize and reward players who positively move the needle.” It will see the most valuable player pocket a whopping $8m regardless of performance. There are further bonuses such as the Aon Risk Reward Challenge but are not so lucrative as the former two.
Golden Hellos
In life, to help things get started, give them a little kick. In the world of sport, hand out massive signing on fees, also known as Golden Hellos. Both the PGL and the ESL are very much dependent on the top players / teams joining them. Even the PGL boss admitted they need 8 of the top 12 golfers in the world to sign up. And whilst nearly all golfers are being silent, one top 12 golfer has not. Rory McIlroy, an avid Manchester United fan, added: “Go back to what happened last week in Europe with the European Super League in football. People can see it for what it is, which is a money grab, which is fine if that’s what you’re playing golf for is to make as much money as possible. Totally fine, then go and do that if that’s what makes you happy.”
McIlroy’s competitors such as Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson have reported to have offers of $30m to join the proposed golf circuit. So, altogether, the majority of the top 12 golfers would earn about $40 million dollars for the first season. This would be separate from commercial endorsements earnings and their earnings from other PGA events such as the majors provided, they are not banned. This is phenomenal money but how much do they earn anyway? According to Sportico, the top 10 earners in golf made an estimated $300 million over the last 12 months, with only 29% was from the prize money. The estimates below include endorsements, appearance fees, licencing and golf course design work in the 12 months ending May 31.
A player’s commercial endorsements do vary between players. Only four players earned less off the course than they did on the course in the 12-month period. To highlight the off-course earnings that top golfers can make, Matsuyama’s historic Masters victory could see his sponsorship opportunities could be worth up to as much as $600m. It must be noted, too, that golf is a sport with one, if not the most, career longevity. A top golfer’s career could last easily 30 to 40 years (moving onto the Seniors Tour). So, not only do golfers earn vast amounts of money both on and off the course every year, but they could also continue to do this over a long career.
It is not only the golfers who are being offered massive sign-up fees. The ESL has/had earmarked £300m in “golden hello” payments for each club. Making comments on the Champions League, a former UEFA president said, “It cannot be denied that 90% of the total income comes from these major clubs…and that if they demand change, we have to listen.” The forthcoming changes to the Champions League suggests they have not listened as the ESL presses on. Or is it just a case of the founding clubs needing more money, and fast?
Current debt of all 12 #SuperLeague clubs.
Atletico – £804m
Barcelona – £1.030bn
Real Madrid – £651m
Arsenal – £405m
Chelsea – £224m
Liverpool – £386m
Man City – £202m
Man Utd – £771m
Tottenham – £1.177bn
Inter – £757m
Juventus – £752m
Milan – £247mTotal debt £7.406 billion.
— Breaking News (@SNDigitalNews) April 20, 2021
Notwithstanding income in football is astronomically high, the current financial situation of the ‘founding clubs’ is shocking. Yes, Covid-19 has had some impact but that is only a small reason for the clubs’ huge debts. In the case of Tottenham, they have just invested heavily in a brand-new stadium which hope to see a return in the long run. Generally, the clubs with the most revenue have the largest debt.
Evolutionary or Revolutionary
The huge monies the PGL have announced are grabbing the headlines as well as turning the player’s heads. Despite the ever-increasing, vast prize money on the PGA Tour, the PGL seems to have moved ahead by about 20 years. The top golfers are used to getting appearance fees, however, this tends to be just one-off events and not for a whole season. The best players in the world now must reflect on what matters to them and whether to get on board. It does come at a slight ‘time’ cost. First, they are likely to play more events per season and travel more. A top 48 golfer in the world plays about 25 official events on the PGA per season. The majority of the Top 10 golfers in the world play fewer, about 20 events per season. Second, they will have less flexibility. Golfers are generally self-employed and can pick and choose when to play, whereas the PGL will dictate where and when they will play.
Whilst it has not happened in football, playing competitive ‘home’ matches in other countries is something that could arise in the future if the ESL is formed. Notwithstanding that this is done in NFL, such a move would be revolutionary for football, bearing in mind the huge fan protests when the Premier League floated the idea (time will tell if this idea resurfaces). Also, player contracts will no doubt be renegotiated with players wanting more money for playing more games.
The verdict: money continues to grow for the rich and the PGL and ESL are just indicative of this. However, whilst vast, are not revolutionary.
4. Super League Formats – anything new?
Perceived Newness of Sport
For many, golf is seen as a sport that takes too long to complete. The PGL is cutting the length of a traditional golf tournament to 54-holes (instead of 72) over 3 days (instead of 4). A 25% reduction. It also furthers this by having the first two rounds by a shotgun start so it fits all play in a 5-hour window (instead of a whole day – not possible with 130 players). So, on the face of it, the top golfers in the world can now compete whilst guaranteeing to double their wages (see above section) by playing about 25% of less time. One of the current top 48 players in the world describes it as a ‘no brainer’, though the individual’s context should be noted (nearly 50 years old).
Reducing the time professional sports take is not revolutionary as many sports who take over two hours have made similar decisions. [examples] A similar sport to golf to complete is cricket. The Twenty20 cricket competition launched in England and Wales in 2003 is a shortened, energised version of the traditional four-day and one-day cricket. A number of studies suggest the collective global attention span to be shrinking due to a combination of media overload and greater choice ie more to focus on and reduced attention span.
As mentioned earlier, the PGL are selling the team/individual league system. Again, the PGA Tour has a league structure by virtue of the FedEx playoffs which is promoted on a golfer’s every shot. To highlight, the team element in the PGL is barely an authentic team competition – they are not even hitting each other’s ball nor mixing individual scores on holes. It is purely a manipulation of an individual score on the day to generate a ‘fake’ team competition.
Historically, football has changed very little. That’s because football’s ninety minutes is golden for television viewing. Yes, there have been technological advances such as goal-line technology and VAR recently. However, one thing to point out it that despite the L in ESL standing for League, it is actually two leagues of 10 teams. But looking at the Champions ‘League’ this is also a competition that has eight mini leagues to begin with. Both of them are more aligned with knockout tournament football than actually a league.
More Competition, More Excitement
The nature of the PGA Tour allows players to choose which tournaments to play in and those in which not to participate. A typical season now has up about 46 regular tournaments with an additional three for the Playoffs. Rory McIlroy and Webb Simpson – the top two ranked in the Strokes Gained: Total mid-way through the 2019/20 season – only played against each other once. This is exactly how a PGA tour season works and exactly PGL’s point: the best players do not play against each other week in week out on the PGA Tour.
Top 15 Ranked Golfers in 2019/20 season (so far) on Scoring Average
Surely then, having (most of) the top 48 players in the world will see more competition and more excitement? Not necessarily. First, a relevant variable for field strength is the size of the field. A number of tournaments on the PGA TOUR have a very high average player quality, but due to small fields are not the most difficult to win. For example, the 30-man field at The TOUR Championship (perhaps another incentive for the top golfers to sign up – it’s easier to win). Among the golfing world it is commonly ‘known’ that it is harder to win nowadays on the PGA Tour than before due to the fields being more bunched ‘competitive’. Comparing results on 10 PGA Tour events played on the same courses 25 years apart (2014 and 1989), Reuters reported the average spread between fifth and 55th place fields were more tightly packed by 1.5 strokes in 2014 than 25 years earlier.
Second, a key factor on estimating field strength is a measure of each golfer’s ability at the time of the event. In other words, a golfer’s most recent performances have a greater impact on performance than earlier. Most likely, the PGL will pick the top 48 players in the world based on world rankings. However, this is a 2-year ranking system. What this means is that the PGL’s field strength is unlikely to represent the current top 48 players in the world. For example, Justin Rose is currently ranked 45th in the world (as of 15thAugust 2021), but only placed 126th in the FedEx Cup. In other words, was only the 126th best golfer on the PGA Tour in 2021.
The ESL has not said how it would split the teams into two leagues of 10 nor how the QFs would be drawn. Despite this, the highly billed championship match could be between two teams that have played each other as many as six times or more! (domestically between 2-5, ESL up to 2). Unlikely, but could certainly take out the excitement! Though the Champions League it not completely immune to this, they do limit the number of times teams from the same country can play each other.
Evolutionary or Revolutionary
The PGL has certainly attempted to alter the format of a traditional tournament, reducing it to 54 holes and smaller playing (viewing) windows as well as having 6 (33%) of the tournaments outside the USA. The claim of more excitement is certainly questionable due to the small, static fields and the ‘global stars’ who may be outside the top 48 players.
All clubs in the ESL will be required to play a further 18 matches with a potential of 23 if reach the super league final. That’s in addition to their domestic league (typically 38 matches), their domestic cups (typically about 10 matches per season) as well as the international matches. That’s a lot of matches, a lot of travelling. Fixture congestion is not new.
The verdict: the PGA offers many different formats throughout the year and the only real difference the PGL is offering are 54-hole tournaments and thus is evolutionary and not revolutionary. The ESL is just another iteration of an idea that has been about for about 30 years and thus, is evolutionary.
Super Leagues Conclusion – evolutionary or Revolutionary?
As with any other business in the world, individual sports are constantly evolving whether it be new innovative ideas or technological advancements or pressure from key stakeholders. This article was named ‘New Breakaway Super Leagues’ with the word breakaway significant. This is because the super leagues discussed are to be formed in direct competition to the traditional monopolistic models of football and golf.
This article broke the breakaway super leagues into four elements: the proposals, competition law, money and format. The proposals certainly grab the headlines, but the aims were common rhetoric of any new league / competition formed of ‘more competition more excitement’ and ‘to enhance the game’. The monopolistic grapple of football and golf appears to being challenged more than it ever has. In the case of football, it was from members within the pyramid and for golf, a new entity outside the pyramid. The huge sums of money being thrown around were analysed with the PGL providing more information. And whilst were extortionately high, they basically doubled player’s earnings, but at a cost to time. Tweaks with formats, more so for golf were deemed more cherry-picking than revolutionary.
Looking at each of the PGL and ESL elements independently, is was only Competition Law that was deemed revolutionary in themselves. That was solely because they appear to be going all-in against the huge juggernauts of golf and football which have seen their European models stand up to all threats so far. Overall, both the PGL and ESL are deemed revolutionary. Thus, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The Stat Squabble says:
- The PGL has tinkered with golfing’s format and are relying on the team element to really engage the fans.
- The ESL appears to be a way to inject significant money into the debt-ridden clubs. Perhaps if it does go ahead, their debt in 20 years will be twice as big as it is now.
- It will inevitably be the courts who will decide the fate of these two new breakaway super leagues.
Do you agree with the Stat Squabbler? Can the super leagues deliver more competition, more excitement? Comment below.
