The PGA Tour’s new CEO Brian Rolapp promised “significant change” during his introductory press conference. Rolapp, who spent years at the NFL as commissioner Roger Goodell’s right-hand man, wants to build his PGA Tour around parity, scarcity and simplicity — just like the NFL.
Of course, Rolapp’s promise of change had everyone wondering exactly what he plans for the PGA Tour to look like once those changes are instituted. At last week’s RSM Classic, Ryder Cupper Harris English offered some clues as to what Rolapp might be planning to tweak as he gets under the hood.
“We’ve got some smart guys at the helm. Now with Brian Rolapp coming in, he’s seeing the PGA Tour in a different light,” English said.
“Sometimes change is good. I get that they want all the best players playing together more often, and the talk of the Tour potentially starting after the Super Bowl I think is a pretty good thing because we can’t really compete with football. So we’ll see where it goes.”
English isn’t the first player to correctly note that golf can’t “compete” with the NFL. In 2005, Tiger Woods said he believed the PGA Tour season should end around Labor Day before football starts. The PGA Tour tweaked the FedEx Cup Playoffs schedule to avoid the NFL in 2019. In 2014, at the BMW Championship, Rory McIlroy praised the NFL for its scarcity, which keeps fans wanting more.
All that’s in line with Rolapp’s three pillars. English noted that a change to a 20- or 22-event schedule might not occur until 2027.
During an interview with CNBC’s CEO Forum, Rolapp didn’t shy away from English’s revelation that the PGA Tour is considering shrinking the schedule and potentially tweaking it to avoid his former employer.
“Nothing has been decided, and Harris’ comments have been getting a lot of attention, but Harris’ comments really reflect a lot of conversations that have been going on,“ Rolapp said. “If you dig deeper into what he said, it’s really not that complicated. If you are going to compete with football in this country for media dollars and attention, it’s a really hard thing to do. The majority of golf is played in the summer and gets people’s attention, so looking at schedules to help optimize that calendar is certainly something we talk about.”
When Rolapp first started as the CEO of the PGA Tour, he created a Future Competition Committee, which is chaired by Tiger Woods, to help look at all the ways the PGA Tour can improve its product with the focus on creating a product that connects the regular season and the postseason that fans can more easily understand instead of just having a lot of unconnected events jammed together.
“These are the types of debates we’re having,” Rolapp said of the Future Competition Committee. “How does the schedule look? How do you make bigger events? How do you actually stream them together in a season that you can understand? Part of professional golf’s issue is it has grown up as a series of events, that happened to be on television, as opposed to how do you actually take those events, making them meaningful in their own right, but cobble them together in a competitive model, including with a postseason that you would all understand whether you’re a golf fan or a sports fan.
“So, those are the questions we’re asking how to make bigger and better events, how to put them in the calendar where fans will watch more and how to put it in a competitive model that not only golf fans, but sports fans will embrace. Those are all the things we’re discussing. Nothing’s been decided, but that’s the committee’s job.“
When asked whether starting the season after the Super Bowl was on the table, Rolapp said he “could see” it happening.
As Rolapp tries to make the PGA Tour competitive in the battle for attention, it’s clear that everything is on the table and big changes are coming. The only question is when they will officially arrive.
