Something seems awfully ironic about this big new entity featuring the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.
When LIV Golf and several pro golfers sued the PGA Tour last year for alleged antitrust violations, their attorneys used the word “monopoly” in their complaint against the PGA Tour 44 times in 118 pages.
“Elite Professional Golf Has Stagnated Under the PGA Tour’s Monopoly,” said the amended complaint on Page 22.
The lawsuit describes alleged abuses by the Tour as a “monopoly power,” saying the Tour engaged in the “unlawful monopolization of the market for the promotion of elite professional golf events.”
“The Tour’s actions are transparently anticompetitive, as they are aimed purely at kneecapping competition from LIV Golf before it can get off the ground and threaten the Tour’s monopoly,” the complaint states.
But now that litigation is being resolved by merging the two leagues into an even bigger possible “monopolization of the market for the promotion of elite professional golf events.”
Can they do that? And what does that mean for the game?
In some ways, pro sports fans in America have seen this movie before, such as when the American Football League and the NFL merged after an expensive bidding war for players and then permission from the government amid antitrust concerns.
This is different, said Marc Edelman, law professor and antitrust expert at Baruch College. The NFL needed an act of Congress before it merged.
“It’s going to be very hard after LIV Golf has spent a year litigating and claiming the PGA Tour is a monopoly to then turn around and claim their merger with the PGA Tour would not substantially lessen competition in a relevant market,” Edelman said by phone Tuesday.
Much of it could depend on the details of the deal, which haven’t been revealed. In the meantime, USA TODAY Sports consulted with legal experts about how the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf league resolved its complaints of a U.S. monopoly by creating an even bigger global combination with more power and money than ever.
Isn’t this just another monopoly?
It depends. And it’s really up to the U.S. government to decide if it’s legal. The U.S. Department of Justice already had been looking into possible anticompetitive practices of the PGA Tour after it tried to fend off LIV Golf as a rival league and punish players for joining it.
“The PGA-LIV merger is another in a long line of successful efforts by entrenched monopoly organizers of…
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