What the PGA Tour's fan-forward survey means for you
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Hello and welcome to this edition of the Golf Show Podcast with Rex and Lav. We have a good one today for you folks. We'll have a great conversation with Andy Wetz, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer with the PGA Tour, diving into some of the early findings from the FanForward survey that you're going to be hearing a lot more about in the coming days and weeks, particularly during next week's Players' Championship. But first...

It's a signature event in the PG tour with the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Scotty and Roy are there. Xander Shoffley is back. Commissioner Jay Monahan scrummed with reporters again. Rex, you are live with Golf Channel Studios. What's caught your attention this week?

I'm looking forward to Bay Hill. It's a home game for me. It's always one of the toughest tests of the year. We had Todd Lewis on golf today a couple of times talking about how difficult it is. You saw what they've done. 17 is ridiculous. They've gotten rid of essentially Beach Bunker. It's going to make it impossible to play that hole because there's not going to be a bailout. We had Kevin Kisner on the show, and I asked him about it, and he just sort of shook his head, and he said those people sitting in the grandstands now left of the green, they should get hard hats because that's the only place –

to bail out. So we're going to see a lot of shots being thrown into those grandstands because you don't have anywhere else to go. But it was the commissioner. And like, let's be clear, there is nothing he can say at this point. I can certainly empathize someone who is in the middle of a multibillion dollar negotiation with a sovereign foreign government.

And you can't say anything at all. Like anything you say is going to be interpreted. So I certainly understand how difficult this is. However, when we finally get to the point that we can look back, take everything else out of this, when you can look back to last week's meeting in the White House that included Jay Monahan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, with the president sitting between them. And that went on for more than three hours and nothing seems to have been accomplished.

in those three hours. I think it's safe to say that something's not quite right, or there is some sort of hangup with wherever the negotiations are right now. And I will immediately point to Rory McIlroy's comments today at Bay Hill, when he talks about the idea, and this really felt like someone floating a balloon and just getting it out there, that maybe, maybe there's not going to be a deal, and maybe that's not bad. Now, we can have a long conversation if it's bad or good, but I think that's worth noting.

yeah roy mcroy is saying it takes two to tango and so one side seemingly the pga tour is ready able and willing to engage in a deal while the saudi pif side it appears is not quite ready that was rory's point today it it is in his words the ideal scenario to strike a deal presumably for more than a billion dollars into pg tour enterprises and the adebona competitively

of having all the best players back together again, competing more often. That remains the ideal scenario. It remains to be seen whether we'll actually get there. Josh Carpenter, front of the program, a great business reporter for Sports Business Journal, made the point that it was Jordan Spieth last year, 13 months ago, who made this exact point in a press conference, sort of countering Roy McIlroy's point and saying, look,

you know, it'd be nice to have a deal, but we're set up pretty well with strategic sports group. We have some momentum with the PGA tour. We have most of the top players right here. Would it be nice? Sure. But we don't necessarily need a deal that led to the hour long quote unquote, Frank conversation that he had with Roy macro. I'd be very curious to,

to ask Roy, and I'm sure he either will be later this week at Bay Hill or potentially next week at the Players' Championship. What's shifted over that time? You know, is it a begrudging acceptance that maybe this is too complicated? Maybe there's too much ego involved? I mean, there's a reason why it's taking this long. There's a reason why it seemed like there was so much momentum. They were on the two-yard line, and now, for whatever reason, they have backed up. It would be very interesting to sort of pin Roy down there.

on why they shifted feelings on that. And you also need to be fair here because the commissioner has spoken publicly numerous times about this. Roy McIlroy gets asked numerous times. Adam Scott, everyone else involved with this is going to get peppered with questions. Again, questions that either they can't or won't have answers to, but that doesn't mean they're not going to get peppered with questions. The governor of the public investment fund has never been asked about this. We don't know what they're- We're only here on one side. We're only here on one side.

Yeah, we don't know what the hang up is from their perspective, let alone from the PGA Tour's perspective. But there's clearly a hang up. And I will go back to the idea. And you're right. I like that you went back to Jordan Spieth's comments last year, because that's a narrative that I think got lost over the last year when we sort of leaned into what Jay Monahan has said about these negotiations, that they're moving along, quote unquote, at pace.

And so now we find ourselves at what feels like a stalemate. Again, no one really knows. And maybe that's okay was Rory's message going forward. Maybe our product is good enough. I would scoff and push back at that in the heaviest of terms we're going to have.

a very influential PGA Tour officer with us today, the man who is in charge of Fan Forward. And as we've noted numerous times, of that exhaustive study that they've done with fans of what they want to see with the product and players and the television product, the one number that stood out, 70% of them want reunification. Now we can sit and debate

exactly what that means, but there's no glossing over the fact that right now you can make a really good argument that Bryson DeChambeau is not the best player in the game, but he's the most popular player in the game. And isn't it interesting too, Rex, along those same lines, like

A few live players might hold the keys to this thing. You know, Bryce DeChambeau spoke Wednesday in Hong Kong about his future. There was some social media rumblings. Is his contract up? Is his not up? Did the PIF reject his number? We're not going to get into all of that, but he was asked point blank, do you want to set the record straight?

And Bryson said on the record, he's excited about his future with live. It's going to grow at a quote exponential rate. You know, look, Bryce DeChambeau is an employee of live. I didn't think he was going to sit up there and say that he's, you know, exploring his options right now, like a, like a disgruntled wide receiver might in a press conference, but he and Bryce DeChambeau's reps must know that he has a lot of leverage right now where he's

You know, he's maybe the most popular player in the world of golf right now. He's the reigning U.S. Open champion. He is the player. Maybe? Along with Jon Rahm, along with Brooks Koepka, who are really the players who, if you're the PGA Tour, want to reintegrate.

back onto the PGA Tour, Bryson being, I think, the clear number one in that respect. If he defects back to the PGA Tour, if he's unable to come to some sort of term with Liv on his next contract, I mean, it's hard to imagine Liv surviving his defection. And so Bryson, Brooks, Rahm's under contract for longer, but those guys all of a sudden have a lot of sway and are very influential in sort of what the future of this deal could look like.

Yeah, it's a good point by you. And I actually brought up a similar point on golf today. He's under contract with live golf. So I would not expect him to stand up there and talk infusively. However, I will go back to two years ago. I was covering the live event down at the rail and I ran into Bryson in the lobby of the hotel and we sat and spoke for about an hour and

And make no mistake about it, he is passionate. He is bought in to Team Goff, Live Goff, his team, the Crushers. Like, he wants to make this work. So I don't know that whatever it is that the Live folks and the Piff folks believe is that different from what Bryson DeChambeau believes. Now, I think there's probably some middle ground when it comes to would he like to play a handful of PGA Tour events? Absolutely. I'm sure he'd love to play next week at the Players if he didn't have a conflicting event and it was allowed. I'm sure he'd love to play

Whatever the case may be, Scottsdale or all the events that he loves so much. But he has bought into this product. So I'm not surprised by those comments at all. I guess the part that surprises me is when you have Bryson saying that on the same day that you had Rory sort of dismissing the idea that we have to have a deal.

Yeah, I mean, it certainly seems counter to what golf fans want. It seems like parallel tracks, which at this point in time, three years on, really seems to be doing no one any good. Bryson had one of the most memorable moments, of course, in 2021, taking a huge chunk of the pond on number six on Not in the Field this week. The players who are Scotty Scheffler, Roy McIlroy,

Xander Shoffley, among others. Who are you most interested in keen to watch Rex this week when you get on site at Bay Hill?

Xander, I think Xander's the one. Like, look, he has played earlier this season at the Century until we found out that he was dealing with that essentially rib injury, muscle injury. And we had Brett Faxon on the last podcast on Sunday night. He talked about having a very similar injury and still sort of feeling it to this day. So I'm not saying that it's going to be an issue for Xander going forward because it seems like he did all of his due diligence, that he did not rush back and try to pick up whatever his schedule was going to be. He missed his hometown event. He missed two events.

at Torrey Pines, which is his hometown, and I'm sure that's very important to him. He took the long view, decided it's going to be best if I let it heal and get ready for the year's first major instead of rushing back. So I do appreciate that. But yeah, I'm really curious to see how he plays. I don't expect him to

to light it up and didn't necessarily go out and win, but you'll be able to tell once he hits in that rough at Bay Hill, which is extremely thick this week, how he's feeling. Yeah. My expectations are, are low. Xander Shoffley said that he played his first 18 holes over the weekend. Um,

with some of the guys in South Florida. He appeared on Tuesday, or excuse me, on Monday with the TGL match. You know, it's hard to glean any sort of insight from simulator golf, but he wasn't wincing in pain. He wasn't grabbing at his side. So I suppose that's all positive. You're exactly right. Like the rough at Arnie's place looks very thick. I'll be curious to see, you know, sort of what percentage he deems himself by the end of the week, assuming that he doesn't have any setback. I'm really interested to see

Scotty Scheffler this week, Rex, particularly with the driver, because we look at Scotty Scheffler's skill set. There is no elite player who is as accurate off the tee as he is. And yet, at least in this small sample size of three events so far in the 2025 PGA Tour season, he's been battling a little bit of the left miss.

He was 23rd in the PGA Tour last year in driving accuracy, 112th right now. It is going to be of paramount importance to put the ball in play this week at Bay Hill, next week at TPG Sawgrass, one of the most strategic golf courses on the planet. You're really going to have to have control, but particularly off the tee. Very interested in seeing that as well as it relates to Rory as well. One Pebble Beach.

potentially could have won at Torrey Pines with a better putting weekend. Brad Faxon outlined that for us on the last podcast as well. He has had success on Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass as well. It seems like Rory's full steam ahead with the Masters now just about a month away. Yeah, I was amused watching Scotty Scheffler's press conference today at Bay Hill because you can see

Like he's not going to show a lot of emotion, but you could see that he's getting tired of these questions about when are you going to be 100 percent? And this is 100 percent. He is a victim of his own success here. When you come off the season that he had last year, the expectations are you're going to win every event this year as well. And that's we all know this is relative and that's not very realistic. And I just kept thinking to myself that in what world?

He's played three events this year, two top tens and a top 25. And what world is that rock bottom? Because if we could only be so lucky that, oh, we played so bad, we only have two top tens and a top 25. And look, the West Coast swing, how it played out was eerily similar to Scottie Scheffler's West Coast swing a year ago. All he did once he got to Florida was go 1-1-2-1-1 over his next five starts. Again, not concerned whatsoever about

It'll just be nice to see, particularly with the driver, exactly what he has in store for us. All right. That is enough of the players. There's also some big picture happenings as it relates to the PGA Tour. And I am pleased to bring in Andy West, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the PGA Tour. Andy, thank you so much for joining us. We want to cover a lot, so I'll get to it immediately.

You and I have talked about it. I know you spoke with Lab about the Fan Forward initiative. And for most fans, I think this is something that they don't know a lot about. So from 30,000 feet, what would be your explainer on this? Hey, Rex, Lab, great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. Fan Forward is a great place to start. And I think what I would tell our fans is it's kind of an interesting genesis of it, if you will. It was last, I think, spring, before I joined the tour, May, June, 2020.

where there was actually a player advisory council meeting and Theo Epstein from Fenway Sports, which is part of our investor group, the strategic sports group. He came and gave a presentation to our player advisory council members. So our top 16 folks who have volunteered to be a part of how we evolve the two or how we make it better. And he shared some learnings from Major League Baseball. I think the big takeaway there in the Major League Baseball journey was the way they use data and the voice of the fan to really better understand how they needed to evolve and improve the experience.

And as I understand it, that was kind of like the catalyst for, hey, let's do something similar. And that's how Fan Forward was born. And then over the next six months, what we did is the largest single outreach in the history of the tour to really understand what fans expect of us. So all told, over 50,000 respondents, core fans, casual fans, a really diverse demographic.

And as we went, we began to tailor the questions across three waves of research to better understand where we were at, where we might go and what they expected from us. What tactics would actually be most responsive to how they'd like to see the PGA Tour experience evolve? Well, on those lines, Andy, and I know you've got to get out of here in the next hour, so this probably needs to be a condensed answer. But what were some of your main takeaways that you found from that survey?

Oh my gosh, I mean, good point. It is an hour-long discussion and you know, I think we're on pace to actually launch a website next week, Lav, that's going to summarize the findings and share some of the insights, some of the data that's kind of shaping how we move forward. The Commissioner will also share some of this in his remarks next week at the players. What I will tell you for right now though is we're focused in four areas and those are broadcast enhancements,

How do we make the broadcast experience a reflection of how our fans want to consume it? So more emphasis on live golf, more diversity of shots, more risk-rewarding insights into how players are making decisions, fewer shorter putts, overall pace of broadcast, the caddy player experience, all of those things go into the broadcast enhancement bucket. You've got competition adjustments as the second focus. So inside the ropes, how can we evolve our rules

to make the play itself a better reflection of what fans want to see. So that means, to some extent, new formats. There's been a discussion of the Tour Championship. It also means looking at pace of play and the perception of pace of play, which actually sits across those two buckets. That's both broadcast and competition. And then the third focus is our players.

their profile, how we support them from a content perspective, how we make them more relatable. You look at the things we're doing with creators and the creator council, we're going to have a creator classic tournament at the Players' Championship next week, something that might have felt impossible just a few years ago, you know, in terms of the tour and the access we're willing to provide. We're very cognizant of the fact that, you know, the next generation of fans may enter into the PGA Tour in new and different ways.

So we're trying to figure out what makes them tick, how they want to consume the PGA Tour experience and meet them where they are. And then the last area of focus is what we call on-site experience. How do we make the tournament itself as enjoyable, as modern, as dynamic as possible and kind of meet our fans where they are in terms of their expectations of that experience?

Now, one of those boxes that I do want to go back to when the announcement came this week at Bay Hill, we're going to hear more from players and caddies. It's going to be a lighter commercial load, put it in industry terms. Is this one of those first initiatives that you hope to get some sort of faith in fans? Okay, this is what we're looking for.

Absolutely. I mean, listen, Rex, if we're going to get to the right place in terms of our relationship with our fans and we're going to build the fan base, we're going to sustain our core, we got to demonstrate that we're listening, which is what FanForward is about. We got to base how we move forward in data, which is what we're, you know,

poised to talk about next week, but then we got to prove it, right? Because when you ask someone's opinion, you get some credit. But if you don't translate that learning into change, it's a temporary thing. It's a sugar rush, right? And so I think what we're doing this week at API with an incredible partner in MasterCard is we're actually taking some of that commercial load out of the broadcast

and we're replacing it with a very simple integration. Imagine our announcer stepping back, natural sound coming in, and you getting to see a player set up and consider maybe a conversation with their caddie. Maybe it's just the ambient noise as they really think about the difficulty of the shot and the core golf fan really gets to feel like they're right there over their shoulder.

On the right-hand side of the visual, we've got some insights into maybe how the hole has been playing, how they played it throughout the week, more about that player themselves, all kinds of things that make the moment

more interesting and valuable to the fan and reflect the fact that fans want to see more live golf and they want to see more drama on every hole and they expect to have better windows into how players tick. So you're exactly right. That's an example of how we're trying to make change in real time. And hopefully you'll see more of that as we move forward.

And when we met last month at Pebble Beach, when you sort of started to unveil some of these changes that we're going to be seeing on the on the PGA Tour, you were asked a question, essentially, you know, how do you keep the pendulum from swinging too far to the fans as opposed to players, sponsors, broadcast partners, whatever the case may be? And you said, and I'm summarizing here, if the fans are our North Star, that's a good place to start.

My question would be, how do you balance trying to incorporate these new and fresh innovations without alienating your hardcore fans and who are probably going to be a slightly different demographic? Great question. I think you start with how do we create the best version of the PGA Tour that reflects the heritage, the legacy of the game, what our core fans love about it, while also being open to modernizing it?

and so that you can let new fans in and you can take casual fans who may not watch every week and give them a reason to make a bet on spending more time with the pga tour so lab you said it that is a balance you have to test test test you have to have conviction around the change you're putting into place and ultimately

Everything is a gimmick until it's not. And that's where, for instance, we look back at Major League Baseball. Would a core fan of Major League Baseball, if you asked them four or five years ago, said, yeah, shot clock is the future? Would they have said bigger bases will make a difference in terms of steals? Would they have been okay with a man on second and extra innings? But they tested those things. They used their minor leagues. They began to actually condition their future stars and the minors to saying, hey, this works. This makes the game better. I'm okay with this.

And I think that our core fans, that they see our players in the mix responding positively, open to change. I think that relationship between the fans and the players back to balance will be critical to getting that right. But I think the one thing you can't do is stand still. You know, the landscape is changing. The sports landscape is more cluttered than ever before. The way that our fans consume the PGA Tour is evolving and we got to evolve with them.

We had Jeff Newbarth on last week, who is the executive producer of the TGL broadcast on ESPN. To your point, is there anything you're seeing during those telecasts that you think, yes, that would work on the PGA Tour level? And are you looking at that maybe as a bit of a lab where, yep, it could work here. Let's try it. Let's give it a shot. Let's see if it can work on the PGA Tour.

Rex, I think that's a perfect way to look at it. I think it is a lab. I mean, I think to an extent we anticipated that the shot clock and TGL would once again put pace of play back at the top of our list. It was already there because it was one of the top two things we saw in the fan forward research. And so you see us taking that focus on pace of play and the notion of a shot clock, you

and translating it into movement over here on the PGA Tour. So we've got our working group that's looking at this. When we were together, Lab and Pebble Beach, we talked about the DMD test that we're gonna do. You'll see us very soon here, days if not weeks, either maybe this week or next, we'll announce the timing for a four-week rangefinder test on the PGA Tour.

You'll see us talk more about testing at the KFT level. You'll see us talk more about transparency, what we can share in terms of average stroke time so that we can drive insights from fans as well as accountability for players. And so we view TGL as a catalyst.

to start a conversation, to help us understand where our fans are and the evolution of the experience, and then to capitalize on that and begin to incorporate things that are working well. Now listen, it is a different game. So there's aspects of it. I'm almost hesitant to say this 'cause someone's gonna take it out of context. You're not gonna see the hammer on the PGA Tour, right? But is it awesome to see the way that brings the fans into players and how the players get excited in that moment? That's cool. Like, how do we take that energy

and translate it into something that works on the PGA Tour. So it's not always going to be one for one, like a literal learning, but I think it is insights into what engages our fans, what excites our players. And if those two things are happening, we need to build on it.

Jupiter Lynx and Boston Common, for the love of God, they still do not understand the hammer rule. Those players should be penalized on the PGA Tour. Speaking of TGL, Andy, the idea of team golf, and you mentioned baseball and some of the changes they made that would have seemed sacrilegious a decade ago. Team golf, I think a decade ago, would have seemed unfathomable as well on the PGA Tour level. Then we've seen the advent of Liv. Now we see TGL. Where do you think team golf fits today?

in the future of the PGA Tour and are fans telling you in that fan survey that they have an appetite for it?

Well, two things. I think there's two things here, Lab, that can be true. I think the team golf in the context of match play, the Ryder Cup, the President's Cup, and amateur golf, so many examples of it, I actually think that is already very much the fabric of the golf landscape and something that there's a lot of heritage around. And in many ways, that is appointment viewing, right? We all look forward to the Ryder Cup and the President Cup in that context, right? So I think that is true.

I think that the research tells us that our fans are saying the preeminent format is 72 hole stroke play, right? That comes through in the research across all of the different, you know, demographics, if you will, within the fan forward segmentation work we've done. So I think that,

We've learned and are learning through TGL that there are aspects of team golf that are really engaging and you can build followership and they want to see that relatability between the players. They want to see that competitiveness. They wanted them to see each other, you know, having each other's back and caring about the outcome.

I think that is consistent with why people care about the President's Cup and the Writers' Cup, compounded by the fact that there's this aspect of playing for your country or your region that is super unique and drives a real sense of ownership amongst the players. I think the question is, how do we tap into that and scale it? Because bottom line, fans engage when they understand that the tournament has meaning.

And I think that if we continue to evolve our schedule and evolve our formats to focus on putting the best players in the world on iconic courses and tournaments that have meaning, that we're going to be on the right track. OK, Lab, I appreciate you opening the door to team golf because it does seem to be the elephant in the room. So I'm going to go ahead and jump in. And I know the commissioner spoke with reporters earlier this week at Bay Hill, and he was asked something along the lines of,

The negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia since the second meeting between those groups in the White House a few weeks ago with the president of the United States there. Has the pace to use Jay Monahan's term, has the pace picked up or dropped off? Where are we at? And I know you don't want to negotiate in public, but can you give us an idea of where those negotiations are right now?

Well, first of all, I love that we've gone from pace of playing golf to pace of playing negotiations. Sure. Slow on both fronts, Andy. The cadence. Describe yourself there. Don't talk about yourself like that. It's a fast-paced conversation. Listen, two meetings in the White House in the last month.

I mean, think about that. Just think about like, go back 45 days. If we'd said there's going to be two meetings in the White House where the President of the United States is going to meet with our player directors, with our commissioner, and then pull the counterparty into the conversation, convene a dialogue around the future of the game, and that you're going to see leaders like Commissioner Monahan, you know, leaders like Tiger Woods, one of our player directors, talk about reunification.

I just don't understand how people have said, has the pace changed? I think the expectations are a little out of whack, respectfully. I would observe that there is a bit of an echo chamber here where we want to dissect and kind of dig into, are we on the right path or are we on the wrong path?

What I think we're focused on is doing two things at once, moving forward at pace in a way that preserves the soul of our organization and make sure that we solve for the fans and the players when it comes to the outcome of our negotiations with PIF, while also focusing 100% on what we can control.

And by that I mean doing all the great things that Fan Forward tells us we should be doing to evolve on behalf of our fans. And so I think we're moving at speed on both fronts, and I kind of reject the idea that we're not moving fast enough. What we've got to do a better job of doing is communicate at every turn, which is what conversations are like this are about. In the lab I saw a conversation that you guys had on Golf Channel. There's this back and forth. Is the tour communicating too much now? Are they not communicating with enough substance?

I don't know. I fall on the side of at every chance you can tell the fans you're thinking about them. Do your best to communicate where we're headed. And I'd rather be criticized for communicating too much than communicating too well.

Well said. I think that was definitely a criticism of the PGA Tour a couple of years ago, which, you know, podcasts like this, Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, has met and scrummed with reporters twice over the past month. It certainly seems like a good direction in terms of accountability, in terms of transparency. You mentioned reunification, which is like the buzzword on the PGA Tour right now. President Trump wants to see that as well. 70 percent, Andy.

of your fans in the fan survey say that they want reunification? What if it can't be achieved? How do you satisfy them? Well, I think we're honing in on one word here, you know, reunification. I think we have to define under the umbrella of reunification what that means. I think what's most important about 70% of fans saying that is that they, you know, we get caught up in the words laugh. What it means is they want to see the best players in the world playing each other more often.

Okay, directionally, that's what we need to accomplish. It's that simple. I think the rest of it is jargon. You know, I think I look forward to a day when we're on that path and we're back together and we're talking more about rolling the ball back and speed of play and rivalries that we reignited. Oh, the good old days. Right? I mean, you know, I think that, you know, you have fans who are obviously watching this who are engaged at this level of detail. I think our average fan and our future fan wants to watch great golf.

They want to see the rivalries reignited. They want to see great play on iconic courses. They want to see the best players in the world showing up predictably and consistently. We got to do everything I said on this side to get the deal done while also not losing sight of that. And our goal is to have them arrive together in a way that creates the best possible experience for our fans.

All right, I'll switch gears a little bit. And I will say this in all sincerity. In another life, you would have been a very good producer because you and I had a conversation earlier in this week and the golf nerd in me came bubbling up because I wanted to talk about...

TV ratings, because I just I'd listen to a podcast of someone talking about the NBA's TV ratings, which they're having a bit of an issue right now with that. And the PGA Tour, I think, would be fair to say there is momentum on the rating side. But if you look at where we have been, let's say the last few years when it comes to ratings, is it in your mind, since you're a professional at this, is it such a small slice of how you judge the relative success or failure of a sport now because of so many ways that the content gets digested?

Well, listen, I think ratings are an important metric. There's no question about that. It's almost like I'm a big movie junkie. I don't know about you guys. There's been this movement over the last 10 or 15 years where the average movie fan now talks about box office. They talk about how much money a movie made, which is a really interesting thing. That is a measure of financial success in terms of the movie, but it's not a reflection on the quality of the art.

And I think that ratings have similarly become this thing we talk about in this moment because there's uncertainty in the game. And yeah, they're important in a business context, right? Like our media rights are connected to our ratings. But you're right, there's other things that are now entering the conversation that are going to be important in the years ahead. Because consumption is changing, our fans are finding our content through different channels, and we're going to need to balance all kinds of things. Against that, our

our momentum at the beginning of the year from a rating perspective is phenomenal you know we're up 17 percent year-over-year average audience and linear tv we're up 10 or 11 percent peak audience so that's kind of like final rounds on sundays we're up 10 globally right when you think of measured markets internationally and i think a lot is made of ratings because it becomes like a uh

a bellwether kind of thing like which way is the pga tour trending if you look back over the last decade there's significant shifts and ratings almost double digits because there's so many things that can impact us year over year um you have weather you have you know who finishes on sunday you have all these things

we cannot control. So back to what we can and cannot control. We want to be on the right side of the ratings narrative, making sure everyone understands we have momentum, and we want to be focused on more substantive stuff, kind of leading indicators, not lagging indicators. And that's where Fan Forward is focused. How do we make the experience better? How do we prove we're responsive to fans? How do we win the battle for their attention and their engagement? If we do that, ratings will take care of themselves.

Andy, I want to get you out of here on this one because I think it's probably going to come up next week at the Players' Championship just to spin it forward to the future of the PGA Tour where players like Rory McIlroy are asking out loud in a media session, what are –

What is the PGA Tour going to do with the already $1.5 billion investment from the strategic sports group? How are we going to get this thing to grow? And I think golf fans are curious, too, who have just gone through this tumultuous period. What are some of the possibilities that golf fans can get excited about and get invested in as it relates to the future of the PGA Tour and what they could potentially be doing with that investment?

Awesome question. And it's one of the most exciting things we have on the horizon. It's one of the reasons I was so excited to join the tour. You know, we're at this point where when you raise growth capital like that, you get to really think about the evolution of a platform.

It's a little early to talk about it today. My commitment to you two is we'll come back and talk about it when we can get into more detail. But I think we have a super strong brand, right? Back to the experience and what our fans expect of us. And I think there's opportunities to extend that brand, you know, adjacent to kind of like what people think of as the traditional, you know, PGA Tour competitive product.

There's also across the world of golf opportunity to just bring it together in a way that we're creating an even, I think more compelling platform, right? Where you can find more of what you want in professional golf in one place. And so I think there's all kinds of opportunities as it relates to how we deploy the capital. And in many ways to bring it back to where we started, we're going to be prioritizing based on what we've heard from fans, you know, what they expect of us, what we have permission to do with our brand and how it's going to further strengthen our relationship with them.

with them. So more to come, not breaking anything today, but a very fair question. He tried. We have to try on this podcast. It's what we do. That's awesome. I love it. It is award season though. I'm going to, I'm not going to let you get out of here. What's the best picture for you for the year? Oh man, that's a great question. It's not. I just watched Nosferatu. It was terrifying. Don't pick that please. I'm not, I'm not going to pick Nosferatu. I have not seen a Nora. I want to see it based on them running the table and winning four Oscars on Sunday. Uh,

You know, this year I haven't seen as many movies as I'd like. So I don't have a great answer for you other than I am willing to invest the time in the brutalist. I think that, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a bit of a fan like Oppenheimer last year, period pieces where you got a director who has a lot of passion for a topic and Adrian Brody is amazing. So that's on my list. I just need to find like four and a half hours. You've been, you've been, you've been busy this year, Andy. We've got a few things cooking lab, but yeah, we'll get,

I'll be prepared for the movie section next time I come back. That's my commitment to you. Deal. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you joining us. Awesome to be with you guys. Thanks so much. And Rex, that was a great conversation. Obviously we, we thank Andy for, for popping up with us during what is a very busy stretch for him and his team on the PGA tour. What was sort of your biggest takeaway from, from what he had to share with us? I,

I think the interesting part about FanForward is all the different buckets that he referred to. And I find it fascinating because some of these are competition related. These are things that players are going to have a say in, specifically pace of play when it comes to the actual product. But the others are how you implement all of these different changes as far as...

exactly what the TV product is going to look like. We talked a little bit about this last week with Jeff Newbarth, exactly what the fans want, how they digest this information. You and I had a conversation earlier this week about, uh, I have a, uh,

a college age son who loves golf, but would never just sit down and watch golf on TV. Like traditionally you and I would, he's going to take his phone and he's going to sort of consume it in bits and pieces on social media. And I think that's part of where they're going with this. I mean, what have been some of the biggest criticisms of the PJ tour over the past decade? One PJ tour product is stale. It's outdated. It's not fresh. It's,

It's not innovative. The entire purpose of the fan survey in which they looked at 50,000 fans at a variety of different topics and potential future expansion was to try to incorporate some freshness, some ingenuity, some innovation. I love the direction they have done. It was...

I think arguably the second biggest criticism of the PGA tour. They've not been accountable. They've not been transparent. They've not been front facing. This was, I think particularly apparent after the framework agreement was announced, uh, commissioner Monahan, because he didn't want to negotiate in public, just sort of didn't even talk in public at all. Seeing, uh,

Jay talked with reporters twice over the past month, having conversations like this with Andy. I think it's such a great step with the PG tour and ensure it might be frustrating that we're not getting more concrete details. It might be frustrating for those of us in the industry or golf fans that maybe it's not accelerating at the pace that we would want or that we would hope.

But at least I think it's a positive step, Rex, that the PGA Tour is understanding that they need to be accountable to fans and update it as best they can as to what's going on with the future of the sport and the sport that everyone loves so much. And like, look, you and I, we're going to try to look between the lines. But I certainly understand you cannot negotiate this deal in public.

It's too complicated to do it in private if the last year and a half is any indication. However, I will circle back around to one thing that Andy said. 70% of those polled in that fan forward want reunification. And we can sit and circle back around on exactly what reunification means. I think at its core, at the bottom line, that means bringing the stars over on live back. It was a communication we had earlier. It was a conversation I had earlier this week with some folks up in Connecticut while doing golf today. And the idea being that

You can move forward as two separate entities. Like, I think that we're at a point now where I think you do have to look at the possibility that maybe there isn't going to be a deal and you're going to hear a lot of talk about maybe that's fine. Maybe if we move forward, I keep circling back around to last year.

on the Monday after the U.S. Open when Bryson DeChambeau may not have been the best player in the world, but he was by far the most popular player in the world. And you can probably still say the same thing about Bryson DeChambeau, thanks in large part to what he does on social media. I remember showing up at the Travelers Championship the very next day, a signature event.

that a corporate sponsor has paid a lot of money to get the best players in the world. And all anyone wanted to talk about was Bryson DeChambeau was playing in a live event in West Virginia. They're playing a live event up against Bay Hill this year. They're playing a live event up against the players championship this year. I don't believe deep down in my heart of hearts that Sanford,

separation is any path forward. I keep circling back around to the idea that we've done this now for a year and a half and it's simply not sustainable. And look, reunification can mean many things.

It seems probably unlikely, I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, unlikely that you would see a full reintegration of the players on live all of a sudden back on the PGA Tour, particularly after the PGA Tour just cut the number of fully exempt members from 125 to 100 beginning with the 2026 season, which you could see a partial reunification.

Select players, certain pathways, a cap on the number of times that they could appear. Maybe there's some sort of make good or quid pro quo with the PGA Tour going back to live. A partial reunification would still be better than what we have right now. And I think most importantly, Rex, to your point, better cooperation.

between these two warring sides would be appreciated. So you don't have to pick and choose which one you want to consume. You mentioned the live event going up against this week at Bay Hill. Next week, it's Singapore with the Players' Championship. The FedEx Cup playoffs are also going to be directly conflicting events.

with live events as well. That does not seem to benefit anyone in particularly with the fans. And it is going to be a drop in the bucket, but it's worth noting that next week at the Players' Championship, there is going to be a former live player playing at a PGA Tour event. This has happened, obviously, at a major at the Scottish Open, but never...

at let's just call it a fully sanctioned, only sanctioned PGA Tour event is the way I would probably put it. I mean, you also have to factor in this is the Tour's flagship event, Lloyd Cantor. So I think it's important to keep an eye on that as well. And one of the things that Andy touched on that I think is important, keeping an eye on going forward, and you brought it up, the concept of Team Goff. And I've been told by someone inside of these negotiations that that's

One of the sticking points when you look at the two sides coming back together, can you make Team Goff profitable? Can it become a successful business? I would argue up until now, it has not. Like what Live Goff has done, I think there are some bright spots on that PGA Tour, but I'm not quite sure if it's been proven without a shadow of a doubt that Team Goff can be profitable. So going forward, you're going to have to take a hard look as a business. Is this the way that professional golf needs to move forward?

And all credit to Lori Cantor was on the first season of live, ended up getting relegated, couldn't make it through the promotions event has sort of made his way now back on the DP world tour, got inside the top 50 and he has paid his penalty for the PG tour has not played in a year in a PG tour sanction event. That is why he'll be playing the players championship. And very likely now that he's among the top 50 in the world to tee it up at Augusta national as well. You are flying home today, Rex from Connecticut,

You're going to get, you're going to be hitting the ground running back to your hometown, covering the Arnold Palmer Invitational. What are you most looking forward to seeing this week at Bay Hill? I mean, Bay Hill's my, my hometown event. It's always special to be able to go out there. It just, it just, it just takes a 90 minutes to get there.

It is. And I think I've made this comment before and I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm going to stay true to, it is not my favorite event of the year to be clear, as you pointed out, it's not a 90 minute commute, but it's close to an hour commute. The parking traditionally has not been great. So there's a couple of things that I don't particularly like about it, but it's,

If you look at what has happened the last few years, even before it was a signature event, you always seem to get a really compelling finish on Sunday. Certainly what Scottie Scheffler has done there the last few years. And you start setting the stage for the Players' Championship, which I feel like is the quasi beginning of the major championship season. So there's a lot of things going on that I'm looking forward to. And Sunday night podcast.

Oh, he certainly will have a Sunday night podcast. I look forward to the golf course. It's never going to win any sort of architecture award. It's never going to be ranked by the players as their favorite venue on the PGA Tour.

but it always delivers their brutality. Assuming the weather conditions are going to be favorable on the weekend. Like they always push it to the brink. It's, it's a great test. If you haven't seen the picture, 17 looks a little bit different now. I'm a little bit different. I didn't recognize it. They got, they got rid of the bunker. They said it was a maintenance issue. And so it's not necessarily a shaved bank. Sam Saunders said the ball still should hang up if it does miss short of the green. But I think that's going to be a very different look.

for players. Congratulations are in order, Rex, to our colleague, Brentley Romine, who is supposed to be covering this week's Arnold Palmer Invitational, is now about to welcome his second child. You mentioned the podcast on Sunday will not appear on the inter-television. Apparently, there's some sort of like Kologuard classic rerun that's going to be on Monday. Fear not, though. We'll be on YouTube on Sunday night, wherever you get your podcasts as well. And just a preview of next week. Big week for us. We'll be back

With the podcast, we will have, of course, the preview on Wednesday like we typically do, and then mini pods after each and every tournament round, including the full daddy 52-minute podcast on Sunday night live from TPC Sawgrass. Throw it up on YouTube and on Golf Channel the following Monday. So a lot to look forward to. In the meantime, you guys are the drill. NBCSports.com slash golf for our latest news, notes, and updates. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Talk to you guys on Sunday night.

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