Last week’s shocking PGA Tour-LIV Golf blockbuster merger seemingly came out of the blue, leaving professional golfers with several questions about the new arrangement. Aside from golfers, and the sports community, now Senate is curious about how the agreement was reached between the two golfing powerhouses.
According to Kevin Draper and Alan Blinder of The New York Times, the Senate “opened an inquiry into the arrangement,” which is still not firmly set in stone.
Specifically, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut revealed that he’s demanded to see several documents and lines of communication relating to the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian-funded LIV group. He’s also curious about how the PGA Tour’s nonprofit status, wondering if their tax-filing status should perhaps be changed.
LIV has declined comment on the matter. The same goes for the PGA Tour. However, executives from both leagues have indicated that they expect some level of pushback from the federal government on their original agreement.
While the new investigation may cause headaches and slow things down, congress cannot block the agreement just by digging into the matter. However, there is some concern that by facing further scrutiny, the existing controversial agreement may further “tarnish the deal.”
Though an investigation has been launched, there are no public allegations of any type of wrongdoing on either side. Meanwhile, antitrust experts are anticipating an effort by the Justice Department to try and block the agreement altogether. In other words, this is far from the last we’ll hear about the PGA-LIV Golf merger.
Related: PGA Tour’s Jay Monahan will reportedly oversee LIV Golf and could make format changes