Way back in 1967 professional basketball wasn’t the world-wide phenomenon that it is today. Teams flew commercial and television coverage was limited to a national game of the week on Sunday. There was local coverage of the home team, provided there was a home team. The NBA had just 10 franchises. With major league baseball king and professional football gaining in popularity, professional basketball was a niche sport, just like hockey, tennis, and golf.
It was in that sporting atmosphere of 1967 when the American Basketball Association (ABA) was formed. The ABA went to cities that didn’t have NBA franchises. They opened shop in Indianapolis, Denver, San Antonio, Louisville, St. Louis, Dallas, and a handful of other cities. They hired one of the game’s early icons, former Laker great George Mikan, to serve as the first commissioner. They tried to be different and innovative, introducing different aspects to the game like the three point line and the red, while, and blue basketball. They hosted a slam dunk contest prior to their all-star game. They also signed some of the most talented and colorful players of that era to represent their franchises including Rick Barry, Spencer Haywood, Connie Hawkins, Julius Irving, Artis Gilmore, Rick Mount, and my college classmate, Maurice Lucas.
The ABA lasted 10 years until four of its franchises joined the NBA and the rest of the league folded. It basically failed because it had small crowds and no national television deal. The Indiana Pacers, the Denver Rockets, and the Kentucky Colonels drew well, but franchises came and went in sites like Carolina, Virginia, Miami, Houston, New Orleans, and Utah. With no television contract over that time, the fans of the game never saw Hawkins or Haywood or Dr. J.
The reason we’re talking about a rouge basketball league that struggled to exist some 50 years ago is because I see some valid similarities between the ABA and the LIV Golf tour. LIV is funded by the Private Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia and will be entering its third season of competition this year. This comes at a time when golf is increasingly popular with the public but is nonetheless a niche sport that is followed by a select amount of consumers.
Like the old ABA, LIV Golf has a famous commissioner, namely Greg Norman. Norman was the top golfer in the world during the late 1980s and the mid 1990s, won a pair of British Opens in 1986 and 1993, lost more than a handful of major championships in most dramatic fashion, and was a very much talked about star of the game. Greg Norman also has a grudge with the PGA Tour. Norman tried to form his own super golf league with the financial help of Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch some 30 years ago. The PGA Tour blocked Norman’s efforts and initiated its version of elite golf with the formation of the limited fields and no-cut World Golf Championships. Norman has bitterly accused the tour of stealing his idea.
Just like the renegade basketball league, LIV Golf has held tournaments in locales that don’t host regular visits from the PGA Tour. LIV Golf visits Australia, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It also goes to Nashville in the USA and revisits some past PGA Tour sites such as Mayakoba in Mexico and The Greenbrier in West Virginia. The LIV circuit doesn’t appear to be returning to the Donald Trump owned courses at Bedminster in New Jersey or at Doral in Florida. The Chicago and Boston sites seemed to be dropped as well.
Like the American Basketball Association, LIV Golf does have its innovative side. It runs a four man team oriented contest at the same time it is holding individual tournaments. The team tournament format is similar to Formula 1 racing although it does seem to be out of touch with the way traditional stroke play tournaments are historically run. After two years, the golf watching public still hasn’t truly caught on to who are the 4 Aces, the Fireballs, the Range Goats, and the Cleeks. Some of the teams have a familiar lineup. The Majesticks include former European Tour stalwarts such as Ian Poulter, Sam Horsfield, Henrik Stenson, and Lee Westwood. Most of them do not and you have instances of chaos such as the Brooks Kopeka led Smash Golf Club losing his brother Chase for poor performance while wanting to fire Matthew Wolff for supposed lack of effort.
Like that red, white, and blue basketball that eventually went by the wayside, LIV Golf does have its own quirks such as allowing its golfers to wear shorts, 54 hole no-cut events, rock ‘n roll music blaring throughout the day, and shotgun starts. I don’t really have an opinion about shorts and music other than to surmise that they will ultimately go by the wayside. The concept of the 54 hole tournament is also on tricky footing simply because it doesn’t seem as if the Official World Golf Rankings system is willing to give its cherished points to tourneys that don’t have a cut and don’t play 72 holes like the rest of the ranked circuits in the world.
Yet most importantly, here is where my ABA analogies have to come to the forefront when considering LIV Golf. As a teenager who loved basketball and followed it on the college as well as the professional level, I lost track of some very talented basketball players because they disappeared in the ABA backwaters. Whatever happened to college stars who signed with the ABA like sharp-shooter Rick Mount, power forward Maurice Lucas, and 7’2” center Artis Gilmore? Rick Barry went from the Warriors and the NBA Finals to stints with the Oakland Oaks and the Virginia Squires. Whatever happened to Rick Barry? I would hear or read about the colorful exploits of Julius Erving and Connie Hawkins and Spencer Haywood, but I never got to see them play because the ABA didn’t have a regular television deal. LIV Golf is seen in just 200,000 households. PGA Tour events have 1.9 million households tuning in to CBS or NBC
LIV Golf is on the CW Network in some areas and is missing in action in other markets. In the Bay Area it is sometimes on CW which is Channel 44. Other times it is on independent KRON Channel 4. It never seems to be available on a Friday. While the shotgun start might work out just fine for the Hidden Valley Lake Member-Guest, it’s too chaotic with the tournament on the line to watch Koepka finishing on the 16th hole while tied with Tailor Gooch who’s playing the 9th hole. The presumed merger of the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, and LIV Golf can’t come soon enough. I don’t care about the Range Goats. I do want to see Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau play at Pebble Beach and Riviera. I want to hear the waves crashing alongside Carmel Bay, not listen to blaring music by Journey. Looks like another year of chaos in pro golf.
