James Dunkley, Majesticks GC Team Principal: ‘The Business Behind LIV Golf; What It Really Takes To Run A Franchise’ (Ep.91)

0:00The vision and mission of what Live Golf was trying to achieve and that was using this team model to evolve the game. Golf is a sport that hasn't evolved massively in terms of tournament formats. When you look at the data around the average age of a fan and the average age of a viewer, as a lover of golf, actually, this is slightly worrying. I think where these deals become amazing deals is if we can create businesses that have some enterprise value. And that is very much what we're trying to do. For me, the team element is way more exciting. If someone in the individual tournament has got a three-shot lead with three holes to go, you probably know who's going to win.

0:32You can literally get a four, five, six shot swing in one hole. It may sound cliche, but you are playing for more than just yourself. Historically in golf, you've only done that once every couple of years, in maybe the Ryder Cup or the President's Cup, but every tournament and every week, you are playing not only for yourself, but for the team. I think Lee even openly said, Liv was important for me to want to keep playing, so I was getting a bit bored. The great thing is at the moment is that golf is probably healthier than it's ever been. Liv is different, and it's just a completely different experience.

0:59Hello and welcome to The Business of Sport, the show that takes you behind the scenes with the industry's leading owners, operators and athletes. What is the world of Live Golf really like? Cutting through all the noise and the image portrayed of a league propped up by PIF money and capable of supporting itself, is there another side? That's what we take a look at with this week's guest James Dunkley, team principal of Majestic's Golf Club, one of the 13 franchises that compete on the tour. There is no denying the controversy that Live caused when it was established, disrupting the world of golf and the established tours, taking some of the biggest stars of the game on big money and changing the format.

1:38But going beyond that, and most importantly, the short-term financial commitments it has required, what is the long-term ambition and how does this model fit into the broader game to coexist with the sport's other key organisations and tournaments, while also tackling some of golf's biggest challenges? aging fan bases, stale formats, financial distribution outside of the top players. James takes us through the running of a team consisting of huge personalities and profiles like Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Henrik Stenson, the importance of creating a winning organisation and why much of this tour is completely misunderstood by many.

2:17I won't lie, this opened my eyes to a side of Liv I hadn't previously considered or appreciated and I think it'll surprise you too. We're delighted to welcome James to the business of sport. Ever wanted to invest in sports? Ever thought about owning a stake in football, cricket or even Formula One? Stride makes it possible, starting from$5 ,000. For the first time, you can now access exclusive sports investment opportunities from a world-class football club to emerging paddle ventures to the next big thing in cricket or golf. Sports is no longer just entertainment. It's an investable asset. and with rising revenues, global fan bases and media rights booming, the sports economy is one of the most compelling investment opportunities today.

3:00Stride is the regulated digital platform unlocking this market for individuals, institutions and family offices alike. Whether you're looking for yield, exposure to uncorrelated growth or simply want to invest in what you love, Stride is reshaping how the world accesses sports private equity. Ready to step into the game? Visit GoStride.com. that's g-o-s-t-r-y-d-e dot com and discover how sports private equity can work for your portfolio because investing in passion shouldn't be off limits James, thank you so much for joining us welcome to the Business of Sport thanks for having us it's a pleasure to get into golf again I mentioned that we haven't actually done a huge amount of it so I'm excited to go into this and actually from a live golf perspective this time me too which adds a great dynamic look we were just chatting outside and the perceptions of Liv you know how this whole tour has come together have been well interesting for for want of a better word but I do do think it is missing so much context there's there's so little information that's actually been properly dived into so can we just get a really good understanding from you at the beginning of how from a team owner's perspective how that works are you and you individually are you the owner of the team is it a license how did you get involved on that side of it yes i'm not an owner of the team um we have three captains so the captain moniker is really about whether you own a chunk of equity in the team so we had three in our team ian poaltoli westwood henrik stenson when the opportunity came along we were representing all three of those players and we did this sort of due diligence, if you will, on the deal.

4:44And of course, the opportunity commercially, you know, the big checks being written. So absolutely, it was an amazing financial opportunity for them. But whether people want to believe this or not, truly the straw on the camel's back for us kind of endorsing this opportunity to them, which was ultimately their choice, was the vision and mission of what Live Golf was trying to achieve. and that was using this team model to really evolve the game from where it's been you know golf is a sport that hasn't evolved massively in terms of tournament formats and if you look at i think a great example of comparison is cricket t20 and one day games and how i think a lot of that was actually not very welcomed by the institution or the establishment when that happened understatement yeah and now i think people would actually argue that it's been the best thing for that sport ever because the overall strength of the sport is better because of those because of those things.

5:36And that's the thing that we really bought into. And I think, again, it was still a big risk. The guys were rewarded for taking that risk with various elements of their contract. But I think the nice thing is now three years in, you can actually evidence that the mission is being delivered. You know, we have attracted an incremental audience to the sport. We are attracting a younger age group. We have increased the level of eyeballs on the game of golf, which is ultimately a big part of what we're trying to do. So 13 teams, is that right? Correct. So just going back to just that structural point, players have stakes in the teams.

6:12You as a team principal, how does that work from a kind of, are you employed by the team, which has its kind of live golf or should we say PIF driven ownership model and those kind of feed out? So I just really want to make sure we get the right understanding of the structure and how those teams are. Yeah, so 13 teams. 12 of those teams have one captain or principal player that own equity in those teams we're unique in that we have three each of them 13 individual corporate entities so ran as standalone businesses however bearing in mind the majority investor in each and every one of the teams is the same person or entity in live golf investments there's obviously a lot of shared best practice and a lot of similarities between the way the teams are run and some central services that we're able to plug into at a league level to support operations.

7:05So like Live Golf Investments has it, and Players has it, and then individuals. So like you guys have a stake. I'm a contracted employee or contractor to the business in my role, yeah. Amazing. And you've been involved in golf for a few years, right? So you've kind of come into this with good knowledge of the game, ready to support the development of this. Yeah, I think so. I'm a hugely passionate golfer. I think it's an amazing sport for what it can do. The life lessons that it teaches, I think is unique amongst most sports. It can bridge the gap between different types of people. It's the only sport you can probably play across three or four generations.

7:37So I'm hugely passionate about what the game of golf can do for people. And I think our Little Sticks program, which maybe we'll speak about later, is great evidence of that. It's what we've done with Majestics. I was kind of uniquely positioned and lucky that, yes, I got a big background in golf, but was fortunate to also get some general operational business experience as well. So this was an amazing chance for me to kind of try and smush those skills together and hopefully deliver some good results. So what did you think? We talked about perception. What did you think when this opportunity first came into how Liv fits within golf and why it should be seen as a good positive move forward for the game?

8:14Well, I think when I first heard about it, eventually we took a meeting because it felt like the train was leaving the station and you needed to at least understand and educate yourself on what it was. I remember the first meeting we took was back in 2021. Went down to Beaverbrook for a meeting. And obviously numbers were being chucked about and it was like, OK, I get that piece. That's kind of the easy piece to negotiate. Tell me what it is you're trying to achieve here. and very quickly when you look at the data around the average age of a fan and the average age of a viewer it's like as a lover of golf actually this is slightly worrying where's our fresh blood coming from and even beyond that if you look at golf club data if you look at the membership data of golf clubs like it doesn't really tell a pretty picture in terms of the average age of those people how many junior members are in the sport and you know granted golf has evolved and the membership model it's a bit different to how it is now but you know i was all for trying to make sure that we got a fresh injection of people into the game of golf so that it continues to thrive for a long, long time.

9:18And how does that golfing fan that is brought into Liv, how does that differ from the traditional golfing fan? I think it's fair to say that Liv is definitely attracting golf fans, but also more of a generalist sports fan, maybe a casual golfer as opposed to a guy that's been a member of a golf club for 20 years. And I think what's cool is, again, again this is kind of nature of society isn't you kind of it's divisive like you either like this or you like that I think the cool thing is and what we're quite focused on how does it bridge the gap between the two you know live golf and some of the things we're doing at a team level with Majestic should be kind of aiding the stepping stone of people getting into the sport it's quite an intimidating thing right you know you want to take up golf as a kid okay well you've now got to become a member of the golf club you go in the car park it's all you can't change your shoes in the car park and it's not a particularly welcoming sport historically i think things like live golf um are making it a more welcoming and accessible sport for everybody to enjoy what about the let's call it the like the financial piece right that everyone beats it with we're going okay this is a tournament that's built on the financials if that's one side of the argument this is a money league to you what's the other side i think the other side is effectively everything else if i think about it in a majestic context so that the mission of our business is to be a winning team and thriving community making a difference on and off the course so it's quite a mouthful i know but clearly like any sports team like we exist and strive to win like we want to win on the golf course and win at what we do but equally we are about making a difference and creating a community So I think some good examples of that and what we've done is we're called Majestic's Golf Club, right?

11:07That's not a fluke or coincidence, is that we have created a community of members of about 40 ,000 people over the last two or three years. And I think what we're seeing now is that people are really engaging with that. We're starting to put on monthly medals virtually, you know, partnership with people like Trackman. So really creating that community of people that may not be ready to become a member of a golf course yet, or maybe we're a bit intimidated by doing that. And equally what we're doing from a community perspective with our Little Sticks program, we have rolled this program out, which is, to be clear, it's not an after school club that teaches golf.

11:44It is about teaching young people life lessons, respect, resilience, teamwork, broadening their horizons through golf, because it's a unique sport in the sense that, you know, self-policing. you can let people take it at their own speed you know we've had real success particularly in special educational needs schools where you're taking people with different challenges and maybe saying hey go play a game of football it's really tough whereas when we set up the games in little sticks which are really basic games that we can then step up a level um as as needed people can engage with it at their own pace and we've got that's now in the PE curriculum in just over 200 schools in the uk um we've just signed up another 150 schools to go live in in 2026 so we think we'll have between 40 and 50 000 young people go through that program for at least a term by the end of 2025 and our aspiration is to take that to hundreds of thousands over the course of the next few years so you are should we call it the uk team i think that's fair to say you know obviously Henrik Stenson, one of our captains of the corner, is not British, is Swedish, but three of our players are British.

12:53And also I think, you know, it's as much about leaning into what our British values are, you know, diversity, inclusivity. You know, I think we're fortunate that Great Britain is one of the most inclusive and diverse societies I think there is in the world. So it's about leaning into those things as well, as well as where our players come from. Tell us a bit. Go on, let's get into the golf side then. structure of the team and you know how how that kind of works from the quite unique golfing setup yeah so i think from a player perspective obviously it's unique with having three players that are co-owners of the team so we try as best as we can to compartmentalize our conversations with them so you know put your shareholder hat on today and put your player hat on another day but i think we've done a pretty good job of that of making sure that you know So first and foremost, they are players on our team that want to perform to the best of their ability.

13:42And our job is to support them in doing that. We want them focused on that. At the same time, making sure our shareholders and the people that have been appointed to lead the business from a day-to-day perspective, making sure that they are up to speed on what's happening, that they can support us where needed. We've got three amazing captains that are icons of the game that have so much value to give us. So just to be clear, we've got Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson and Sam Horsfield. Exactly, exactly. So, you know, making sure we're kind of sucking that value out of them as much as possible to entertain potential partners or from a mentoring point of view of young players that we're looking at for the future.

14:18So that's the kind of way we try to handle it. And then myself and my co-team principal, Ollie Banks, we run the business day to day. We currently have a headcount of 10, mainly based in the UK, a couple of guys in the US, and we hopefully look after the rest of the business. And the primary side of that on the business front, are you then managing commercial inventory, doing the marketing for the team? What's on you and what's covered by what we would maybe call Live Central? Everything's on us. So we're responsible for every facet of the business, but definitely supported in certain functions by what Live calls central services.

14:54So there's things that we can plug into to add value to us. And equally, there's some facets of the business that we just do completely in-house, particularly in areas where we think we can, you know, get a competitive advantage up against some of the other teams in the league. So everything from, yeah, commercials, partnerships, future player recruitment, social media, community programs, retail and merch sales, you know, everything. And the players, you know, you mentioned there, maybe rolling them out with certain partners and getting involved in different areas because you've got three co-owners, I guess, or equity holders as well.

15:29How's that transition? for them where suddenly the focus is about more than just the golf course? Yeah, I think it's definitely one to manage, right? You know, we've got three guys that are extremely engaged in the business. You know, they're extremely excited about what this business can become and the community that we can build around it. So again, coming back to the point earlier, it's about making sure that there's a time and a place to have those discussions. But undoubtedly, it's fair to say that Ian Lee and Henrik are all closer to the end of their careers than the beginning. And I definitely look forward to the day when they're not necessarily a playing member of our team, but are non-playing captains in some role, because the knowledge that they can give us, the expertise they can give us in all sorts of different areas of business is, you know, I think can add massive value.

16:16Tell us about the value that comes through the format. So actually how the tournament works. Individual and team side are key part of that. Yes, you've got two tournaments going on at the same time, two tournaments within one. They changed the format in 2025 where it was perhaps a little confusing for somebody to follow in previous years where you only counted three of the four scores. Whereas last year, to make it really clear and simple, all four scores count every day. So every shot counts. No hiding. There's absolutely no hiding. So there's an individual golf tournament happening in the traditional sense, stroke play format across three rounds.

16:54and the tournament within the tournament is the team concept where it's basically a cumulative score. You know, for me, the team element is way more exciting. And one of the things I think people, is a bit of a misconception is that do people really care about the team element? Absolutely. The first thing we always get after when we come off the golf course, like how do we do? Where do we stand? They're more bothered about where the team finishes than necessarily themselves. And also because of the way that it's all four scores to count. You know, if someone in the individual tournament has got a three-shot lead with three holes to go, you probably know who's going to win right i think it's something like last year maybe one tournament winner came out of not the final two groups in that tournament and that's part of the challenge with golf right is you've got 70 players making the cut and actually there's only six people that have got a chance to win the tournament coming coming to sunday whereas the team element you can literally get a four five six shot swing in one hole you know two or three birdies versus two or three bogeys can make a massive difference so it's really dynamic it's really fast it's sometimes a bit difficult to follow because there's there's a lot there's a lot happening but it's it's it can change very very quickly which is really really exciting to watch it also means you have something in football we talk about like franchise football often we've spoken to people who uh maybe have ownership stakes unlike the mls and they'll go yeah you know you guys seek this franchise model quite often but the problem is we've got so many dead games in the middle where it doesn't mean much and therefore there's not a huge amount to play for you could put that in golf exactly as you just said where if you've made the cut but you're in your 62nd or something not a huge amount you're playing for maybe a bit of pride and then a bit of prize money as well but in this even if you're 62nd right the difference between you being that and 45th i'm guessing is huge so it gives them a whole different objective and and target to aim for even if winning's out of the equation exactly you are playing you know may sound cliche but you are playing for more than just yourself right which is huge you know historically in golf you've only done that once every couple of years in maybe the rider cup or the president's cup but every tournament every week you are playing not only for yourself but for but for the team and i think human nature is to you want to do well for your team right you don't want to let people down and the guys are extremely driven to not only perform well for themselves but for the team as well how have you found the recent seasons it's been tough for you guys right and performance side how have you found it with that group that you've got yeah it's been it's been not where we wanted it to be um and disappointing i don't think if you asked any one of us um players caddies staff members if that's where we wanted to be we'd definitely say no so i think staying positive has definitely been a challenge at times um i think the big thing i was listening to this podcast that you did with um the team principal of um williams his name is james vows james vows and he was talking about the marginal gains piece and it's very much the same in golf like i think we've definitely had um flashes of brilliance and good performances but just across the season just not consistent enough but you know do you play golf yourself yeah i love it i mean how often do you come off the golf course definitely could have been two or three shots better today never perfect yeah all the time you're the only one right it's impossible yeah if you know genuinely and i haven't done this exercise but if you took our performance and every player was one shot better every day across this season it's probably the difference between us finishing 12th on the order of merit and fifth so like we're dealing with really really fine margins but in the offseason I hate the term off-season because I feel like we're doing more work now than we do during the season, but a lot of work going into the performance services element of our business to make sure that we are supporting our players as much as we can to maximise their performance on the course.

20:45Can players get dropped? Yes. Okay. And if you've got three team principles, does that make that decision slightly harder? Because in all seriousness, they're also equity holders, right? Yeah, some of those conversations are easier. So we faced that this year. You know, Henrik was relegated. so relegation has always been a thing in this league and i think it's really important for the integrity of the of the competition like in in in other formats of golf but in other sports like you you can get dropped um and this year was really the first year where relegation was you know scott o 'neill our new ceo came in about probably about 12 months ago now was really clear like we're gonna have a relegation and unfortunately henrik finished 49th top 48 is safe from relegation so that decision for next season is kind of taken out of our hands Henrik you know likely won't be playing on the team or won't be playing on the team and then with Ian and Lee who finished very you know very close to relegation you know we had to have some very honest direct conversations about them playing in 2026 and what that looks like and you know the sort of commitments we need them to make to secure their playing spots in 2026.

21:57And as we sit here today, it's very much part of the plan for them to be both playing on the team next year. And a team gets, sorry, a player gets relegated. Do you then go through the fact of transfer process? How does it work to find your next player? Exactly. So again, very similar to other sports. You know, we've been working on this for a long time. We work with a data partner and we've been trying to identify the best talent for our team going back we created a portal that values effectively every single professional golfer in the world to make sure that we've got that data driving our decisions there's always a bit of art to overlay against the science for sure personality fits etc but again with three players that were you know what Lee's 52 Ian's turning 50 in January Henrik will turn 50 in in April as well we always knew after the first two or three years of the contract we were going to be going through a transition period of our playing lineup so we're very much prepared for it and we are we've got a short list and we're out in the market now trying to recruit um at least one future player for majestics for 2026 what happens to players ownership or equity if no change so they were so henry retains his absolutely he will be an owner until he decides to sell his shares until there's an opportunity so he's still well he won't be playing for us on the on the course next year he will still be a significant part of the business and a significant shareholder in the business.

23:15And we talk, you know, so much of the conversation has been around the massive fees that were reported to be going to players. What was the balance from a financial perspective of, should we say that immediate, like cash injection that may have been there to the longer term piece and ownership piece, a bit more like we were talking before we came on air, this developing equity model, this business of athletes getting involved in stuff that is maybe slightly more longer term. yeah so i think the the initial kind of signing on fees and the the prize money that was on offer at the time for lear versus the pga tour european was significantly different that's since changed you know magically the the pga tour are now playing for very very similar prize purses was significant and they were good deals you know there's no there's no doubt about that But I think where these deals become amazing deals is if we can create businesses that have some enterprise value.

24:17And that is very much what we're trying to do. And their involvement in this now. So let's say, you know, we mentioned the UK piece. You've got a few of the other teams. Sergio Garcia's team, very much now the Spanish one. you've got full pretty much australian team in there yeah would you say nationality is a key driver in part of that development giving it a route beyond um should we say just the broader global to the team or to the league to the team because if we're looking at building value in individual brands right you need to find a way to immediately find an audience or find a point of relatability i'm a fan i've never watched live before if you've got a british team as we spoke about again before if you've got a British team and something naturally I'm probably going to gravitate towards that slightly more than I am another so even just from you know the start finding your home is that a key strategy to helping build these brands yeah I think that's and I think that's become really clear probably in the last 12 months it was interesting when we first established the teams one of the first things we did at the end of 22 is we've got to establish what our mission vision values are here like what why are we here what what are we trying to deliver on and we had the conversation then in regards to okay like are we going to be the european team are we going to be the british team we were kind of we shied away from it if i'm totally honest a little bit because what are we limiting ourselves by doing that um and what's manifested is that you know those teams with a clear geographic link ripper gc australia stinger gc south africa and you know you probably throw us into that into that bucket with with majestics it just it clarifies what the proposition is right you get you know that the more tribal nature of that that fandom and that and that following and also frankly it gives us a bit more clarity and puts some guardrails around what we're trying to do from a recruitment perspective what we're trying to do from a point of view of putting down roots one of the things we're thinking about for 2026 is establishing a physical footprint somewhere so what does that look like well probably not a golf course on day one because there's a big undertaking but maybe an indoor facility of some kind, you know, the Majestic's Golf Club or whatever it may be.

26:32So it kind of gives us that really clear identity without just kind of being, you know, too shut off, you know, like I touched on earlier, like beyond being British, like what does that really mean? What elements of British culture do we want to celebrate and put forward in our brand proposition to hopefully not just British fans, but global fans? How's it been working with PIF? great you know i i think that again i'm sure there's a lot of misconceptions out there but you know ultimately a big measure for me and people is like do do what you say you're going to do and every step of the way you know because again it was a pretty ballsy thing i think you know our players were extremely brave to take this leap of faith knowing they were going to get you know a fair amount of heat buy into the vision that the pif and live and live golf had and every step of the way they delivered what they said they were going to deliver and stood by what they said they were going to do and more um so for me it's been an unbelievable experience do you have strategic meetings for want of a better phrase where this grand plan also gets relayed to the individual teams who may have their specific focus plans so we have a board at a team level so we meet regularly with our board to for me to explain what we've got going on and hopefully kind of get some value from you know our player shareholders and other members of our board you know live and pif representatives um and then i also sit on um this year live has established various advisory groups um so i sit on what they call the team advisory group where they're talking about things that are specific to team operations and what's happening and giving us as team principals or GMs the opportunity to have our you know have an opinion and potentially have a little influence on what we're going to do from a business model point of view moving forward with with teams which is which is great and they do the same with players they have a player advisory committee to talk about things like course setup and competition and bits and pieces like that so there's various communication channels and committees that have been set up to make sure that you know they're getting all the value from all the great people they've got in the business and what does the financial support look like because i'm going to make a guess that teams aren't profitable maybe not even break even to an extent so where does the security come is there subsidizing is are they underwriting losses to encourage you know this development and this growth to spend because the last thing you want to do is clip the ambition of these teams at the beginning in the early stages yeah so some teams are profitable to be clear um it's not a word we're used to here so sorry i don't know um i couldn't name the exact ones but purely if you look at the the main opportunities for income are team prize money and sponsorship income and there's the other stuff around membership programs and youtube and content things like that so when you consider there's 16 million dollars up for grabs at team world championship alone you know some of these teams are profitable and this year has been a monumental year for teams doing individual sponsorship deals with big names so we signed a long-term partnership with hsbc with a partnership with castor with a partnership destination sport you've got seamless digital you know that's a few from our team's perspective you've got um six seven figure six six figure deals yeah this year has been like a big step change in in momentum for us on that front you know if you look at crushers i think they've got salesforce qualcomm hsbc so there's some big team you know i think john rahm's team santander big sponsor callaway big sponsor torquay pink so there's some big brand names come on board this year with some with some big deals and some long-term commitments but yes to answer your question around funding yes the um the pif um and live golf investments are funding these businesses and funding and funding the losses and you have a path to profitability should we say where they set a target and you have to try and get the house in order in five to seven years yeah a really clear path as well i mean i think again i can't really comment on other teams cost bases but where our cost base is today versus the opportunities we have from a prize money and the pipeline we have from a sponsorship perspective i'd be disappointed if we weren't profitable in 2026 okay and you mentioned it was at 16 16 million so prize spot for team versus prize spot for individuals you know what i found it so interesting you watch full swing on netflix for example what they started doing now and maybe it was a very specific objective to say look they are making good money is underneath those tour wins it was like 4.136 million per you know rbc open or whatever it was yeah a classic um for individual wins like for performance so again we're moving past all of the wow that's a ridiculous signing on bonus for individual performance let's say what's the kind of prize pools available for players so the 13 regular season events across the season the total prize fund each week is 25 million dollars 20 million purely for the individual so 20 million goes to players based on their individual performance and 5 million goes to teams based on team finishes so at the moment top three teams receive a share of that of that prize money it's 13 regular season events and that and that's at the moment um i don't think it's completely out of the question that maybe that that changes or shifts or increases as we go into 2026 and for the team world championship the the season ending finale finale which is a purely team-based event there is no individual element to that to that tournament you're seeded based on your um ranking in the overall season-long order of merit and then it's effectively a a knockout format um to the final day's play where the the top three teams um play it out in an aggregate stroke play format to see the eventual winners and the total prize fund for that tournament alone is 50 million so 50 million for the team world championship at the end of the year 5 million a week for teams the other 13 weeks of the year and pga dp tour events if you don't make the cut you're not paid for live a big part was you turn up and you're paid correct how important was that for them to get in place for the players?

32:47It was a big part of it, right? I think, again, I don't really want to go down this rabbit hole, but if you look, that's exactly why certain players historically have been paid appearance fees to go and play in certain tournaments. I don't think I'm letting a big cat out of the bag by saying people get appearance fees to go certain places because it's like, hey, I'm going to say I'm going to play here, I'm going to help support the tournament, I'm going to drive ticket sales and I'm going to miss the cut and I'm going to make no money, why would I come? Which is why appearance fees came in. So really, Liv kind of took the need away to have that appearance fee.

33:21It's like, hey, you're going to come play in the tournament. Everyone's going to get paid. Your expenses are going to be covered. You can be confident that you're going to leave this week with something. Because we've talked about this in tennis a bit, and we were looking at players outside of the top 100, how difficult it can be to make a living. It's really hard. Therefore, you know, and it's quite often, because if you're going out in the first round of the majority, fine, the grand slams may give you a little bit more if you get to the first round. But to make enough money to just support yourself is one thing.

33:51But to make enough money to actually live as a professional, which means the coach quite often, the physio, maybe the nutritionist, the travel, accommodation. There's so much that goes into it. So when you have this type of structure, I mean, from my side, I'd look at it. It's more about, okay, being able to support a broader system rather than just the top end. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think beyond just the prize money, I think what's really interesting for us is we're touched on earlier recruitment, not only for a starting spot on the lineup for 2026, but what does our lineup and academy look like for 27, 28, 29, 30, 31?

34:28how are we investing in creating the best of golfing or British talent maybe in our instance I think when you go out and speak to young players and their parents who are maybe in college and thinking about the transitions professional it's not just the cost it's the it's the hassle of okay I've got to find a coach I've got to find an agent I've got to find a physio I've got to find a nutritionist I've got I've got to find all of these things and inevitably you are going to have to pay to learn in some of those instances it's not likely you're going to get that team right straight away whereas when we go and speak about what the proposition is for call it a development player on our team is that we have a ready-made infrastructure you know we have three players on our team that between them have probably got about 85 years experience playing the world's major tours right i don't think you're going to get much more experience from that point of view on some of the landmines that you might step on and help you maybe look around some corners that you may not be able to look at on your own.

35:29Sure, they'll love you for that. Yeah, I mean, it's just the truth. It's just the truth. You know, we have an amazing gentleman that we work with called Dr. Steve McGregor, who does performance services for us, everything from a physical fitness point of view and leaning into the performance practice element of things with our players. You know, we have an amazing team infrastructure. So whether it's booking travel or helping with support you with administration, we have all that there and we are a proven team. We have some real amazing experts. And that infrastructure is there for you to use without you having to take the risk of the cost.

36:02But also it's tried and tested. Whereas if you've got to go do that on your own, it's quite an intimidating thing to go and do. And the sort of almost relief you see in some of these players' faces and parents' faces, oh, wow, I was really nervous about that. Because that's more what they're used to in the college system in the US. So you go into college, you have a support team and an infrastructure around you to help you with that stuff. As soon as you step out into the professional golf world, today you're like you're out there on your own and hey maybe the top five amateurs in the world that are highly touted and have got nil deals now that they're allowed maybe they're okay because they've got 10 agents chasing them down but the other guys from maybe 5 to 20 or 25 to 30 or someone that's played on one of the minutes they don't have that luxury so i think that's something that again isn't talked about enough that we from a pathway perspective into professional golfers live and obviously the huge investment they have in the asian tour we can add a lot of value to to helping develop talent on that and on the business bring both of those together how important is a winning entity to being able to build both that side and the business side it's massive i mean i i don't know any sports team that establishes itself and exists to come second so winning is winning is huge i'm not going to say it's everything but if we can thrive on the golf course and be a winning team not it will support everything else in our business you know if you look at most of the and this isn't just about financial success right it's about what that financial success fuels in terms of other things that you can do in your in your business so it's massively important and we're definitely focused on the sporting element of the business in a big way.

37:52Can we take a look at media? Because this is something that, as we know, underpins the majority of major sports leagues. Yeah. And it's something, personally, I'll put my flag in the sand. I don't think it's been very good from Liv previously. And it's been a blocker as a massive golf fan to me, being able to watch it. How is this distribution model developing within Liv? Where are we at with the media deals currently on the table? so i think again this year has been a like a monumental year for tv distribution for live so we've managed to secure some major distribution deals around the world fox sports in the us itv in the uk um coupang play in korea and asia the list goes on so i think the latest number i saw in a deck was that the potential reach of the network deals that we have in place are about a billion homes.

38:45So the potential is now massive. So step one is, is the potential massive? I think step two is of those billion people, there's nowhere near all of those people tuning in today. So how do we encourage them and how do we encourage that tune in? So I think there's a couple of key things that I would point to in that. One is the broadcast deals that were established at the beginning of 2025 were done very, very late. So typically, these big broadcast networks are locking in their schedules probably two years ahead of time. So really with Fox Sports and ITV, as an example, like the slots that we would have wanted and they would have wanted to have given us were already committed.

39:30So I think what you'll see in 2026 is that those broadcast slots improve to be better hours, but also on the bigger networks. So Fox Sports, whether on Fox Sports FS1 or FS2. So I think one is just time because we'll get better slots. I think the second part of it is just then the broadcast product itself. One of the things that Liv was really keen to do is because, again, I don't know how much golf you watch. One of the things I used to get frustrated by was you flick on the golf and how many shots you'd actually see between adverts was like nothing. thing it's like what am i tuning into watching so live was really focused on number of shots per hour so i can't remember the exact step but we're showing a lot of goal shots for hour so i think now we're in this mode of trying to probably get a bit more of a balance where it's like we want to see plenty of goal shots you will see plenty of goal shots but also what we need as an audience is that is that context what did that mean which i think arguably previously could sometimes be a little bit confusing to to somebody somebody tuning in so i think it's about broadcast windows and I think it's about evolving the product.

40:39And have they been big deals? The broadcast deals. Pushing everything forward, good numerically, good for, as you said, channel exposure or improving for channel exposure. Yeah, I think brand-wise, you know, Fox Sports in the US is a huge brand name, probably the leader in sports, so massive ITV in the UK. I think the big deal for that for me was like free-to-air, which was big. And some of the names that I'm not as familiar with, candidly, and I'm sure some others aren't, like in different markets in Asia, South Africa, or Australia. Like I think it's Channel 7 Australia. I think it's the biggest sports channel.

41:11So yeah, they've been really strong, multi-year significant deals. But clearly, you know, those broadcast deals and how good they get over the next three years will be dependent on tuning. So it's a big focus for the league to make sure we're getting people tuning in. It's also why I asked the locational question because if you have better relationships with a region, so Channel 7, for example, in Australia, you have the Cam Smith team, right? Right. Naturally, you're going to have a much greater demand and therefore a better media deal if you can build the relational, sorry, the locational product in those regions.

41:45But it was interesting. And this may come down to, as you said, the lateness of the deal, but I didn't know ITV had the deal. So even when it comes down to, and I watch a lot of sport and golf. So even when it comes down to doing those deals, it's then about how do you let everyone know this is where it is? if it's not always going to be in front of them without you having to do much. I think that's really important. It is. Look, I think there's a long way to go. But I think the context here is like this business is three years old. So, you know, again, the TV numbers landscape and the data and the numbers is quite hard to get your head around.

42:24But I think the numbers that I saw were that the average audience per live event year on year has grown by about 33 % year on year, which is pretty good. Still a long way to go, but I think the direction of travel is really encouraging. Yeah, it's a really important point. We should mention it. Okay, business three and a bit years old. We're talking about sporting property. We talked about the numbers that everyone loves to bandy around. Most of them negative because it sets an agenda, right? Recent ones, recently this week,$1.1 billion in losses. Now, that's one side of it. Then the other side is the motivations of why this is all happening, which we've touched on.