Hour 2: ‘What’s More Likely,’ plus PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp Talks LIV Golf & More In-Studio

23:51Rich Eisen:Just download the PayPal app and share all the moments that matter. Account with PayPal is required. Not available in all regions where PayPal operates.

24:06the rich isen show podcast the first thing i did is create this committee to re-look at the competition we have at the pga tour and see if we can get better right and and then you know our friend paul tiger will used to have a great quote he said if it ain't broke fix it anyway and what what you learn at the nfl is you'd like to innovate get better um honor tradition but don't be overly bound by it. You know, we changed the kickoff rule. And that's a little bit new to the golf world. But the golf world is, there's tradition. It matters. It's important. But you can't be unnecessarily bound by it because the world changes.

24:42And so you need to evolve with it. And so I think those are things I took from the NFL that I think are applicable in a lot of places, but certainly here.

24:51Rich Eisen:Well, in the NFL, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end of a season, right? You know when it's starting. You know when it ends and you know also in the middle there's going to be a lot of competition and who knows what's going to happen. So you're on the edge of your seat about how everything finishes. There's eventizing. I know you just mentioned, by the way, Brian Rollap, the CEO of the PGA Tours here, our radio audience has returned. You know, you were talking about bringing a change here and a change there. but the idea of starting the season at a certain time and ending it in a certain way and eventizing things like the draft, like changing that from a sleepy, if you will, on occasion two day event in radio city to some massive three day extravaganza that you can move around.

25:40Rich Eisen:So what, what are you planning on doing? I know you, you, you gave a speech, but where are we on, on creating a beginning and an end like the playoffs that everyone can follow? Yeah. We, we, we, we created this future competition committee. Tiger Woods has been the chairman, but it's made up of a lot of players, a lot of people from outside golf, including Theo Epstein, who had a lot of work at this baseball. Right. And so just some really bright minds. And we've been meeting a lot since last September. And I think we're getting close in June. We'll have a lot to say about it. But in general, it's really about organizing the PGA Tour in a way that's a little bit more simple that not only a golf fan, but a sports fan can understand.

26:22Having a beginning and an end. Having standings that are a little bit easier to digest and understand. Yes. That ultimately add consequence that you understand to each tournament. And we talked about having track one events where the best 120 golfers will compete week in and week out with cuts, bring cuts back. And then we'll have other events that people are trying to fight to get into those track one. And so if you've never seen a PGA Tour event before, we could sit down and within three minutes on television, I could tell you this is the stakes of this event, other than it being a great event in and of itself.

26:56And I think the PGA Tour kind of grew up that way. It kind of grew up of an event here, an event there, as opposed to how do you actually organize this into a little bit more coherent league or sport. The FedEx points kind of get us there. But I think there's a lot more work we have to do. And I think what you'll see when we talk about this in June, I think fans will be really excited about it.

27:14Rich Eisen:And how much does, say, an NFL season play into the way you want to finish yours? I mean, you know better than anyone else about how sometimes on a weekend we're just football crazed in this country. Yeah, listen, I mean, football, people forget, like, you can't replicate the football business plan. How do you replicate a business plan for a sport where on Friday nights all over the country people stop what they're doing and go consume? It's a cultural thing. Right. So, and I think you see that in the growth of the popularity of the NFL and college football. I think what we're trying to do is just create a season with a beginning and an end that kind of starts after Super Bowl and ends before the NFL goes on the air.

27:57But I think there's a real opportunity to kind of do that in the summer. Right. And I think that's where we play the majority of our golf anyway. So I think you'll see it condensed into a more logical part of the calendar.

28:09Rich Eisen:And, of course, again, you know better than most from the NFL days that an idea could be great to you. It can be great to some. But there were 32 individuals that you needed to get to agree to a majority level. The people that you are talking to right now, Now, how much will you allow right now about the headwinds you're facing on some of the ideas that you're putting out there? I think there's always some. I think change is always – people can get emotional about change. It's just natural. Right. And also, listen, the key about this job is knowing what you don't know. I don't profess to understand all the answers.

28:49This is why we put this group together. Now, this group is made up – the majority of the group, this committee, is made up of players. and they're players who are high in the official world golf rankings and those that are a little lower. They're guys who have been veterans, guys who are fighting for their cars. And so you get the broad perspective of the PGA Tour membership. And when we start talking about changes, they represent a really broad group but also have insight that only a few hundred people on earth have playing professional golf at the highest level. And so to have them have the input into this has been immensely valuable.

29:29I can bring stuff I know. I can bring the business side to it and all that. But I've never stood over a putt for money. Well, not real money. But it wasn't been my job like that. So I think that's really helped. So I think you get a lot of, I don't say tension, but you get a lot of discussion. And that's good because you know you have a good process if there's disagreement and tension in the process. And so I wouldn't call it opposition. I'd call it good tension in the process to do it. We've also done this with fans in mind. So we've talked to a lot of fans. We've talked to TV partners about what they want to see, what makes them more excited about it.

30:05What's that? It's a lot of things that are sort of obvious where, listen, we need to be in bigger markets. And that doesn't mean we're going to abandon smaller markets. Some of our best events are in smaller markets. I would submit to you the Players' Championship is one of the best golfing events on earth. It's in suburban Jacksonville. That's not exactly New York. Right. So I think it's about bringing the tournaments to bigger markets and more people go, you know, fish where the fish are. Right. I think they tell you about all the things we're talking about is, you know, make the standings easier, make it easier to follow, make it easier to promote.

30:36How do we bring back match play, which fans love? You know, you see the Ryder Cup. That actually brings out passion in different formats of golf. We're sort of the same format week in and week out. So I think hearing input from fans and TV partners who ultimately are serving fans gives us a lot of good perspective on how we can make it better.

30:57Rich Eisen:PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolap here on The Rich Eisen Show. Also, you know, having players with big names out there on your tour and making sure that they're there with consistency. This is where I'm now going to transition to the Live Tours. Yeah. I thought you might ask. Okay. Let's role play. You're you. I'm Bryson DeChambeau. hey brian no okay so how how does have you had a phone call on that front yet with any of the players i won't i don't want to talk about personal conversations but i think i i think it's natural there's a lot of people trying to figure out what what their future might look like right yeah and um how much of what you and management would think along with what the players on the tour want.

31:43Rich Eisen:How are you balancing that right now? Listen, the good news is we don't have to. In that, as far as, I know what you know, I know what I read, I know what I see. Liv has talked about that they have funding until the end of their season. I think they're working hard to figure out what life is after that. The reality is all of their guys are under contract. So until they're not under contract, it's not really an issue we need to worry about. So we're not spending a lot of time thinking about it, honestly. We're spending most of our time thinking about what you and I just talked about, about our future and how we make the tour better.

32:22Rich Eisen:Well, I mean, as you know, that can change in a heartbeat. Like it literally could have changed in the last minute where suddenly there could be an influx of people trying to get back on your tour that you are the CEO of. How would you characterize the appetite for a return on that front of certain individuals? Well, I would just say in general, you know, fans have always been consistent of they want to see the best golfers together as often as possible. And I think that's a that's I agree with that. That's great. I also think I've always been very clear publicly that I am interested in whatever makes the PGA Tour better.

33:03but at the same time you know there's a reality we have a membership and anything we do to make the PGA Tour better we need to balance that with the interest of our current members, our current golfers and while I don't have a lot of scar tissue from the past that sort of still exists and I have to be conscious of that and I think you saw what Brooks Koepka did and what Patrick Reed did, they sort of made a decision they got out of whatever commitments they had they said we're ready to come back, this is what we're looking for. The PGA Tour has that. And they found their way back. PGA Tour may not be for everybody.

33:38I mean, what we're building, I'm really excited about. Our members are excited about it. Our fans are excited about it. It may not excite some people. I would never begrudge people for making whatever business decision they made. But we ultimately want people who are really excited about what we're building. And I think over time, we'll just see how that plays out.

33:55Rich Eisen:And last one for you. People assume that that deal that Patrick and Koepka took was a one-time only deal like are you willing to replicate it we really is one time again we were clear when it comes to that that that was a particular um you know you say deal but a particular uh program for that specific time that has gone away we'll we'll react when we have to react depending on the circumstance like i said now it's for us it's business as usual um until we sort of know how the dust settles and you change business as usual in terms of the social media um at least that's the report that's out there right now and what players can do on social media.

34:34Rich Eisen:This is what's been reported. We saw this on Zyre Golf today that players can post more content from competition days, shots of the broadcast per round. YouTube is now expanded. Total highlights on their channel expanded. You got any thoughts on all of this? Yeah, this was something that's been in the works for about almost a year. And, I mean, Rich, you'll recognize this from our NFL playbook. You know, the amazing thing about the sport of golf is that there's been so much growth in this country since COVID. This is a number that blows my mind. Since COVID, people who play golf in this country is up about 38, 39 percent.

35:15Half of that growth is under the age of 35. Where people under the age of 35 spend most of their time? On their phones. On their phones, on social media. We learned this at the NFL and really pushed hard on how we actually embrace those platforms, which ultimately led to YouTube getting Sunday ticket and some other things. But, you know, so this has been in motion for a while and we really put the gas on it in the last six months of how do you actually embrace those platforms and show more PGA Tour event on the platforms where people are and also build more of our stars. I mean, there's this misconception about professional golf where a tournament only matters if there's a handful of guys in it, the top two or three.

35:55The reality is, you know, there's so much talent on the PGA Tour. There's so many stories to tell. And it's a sport where week in and week out, one stroke over four days determines who wins a tournament. The only other sport in the world that has that type of competitive parity that I can find is the NFL. And we need to do a better job telling those stories that as good as Scotty and Rory and these guys are, There's some amazing other stories on the tour that we need to tell better. And I think a better social media policy, more YouTube, better Instagram presence is going to help us do that.

36:25Rich Eisen:And I couldn't help but notice, I think you did this for the Players' Championship, wired some people for sound. And you got some shots behind the scenes. And you hired a particular outfit that's used to that. You hired NFL Films and put them on a golf course. It was one of the first things I did is we called our friends at NFL Films and said, we did all those hard knocks together. Like, let's figure out a hard knocks for professional golf. And we did something called Chasing Sunday that we just sort of produced and put on YouTube. It's been really successful. Go watch it. It's great. But it's the hard knocks treatment for professional golf.

37:00And it tells some of these stories. Yeah, exactly. You know, who knew some of the personalities of this guy? And Chris Goddard told me, I don't think his mom was happy that he dropped too many F-bombs. So it's okay. You're doing what everybody does on a golf course every weekend is you're dropping F-bombs. That's okay.

37:18Rich Eisen:And that's because that's what fans do. And I just know having obviously everybody knows what NFL Films does and has done, you watch an event, you see something, and then you get the inside story a day or two later. That's right. Wired for sound, mic'd up, you know, shooting this conversation between player and caddy or player to player, caddy to caddy, player to kid you know after the event or in between rounds i'm like okay i i see you see this i mean it's what it's what NFL Films does so well which is you know how do you take a four-day tournament tell the story 24 to 48 hours after it's done on a quick turn with inside access right they're the best in the world at it they are and um i think they did an awesome job doing that for the player championship we're gonna do more of that well the challenge is to get them to see the spin of a golf ball like a spiral of a football like to zoom in and then zoom out i don't know how they're going to do that they'll figure it out and they'll write some original score like they always yeah like let's get in let's get that's you know in the in the sable mahal there in southern jersey that's where the philadelphia philharmonic comes and by the way i'm not joking he's not joking that happens yeah in that spot yeah that's pretty cool and the inside the ropes you know that everyone wants to be inside the ropes and hear the conversations that's what that you know chasing sunday did you know batia and his caddy kind of arguing about maybe not arguing but a heated conversation about what club to hit on 17 that's the stuff you don't really pick up on the cbs or nbc broadcast you don't and the amazing thing about this sport too is um the mental strain on these guys if it's just if it's one stroke over four days to determine where you place and how much money you make and if you win the tournament and it's and it's such a mental game they're all really good but it's almost like i it's like every every time you have to hit a free throw to win the game but every week the the hoop is in a different spot because the course is different and and ultimately the mental pressure on these guys is so amazing how they deal with it and how they think through it um i just been so impressed with them as athletes because i think it's unlike uh unlike any sport on earth where they have to be that consistent in that mentally sound shot after shot after shot.

39:36Here's what I think you should do.

39:38Rich Eisen:Not for me to tell you what you should do, but I'm about to. Wouldn't be the first time. I've run a few things up this match flagpole every now and then. You should just go in straight face like you always do and say that you want to add tackling. Oh, yeah, okay. I'd go over well. You know what I mean? You want to add some sort of physical moment, you know, where you're just about to big putt. Somebody can come in. But obviously, you have to make sure that there's a hitting zone. Okay. You know what I mean? Player safety. Head and neck. Exactly. You understand. I understand. See how that flies.

40:10Rich Eisen:In the grass roll? Should we have one? Sure. Keep going. Okay. Yeah. Replay? We'll run that up to the committee and see how that works. Yeah, see how that one works. All right. So June, that's happening in June? I think, yeah. After the Travelers Championship, I think we'll tell the world a little bit more about where we're coming out on that. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. Are there any plans for another type of Chasing Sunday? Yeah, we are. We're talking about doing another episode this season. We'd like to. We're working on it. And ultimately, I think we'll find a home for it somewhere probably in the coming year.

40:42But it's really trying to test the concept, see if it works. And so far, we like what we've seen.

40:47Rich Eisen:I don't know if I can. I'll ask if you can't. You can't. Can you stay to the end of the hour or no? You got to get going? I think so. That's a thumbs up, everybody. That's a thumbs up. It's up and it's good. Ladies and gentlemen, the CEO of the PGA Tour, Brian Roloff, is going to stay to the end of the hour right here. So much more to ask him right here on The Rich Eisen Show on Disney Plus and ESPN Radio.

41:30Rich Eisen:and guide your finances, our ambition is to make it mean so much more. Thrivent, where money means more. Connect with us at Thrivent.com. Rich Eisen here. Take a second and look at your city's calendar. Everywhere I go, there's always something coming up. Games, concerts, conventions, tournaments, the kind of events that bring people in from all over. And when that happens, you can feel it. More energy, more fans, and a whole lot more people looking for a place to stay. So here's something to think about. If your city has that kind of buzz, if big events are on the way, listing your space on Airbnb could be a great opportunity.

42:08Rich Eisen:If you're already planning to be out of town or you've got a trip coming up, why not make your place work for you while you're gone? You've got the space and you're not using it. It could be earning you some extra cash. I know when I travel for these big events, I'm not just looking for a place to crash. I want something comfortable and safe. a place that allows me to experience the city like a local. And that's exactly what you can do by offering to list your space. No big lifestyle change, no long-term commitment, just making smart use of the space you already have. So the next time your city draws a crowd, think about listing your space on Airbnb.

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42:56Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast. So peer-to-peer payment sponsor of the NFL. When fans come together on game day, PayPal helps make it easier to split ticket costs, cover tailgate supplies, parking, or even food. It's a simple way to settle up so fans can stay focused on the moments that matter. The NFL brings people together and PayPal helps make paying each other feel easy from kickoff to the final whistle. Download the PayPal app to get started. Account with PayPal is required. I figured if there's anybody who can, you know, begrudge me to pay a bill right here that's fine i love it you brian that was seamless thank you sir appreciate that i was looking for that um one quick question put the nfl hat back on just real quick okay because the nfl um draft which is finished yep um the nba draft lottery is this weekend i'm sure you've heard this conversation over and over and over again bringing the draft lottery to the NFL.

43:50Rich Eisen:Is that at all ever possible or this is an unbreakable product? The NFL would never countenance it. What do you think? Listen, you've been around the NFL long enough. I don't think anything's off limits ever if it makes it better. Are you arguing more from a competitive standpoint? You argue it. I don't think it. Go ahead, Chris. Throw out the argument since you're the one who's pounding the table for it and I'm not. The argument would eliminate tanking. Do we have that in the NFL right now? 100%. Well, no. There are teams openly wanting to lose. Now, you can't tell guys to go out and miss a tackle, miss a throw, etc.

44:33Rich Eisen:But rosters are constructed in a certain way where they're not exactly trying to win. Well, you could pull players from like somebody's hurt. And that's, as you know, created a big to-do with Max Crosby in the offseason where the Raiders apparently sat him for, and by the way, then he got surgery to the point where one team returned him to sender. But I think the tanking doesn't exist from the point of view that a 50th, 51st man on an NFL roster will fall out any opportunity to make sure that he stays put for the, you know, so. Yeah, front office. So was that ever discussed at all? Not that I remember.

45:09Rich Eisen:Okay. Like, I don't, I don't, I remember when we were worried about teams not playing hard if they didn't have stakes to play like week 16 or 17. That's one reason why you have so many divisional games in December. I don't remember that. So, yeah, we did that, like the scheduling around divisional games late. That's a great fix. But I, you know, and I remember, you know, people were sort of wondering the Chiefs sat everyone week 18 a few years ago because they had the bye locked up. Like that happens. Like that doesn't happen a lot, but that happens. But I don't ever remember a concern about this.

45:46I haven't been there close to a year, so maybe they're talking about it now. I don't think they are. But I don't, I've never heard this be an issue. But I will say the NFL is never hesitant to make a change if it's going to make the game on the field better. So if this was an issue, knowing Roger and the owners like I do, they would address it and get on it.

46:08Rich Eisen:Every other sport has now gone to a lottery for its draft position now. So it just seems logical that maybe the NFL would follow. Not unless it's solving a problem, because I think the draft works pretty well now. So I don't know why they would just go to a lottery for the sake of going to a lottery. I don't think they should either. they shouldn't but I do remember that was born out of Bill Polian took a knee on an undefeated season for the Colts yeah one year basically just where they started pulling some players and they had they had an undefeated regular season in their midst and they're like you know what we're gonna stay healthy for the playoffs and then that's where the scheduling changed but you know uh visual games in the back which I think's helped a lot there was a whole tank for to a campaign.

46:54Rich Eisen:I mean, it was kind of in the open. And then, I mean. I also think, like, the NFL players I've talked to, it's amazing. And I understand sitting people. But I remember talking to one player who remained nameless who was on a team that remained nameless that wasn't very good. And it was like week 16. And I say, what's the motivation? He says, listen, everything's on film. Like, I'm always playing for a job. Whether a job here or the free agent market. and I don't care if we've won two games or 12 games, I'm going to play as hard as I can. And so I think players, if they're out there, they play.

47:31And so I don't think that's ever really been an issue.