James Franco
5.2K posts

James Franco
@francojaf
The real James Franco, all others are imposters.






As part of its recent $3 billion fundraising round, the PGA Tour will start issuing equity payouts to its top players today, according to @jcorrigangolf. Top Projected Payouts • Tiger Woods: $100 million • Rory McIlroy: $50 million • Jordan Spieth: $30 million • Justin Thomas: $30 million These equity payments will vest over eight years, with 50% coming by year four, another 25% in year six, and the remaining 25% in year eight. The payments are small compared to what LIV has handed out—Tyrrell Hatton has a $60M+ deal with LIV—but they represent an essential step for the PGA Tour. These payments will help the PGA Tour retain talent by locking up big-name players with multi-year equity vesting agreements (like a startup would). There will be little to no liquidity in the secondary market, so players can't take the payment, sell shares, and then jump to LIV later on for a larger check. And it could even expedite the PGA-LIV merger. For example, many people say it wouldn't be fair for LIV golfers to collect a huge check and then be allowed to join the PGA Tour again with no consequences, especially because some big-name PGA Tour players turned down nine-figure contracts with LIV Golf. However, this levels the playing field, opening the door for LIV golfers to rejoin the PGA Tour, with the idea that they could keep their LIV golf money because they won't be getting upside in the PGA Tour's new for-profit entity. There is still a long way to go to make that happen. But this is unlike anything else we have seen in professional sports, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.






















