Fenway Sports Group to join Tiger Woods-backed virtual golf league

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The US owners of Liverpool FC and Boston Red Sox are expanding into golf with a move to enter a team in a new technology-driven league owned by star players Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

After acquiring the rights to the Boston-based franchise, Fenway Sports Group will become the second owner in the TGL, a new competition set to launch early next year, it said Monday. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and his wife, tennis superstar Serena Williams, bought the first team — the Los Angeles Golf Club — earlier this month.

TGL is majority owned by TMRW Sports, an investment vehicle jointly controlled by Woods and McIlroy, two of golf’s biggest names.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but as part of the deal, FSG will have a 3 per cent stake in TGL.

With TGL, Woods and McIlroy hope to create an entirely new take on the historic game of golf, designed to increase interest in the sport. The concept involves six teams of three top players each competing on a simulator inside an arena. The games will last only two hours and will be broadcast during prime time in the US.

It aims to condense the sport into an easily digestible format for a new, younger audience, with ideas borrowed from the Indian Premier League cricket tournament and Formula One racing.

“I think you will find that this format is suitable for people who follow golf occasionally but are fans of traditional team sports. Eventually they will become golf fans,” said Mike McCarley, chief executive and co-founder of TMRW Sports.

The PGA Tour has an 18 percent stake in TGL, with each team owner receiving a 3 percent stake, while participating golfers will share 10 percent. Several top players have already signed up for the project, including Justin Rose and Xander Schoeffele.

“It is an idea that is very timely indeed. It combines live action and technology. This is a time where a lot of people are playing simulated golf as green grass golf,” FSG chairman Tom Werner told the Financial Times. Werner and FSG founder John Henry were already investors in TMRW Sports.

Both Woods and McIlroy were vocal critics of the Saudi-backed rebel tour LIV, which offered players large pay packages to lure them away from the PGA Tour. Last summer’s launch of LIV, which is also based on the idea of ​​promoting golf as a team sport, opened up a bitter divide in the sport.

However, the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced plans earlier this month to combine their commercial operations and end the legal hostilities. The agreement shocked the golf world, with the PGA Tour struggling to reassure its players – many of whom had rejected LIV’s lucrative offers.

McCarley said the idea to start the TGL dates back long before LIV’s launch, and the recent deal between the PGA Tour and the PIF hasn’t changed any of the league’s plans.

TMRW Sports has attracted a long list of celebrity supporters, including F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, footballer Gareth Bale and singer Justin Timberlake. Its investors also include well-known names in sports finance such as Blackstone executive David Blitzer.