With a year’s delay, the TGL made its anticipated debut last week in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. A positive launch with the expectation of a new product that will have to prove whether it is here to stay or if, on the contrary, it fails to establish itself.
TGL achieved this in its first week, with an average audience of over a million viewers during prime time in the United States.
It is unclear whether the audience figures will be maintained or if the novelty was the main attraction. Woods and McIlroy have yet to participate in a live TGL match. In fact, he will debut first in the match between the Jupiter Links Golf Club and his team, Los Angeles Golf Club, this Tuesday night.
With just one event held and although logic suggests focusing on the current season, which concludes at the end of March, TMRW Sports, the event’s major promoter, is already thinking about the future. Expansion, new venues, new sports? All of these are on the list of possibilities for Mike McCarley, co-founder of TMRW Sports along with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
It is not far-fetched to think that success could bring with it future expansion to more venues. The golf hotspots of Las Vegas, Scottsdale, and Southern California are considered viable options. In fact, TMRW officials were already making site visits for 2024.
Expansion beyond the current six teams would involve more players. For now, only PGA Tour players compete, but would TGL be open to the participation of LIV players, should it be considered in an agreement between the tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund? In fact, two LIV players – Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton – were scheduled to compete in TGL before joining LIV ahead of the 2024 season.
However, McCarley did not back down when asked if TGL had a list of potential LIV players in mind: “Oh, yes. Yes, certainly,” joked McCarley. “But the reality is that we have a good business with what we have right now. I know it’s interesting and I know everyone is talking about it and I know it’s fun to pontificate about what could or could not be, but it’s not the time.”
Golf is not TMRW’s only target. Although TGL is its first project, McCarley has said from the start that it will not be the only one: “Are there sports with great global stars that you can lean on and simply reimagine or rethink and do it with the biggest stars in the world? That’s the key,” says McCarley.
The founders of TGL, Rory McIlroy, Mike McCarley, and Tiger Woods, are already considering the possibility of expanding even into other sports. The Ford family (Detroit Lions), the Wilf family (Minnesota Vikings), and John Bitove, founder of the Toronto Raptors, were in town to visit the SoFi Center, the league’s 250,000-square-foot venue, on the night of TGL’s inauguration.
“We’ve been pitched almost every sport in the world, but there are some that seem more interesting to me. … For me, it’s like seeing it and analysing it and saying: ‘Okay, if I could change this, if I changed that, what could it be?'” When asked about a project timeline beyond TGL, McCarley said ideally within five years. TGL started building the SoFi Center less than two years ago.
TMRW now has 80 employees, spread between South Florida and its headquarters in Winter Park.
