CGTN Europe interviewed Kieran Maguire, Sport Finance expert at the University of Liverpool
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00:00Well, let's talk now to Kieran Maguire, an expert on sports finance who lectures at the
00:04University of Liverpool. Welcome back to the programme, Kieran. Good to see you. So, what
00:09did you make of this competition? Did this virtual world come to life?
00:15I think it is a generational thing in terms of its appeal. It's bringing showbiz into
00:21sport, into golf, which is a sport, I think, which you'd normally associate with your father
00:27or your grandfather or a different grandmother or another generation. In terms of appeal,
00:33the fact that it's over quickly, it's very user-friendly in terms of the ability to consume
00:38and you're close to the stars. It's not weather dependent. You don't have all of the running
00:43costs of the upkeep of a golf course. So, in terms of both revenue generation and cost
00:49control, you can see its appeal. As a traditionalist, you might feel slightly
00:55uncomfortable about it, but we've seen in other sports, I guess cricket would be the
00:59closest analogy, which is normally a sport which takes a very long time for a match to
01:04take place, that the condensed version is very appealing to all participants and stakeholders,
01:12players, broadcasters and the people that go to watch it.
01:15So, perhaps not one for the long-term fans of golf then, but this is actually designed,
01:21isn't it, to attract a new generation. Do you think it will do that and perhaps end
01:26up replacing traditional golf? I think it will be a complement rather than
01:31a complete substitute. There will always be the appeal of the Masters, of the Ryder Cup,
01:37of the Salt Solheim Cup and so on, for golf traditionalists. I think it will be interesting
01:42to see the players' reaction on a long-term basis. It's difficult to see how perhaps they
01:48could scale it so that you could have, as you would have at the Masters, potentially 80-140
01:53people involved in a tournament. That's clearly not going to work as far as TGL is concerned,
01:58but in terms of getting the elite to do it, it could be as successful as cricket's IPL that
02:04we've seen in India, which is now by far the most lucrative and probably popular
02:08version of the sport in the world. We have got some big names involved already
02:14in the development of this – Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy. Does that mean that it will
02:18have to be a success? I think it will be an expensive failure if
02:26it's not, because these players will not have endorsed the tournament had it not been
02:31for financial inducements. So clearly the backers have put a lot of money into it in
02:35terms of both prize money and participation money. So from that perspective, I think it
02:39has to be seen to be a success. We have seen a few problems with golf in recent years because
02:47there has been a split of the sport, and perhaps this is one way of bringing people together
02:51to look at it from a different perspective and a different consumer base.
02:56So do you think we'll see some of the innovations used here? They talked about shot clocks,
03:01for example. Do you think we'll see those brought over to the traditional game, which
03:04has been suffering from a decline in viewers? Well, I think you're exactly right. If you
03:10take a look at traditional golf, one of the criticisms is that if you're looking at an
03:16individual round, that could take four and a half, five hours. Some of the players have
03:20reputations for very slow sport, and we're living in 2025 in a society where we want
03:26to consume all forms of entertainment and all forms of news as quickly as possible.
03:31So this will be an alternative. I think it will be very difficult to persuade the people
03:37who are in charge of the longer form game to change their ways. But as we've seen in
03:43other sports, if they don't evolve, then there's a risk of becoming antiquated and out of touch
03:49with new audiences it develops and comes through.
03:52Kieran, great to talk to you. Thank you for joining us on the programme. That's Kieran
03:55Maguire, expert on sports finance from the University of Liverpool.