Craig Seebald, the co-chair of Vinson & Elkins global litigation department and a leader in its antitrust Group, joined Cheddar News to discuss the latest legal implications surrounding the PGA Tour's feud with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which has drawn the focus of the Department of Justice over the way the PGA is working to control the "independent contractors" that make up the golfers. "I think what LIV would say is if they're independent, what do they need to get the commissioner's approval to play in other tournaments,” he said.

Closing Bell

Implications of DOJ Antitrust Probe of PGA Tour Amid Feud With LIV Golf

let's move to the world of sports and the business of sports. The PJs british open thine off today with some dark clouds hanging overhead. Not the Scottish sky, but from the Saudi backed Live tour, which is causing distraction and disruption on the green, even potentially in the courtroom. Well, the game's top players and stewards wondering what the future of the game might be joining me now to discuss is Craig Sibbald, co chair of Vincent and Elkins, global litigation department and a leader in its antitrust group. Thank you so much for coming on the show. As to the DoJ actually investigating the PGA Tour over potential antitrust violations. What is the case against the tour? Yeah, it's really interesting that the tour that the doj has decided to weigh in on this. Um, it looks like that they are looking at the PGA tour potentially as a monopolist. They're investigating them as a potential monopolist and they're really focused, it seems like on a tour rule that the commissioner gets to approve whether players get to play in competitive events and what makes it unusual? I think in golf is that golfers have traditionally been considered independent contractors and I think what liv would say is if they're independent, what do they need to get the commissioner's approval to play in other tournaments and I think that's really the key thing that the doj is going to investigate over the next few months. So here's the question, does the Saudi-backed live tour, consider them independent contractors as well. You know, Saudi Arabia has a lot of money. Traditionally they put a lot of money into sports and thinking of European soccer F1 racing it as well, how does that factor into this? Yeah boy, the amount of money that they're paying some of these players to jump the tour is really astronomical. There was reports that Tiger Woods was offered almost a billion dollars to jump tours. So it'll be curious to see how well they hold on to people. I think they are interested at least publicly saying that they'd like to see their players be able to play where they want to play, whether it's on the live tour, they certainly want them playing in the eight or 10 tournaments they have. But my sense is is they want these players to play in majors and other tournaments as well. That is astronomical. A billion dollars offered to Tiger Woods who is recovering from a pretty intense injury to play in this tour. It's incredible craig. I mean we've heard Tiger Woods they'll come out and actually not support the live tour. How does that change the game here? I mean does tire was words matter that he's sticking with the PGA instead of live? I think that is a big sign that I'm sure that Commissioner Monahan breathed a sigh of relief when Tiger turned that down. I can imagine turning out a billion dollars to play golf. I mean that's a pretty nice deal. You know, I think one of the things that I find interesting is if you look at tigers comments this week at the british open, he gives a really thoughtful press conference, I thought, and I think he was hinting at an issue that we're going to see which is a different antitrust issue than the one I said I was talking about earlier. I'm gonna give you four letters O. W. G. R. And that's the official World golf rankings. And he was suggesting that that these live players are not going to be eligible for O. W. G. R. Points. And that's really important because that's how you qualify for the majors. And in his interview again, I thought was really thoughtful. He talked about this live tour as someone of an exhibition, not that competitive in the sense that everybody gets a paycheck. And I think he was really setting up a potential argument that the live players should be not getting points. And that's going to cause an issue because the O W. G. R. Is an organization which is controlled by the PGA Tour, the U. S. G. A. The Royal and Ancient and other golf entities. And you know, that is an antitrust issue where you have entity saying, no, you can't get these points and it's going to affect the number of players. So as I see this playing out, that's gonna be a pretty interesting issue to see how and whether these players get these points to allow and play majors. It is really uh it is really interesting. Here's another question, Greg. I mean I know obviously you're coming from this from a litigation standpoint but have we seen this impact play on the course at all? And would that be a factor in any sort of lawsuit I don't know about on the course, but I will say in the checkbooks of players as we were talking about looking any trust laws there are to protect competition and there's nothing that says that the PGA Tour should be the only tour. And it's interesting to see just the threat of this tour has increased competition. The players on the PGA tour were offered bonuses, they call it the P. I. P. Bonuses. And the tour also reacted by changing its entire schedule and giving bigger purses. So it looks like this is a good example of the antitrust laws working and competition benefiting the players. I was gonna say maybe an easier slate for the players as well. Um Just in terms of where we stand what the P. G. A. Tour actually needs to prove here and next steps. Yeah. So it's gonna be a long slog these Justice Department investigations go a fairly long time. It could take certainly it's going to be months. They're going to be negotiating about the terms of what they produce, what custodians are going to produce from what types of documents. These things include broad ranges of documents, whether it's emails, internal presentations, WhatsApp communications. So I think you're gonna see quite a bit of things. We're not gonna see it. Quite frankly. It's all behind closed doors. You can see an investigation and then it's going to be up to the Justice Department either let it pass, bring a lawsuit or try to reach some resolution with the PGA Tour. Very interesting. We'll see how competitive it gets for these players as well. Craig, C Ball, co chair of Vincent and Elkins Global litigation apartment and a leader in its antitrust group Craig. Thanks so much for coming on and offering your insight.