The PGA TOUR Policy Board has announced that the Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of US sports team investors, has been chosen as the preferred partner in the final round of negotiations to become co-investors in a potential deal between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

The announcement noted that Strategic Sports Group had been selected after a rigorous review of other outside investor offers. The PGA Tour had previously turned down a proposal from TKO majority owner Endeavor Group Holdings.

Strategic Sports Group is a collective of several investors and firms, fronted by the Fenway Sports Group, the sports conglomerate that owns the Boston Red Sox, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Liverpool Football Club, and a NASCAR racing team. Other members of SGS include Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons; Wyc Grousbeck (Boston Celtics), Marc Lasry (Milwaukee Bucks), Tom Ricketts (Chicago Cubs), Cohen Private Ventures (New York Mets), and Gerry Cardinale, the Managing Partner of RedBird Capital which owns AC Milan and 25 per cent of RedBird IMI, a joint media investment venture partially funded by Abu Dhabi based International Media Investments. 

The announcement comes just days away from the December 31 deadline for an agreement to be reached with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the PGA Tour over its future funding. It remains unclear if the private equity backing is an alternative to PIF money, or if it will be used to supplement the deal in order to appease the US government’s anti-trust regulations.

In a memo first sent by the PGA Tour’s policy board to its membership, and later published on the tour’s website, the tour said discussions with the Saudi PIF – the LIV Golf League’s financial backers – remain ongoing, while asserting the DP World Tour will continue to be a part of the new for-profit venture, PGA Tour Enterprises.

“We also anticipate advancing our negotiations with PIF in the weeks to come,” the memo to the Tour’s professionals read. “Please know that while we can’t get into more details at this time, we are very confident in an eventual, positive outcome for all players and the PGA Tour as a whole. Further, the DP World Tour will continue to be an important part of the process as we build toward PGA Tour Enterprises, the name given to the for-profit entity that will include the Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf.”

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan are scheduled to meet in person this week for more discussions after a meeting planned for last week was postponed in the wake of Jon Rahm’s defection to LIV Golf.