Its debut season isn’t even over and already TGL is plotting expansion.
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s indoor golf league venture has retained a prominent sports-savvy law firm, Proskauer, to oversee an expansion process that will likely result in at least one new team being admitted in the next two seasons, Sports Business Journal reported recently, citing a source with knowledge of the situation.
By most measures that television programmers live by, TGL has been a great success in its inaugural campaign, in which matches have aired mostly in prime time on ESPN networks. “The regular-season audience for TGL’s debut season was not only younger than most other major sports on U.S. TV, but it was also well above what ESPN/ESPN2 had in the same winter windows last year,” SBJ reported.
TGL finished its regular season averaging 513,000 viewers, which is 21 percent better than what ESPN networks had in the same time periods last year. The eight prime-time telecasts on ESPN averaged 686,000 viewers, 12 percent above the men’s college basketball games in the comparable time periods a year ago.
As a part of its expansion, I think the TGL brass needs to add a women’s team. I shared that belief with CEO Mike McCarley last fall, ahead of the launch, and he did not disagree.
There are a whole host of reasons why to take this step, starting with TV ratings. Can you imagine the viewership bounce TGL could get by reaching an entirely new demographic – women? Television marketing firm EDO recently reported that there was a 131-percent increase in women’s sports viewership in 2024, which drove a 139-percent increase in ad spending on women’s sports.
There is one complication: the LPGA schedule is not TGL-friendly. The women pros have spent the better part of the last month in Asia while the TGL schedule moved toward the playoffs. Some of the world’s best female players might have to worry more about their day jobs than made-for-TV golf.
In the world of televised sport, ratings equal dollars. Adding an LPGA component to TGL is simply good business.
Then there is the notion of an explosion of interest by corporate America and investors in women’s sport, generally speaking. Call it the Caitlin Clark effect or whatever you wish, but it is undeniable that our society is in a moment, and that moment has women’s sport as part of the zeitgeist as never before.
A new women’s team would be well-served to have female ownership. This should not be a problem, as there is no shortage of female-oriented venture capital looking to be deployed in women’s sport. Retired LPGA pro Michelle Wie-West and current standout Rose Zhang have invested in TGL, and they are both capable of attracting additional female investors. Tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams already co-own TGL's Los Angeles Golf Club along with Serena's husband Alexis Ohanian, who made a "transformational" financial gift in December to his alma mater's women's basketball program at the University of Virginia.
TGL’s technology wizards could surely alter the simulator algorithm to level the playing field from a distance perspective. Forward tees could be integrated in a similar fashion to the USGA’s method in 2014, when the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens were played at Pinehurst No. 2. The goal was to cause the women to have the same distance into the greens on approach shots as the men did. The experiment worked in real life, so why can’t it work in simulator land?
There is one complication: the LPGA schedule is not TGL-friendly. The women pros spent the better part of late February and early March in Asia while the TGL schedule moved toward the playoffs. Some of the world’s best female players might have to worry more about their day jobs than made-for-TV golf.
Given that, who could be part of a women’s team? Start with the greatest of all time, Annika Sörenstam. Put a mountain in front of her and she will climb it. Play against the men on the PGA Tour? Check. Win the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in her first try? Check. Word out of Orlando is that she is working with her longtime instructor Henri Reis to find a couple more yards off the tee to stave off her young son, Will, as he gets stronger and longer.
If Annika shows up, she expects to win. It’s that simple.
Next on the tee? Semi-retired LPGA star Lexi Thompson. She may not need any length adjustments, as she is plenty long. She is also among the most fit of the LPGA athletes and continues to train hard. Added benefit: She lives in a zip code not far from the SoFi Center, TGL’s indoor palace in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. She is an Uber ride away.
Finally, talk persists that Lydia Ko may soon call it a day on the LPGA Tour and retire. The Korean-born and New Zealand-raised Olympic champion could help create interest in the Pacific Rim by signing on to TGL.
It is expected that sometime this year, the International Olympic Committee will announce the addition of a mixed-team golf competition at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. TGL has an opportunity to jump in front of the curve on mixed-gender golf by welcoming a women’s team into the fold.
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Top: Tiger Woods, Tom Kim and Max Homa of Jupiter Links Golf Club are shown during TGL introductions at the SoFi Center. Could a women's team join the mix?
Carmen Mandato, TGL via Getty Images