Fans might not be enthusiastic about TGL, but sponsors are! While a recent poll on social threw TGL’s future into uncertainty, Rory McIlroy scored another touchdown for his TGL franchise. Financial giant, FM has announced a partnership with Boston Common Golf.
Malcolm Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of FM in a statement, said, “We share TGL’s ambition of innovation, and we appreciate its commitment to leveraging science and technology to explore and develop new ways of making golf more accessible to a global audience.”
This is a significant stepping stone for the nascent league which is yet to witness its first tee shot. LIV Golf, with which TGL was compared, has struggled in its initial years to convince sponsors. Even now, only a handful of LIV Golf teams have been able to crack the code.
Seen from that light, it’s a positive development that TGL has earned the sponsor’s trust and a Fortune 500 giant like FM is willing to ‘bet’ on it. “This powerful partnership is not just a vote of confidence in the extraordinary talent on our team, but also in the ambitious vision for this new league,” Mark Lev, the CEO of Boston Common Golf, said. Whereas McIlroy believed that partnerships like these will be ‘instrumental to our future success’.
Our team continues to grow. Welcome to the frog squad, @FMGlobal 🐸🙌https://t.co/c4COtmVtS9
— Boston Common Golf (@commongolf) September 30, 2024
This is the second such development for the team co-owned by Rory McIlroy and Fenway Sports Group. Just days ago Boston Common Golf announced that they have been shooting a five-part documentary series on the team’s inception. Rory McIlroy gives an in-depth view of the germination of the concept to the execution of the project.
While these are all positive signs for Rory McIlroy’s team and Tiger Woods’s pet project, the real question is how enamored are fans about it. TGL will debut on January 7 on ESPN primetime. It seeks to capitalize on the College Football fever to keep the audience hooked on Golf. But a pulse check on the Internet reveals fans are not sold.
Votes reveal 50% of the audience are not interested in TGL
TGL wanted to offer a means of entertainment to fans. The simulator golf, the team plays, and mic’d up golfers all were meant to cater to the younger generation of sports fans. Yet, when Nuclr Golf a popular Golf account on X (formerly Twitter) asked its followers whether they would watch TGL or not, over half said they couldn’t care less.
The Poll, as of the report went to publication, in its sixth hour, received around 2000 votes. The comments under the post are also telling. “I’ll watch it once but probably forget about it after that,” commented one user. It appears that the format is yet to resonate with fans. But of course, everything depends on how well it’s presented on ESPN next year.
Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, will tee up at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. The DP World Tour event will bring a hoard of LIV Golfers as well. The four-time major winner though is eying a victory after back-to-back heartbreaks.
