The PGA Tour is reportedly courting a familiar sports executive to fill its CEO role.
According to Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal, the PGA Tour has shown interest in NFL Chief Media & Business Officer Brian Rolapp to be its CEO. Since 2017, Rolapp has served as the NFL’s top media executive, ushering the league through negotiations for its current media rights deals worth $111 billion over 11 years. Carpenter describes Rolapp as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s “unquestioned top business-side deputy.”
The CEO of the PGA Tour is a new position tasked with overseeing PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit commercial entity founded by the Tour last year as part of its response to LIV Golf. Last year, PGA Tour Enterprises received a $1.5 billion investment from Strategic Sports Group.
Rolapp would be a deeply connected hire for the Tour. During his time at the NFL, Rolapp helped negotiate deals with every major broadcast network, including Google/YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix. Under his purview, NFL viewership has boomed and the league is as advantageous a spot as ever.
The PGA Tour’s media rights agreements with CBS and NBC expire in 2031, at which point the media landscape will look much different than it does today. Rolapp’s expertise and connections with tech giants could prove advantageous should he be around for the Tour’s next rights negotiations.
Carpenter also reports that former Ticketmaster chairman Jared Smith, NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps, and TaylorMade CEO David Abeles were also “in the mix” for the CEO role.