WesternRacing

The goal was to restore the design of the course, specifically the green complexes, which had been changed over time. It wasn’t to replicate the turf conditions of years gone by.

Yes, and my contribution to it is reminding everyone that the PIF doesn’t care about the economics of LIV, so trying to dissect said economics and search for a strategy or a method to the madness is is a fools errand.

Except they’re making less money in the U.S. than they are internationally. Their best attended event has been Adelaide. I continue to contend that talking about economics related to LIV is meaningless, as they don’t care about the economics of their league. I’d say the same about strategy, as the purpose of a business strategy is typically to maximize profitability. LIV failed at its initial business plan. What it’s doing now is less about pivots or strategy and more about simply continued existence and filling space on their calendar. If their decision to enter the South African market was about ‘strategy’, they should fire whoever came up with said ‘strategy’.

I like the thin prong but it’s a bit heavy and I agree about the ball marker. No need for that. I love the simple black plastic ones with the thin prong. Unfortunately, they’re impossible to find except at courses that buy them wholesale. The ones available to consumers seem to always have the prong that widens near the base, which does way too much damage to the green. Our club switched to the crappy ones and it’s had a definite negative effect on the greens. I’ve mentioned it to our pros but nobody seems to care.

The problem is there’s no money in serving most of the rest of the world. The U.S. is far and away the largest golf market in the world. If you can’t make it here, you’re going to be a small player at best, essentially something akin to the DPWT or the AsiaTour, neither of which is a highly valuable professional tour. Is LIV’s brilliant pivot from trying to be the premier golf tour worldwide to instead being a massively money losing international tour targeting primarily the Asia Pacific region? Is that really a winning strategy, in any use of the word ‘winning’ other than when it was uttered by a drunken Charlie Sheen?

A rapidly growing business selling 400k units at an average sale price of over $500 and you can’t squarely get back to a $200 million valuation? You don’t think a rapidly growing business with strong margins would be worth more than 1x forward revenue? Again, just based on what the founder said, they sold their equity for what appears to be a king’s ransom. It’s laughable for people to speculate that things don’t add up and that the deal is less valuable than what’s been quoted. There’s no way I would have advised LAB founders to take anything close to only 1x revenue. I was a partner in a similar margin, lower growth business that we sold for 3x revenue to private equity three years ago. Given LAB’s growth, I’d be looking at north of 3x revenue. Even Acushnet trades at 2x revenue and while it has good margins, its revenue growth is minimal to negative. LAB is the hottest product in golf; no way the founders just gave it away.

And you made a comment about whether he’ll be engaged in the business. His perception of control and his newfound wealth are relevant to that discussion. But thanks for the volunteer forum moderation. Always a gift.

Hmmm, from a cost and range perspective, yes. From an overall design perspective, no. Have you seen the interiors on some of the Chinese EVs? It’s an oversimplification to assume China is making vastly superior, or inferior, products. What they are doing is subsidizing manufacturing so that they can flood the market with cheaper cars.

Agreed, but that’s production, not product. There is still often a difference between the average Western designed and spec’d product that is manufactured in China and a product that is fully designed and built in China. Design and build quality still varies dramatically depending upon the product you’re talking about.

Do you honestly think that any of those companies other than ARAMCO are paying them serious money? Outside of ARAMCO, that entire list of customers is likely less than $100 million in annual revenue collectively. Most likely, way less. And irrelevant to the success of the business, because the big money in sports lies in the broadcast rights, which LIV can’t garner because they don’t have any fans to speak of at this point. ’ Honestly, any discussion of the economics of LIV is a waste of time, as they’re never going to be profitable under their current business model and they obviously don’t care. So debating the money side of things is moot. The only thing worthy of debate is whether their product is entertaining and whether their players are playing world class golf. For the most part the answer to those questions for most fans is no and no. Essentially, most of the LIV ‘stars’ are the golf equivalent of the folks Meta pays millions to sit around the office doing nothing other than not working for a competitor.

Great customer service. But 55 lbs?! Were ya smugglin’ somethin in there?

He’s just cognizant of the fact that he is no longer in control. But they’ve got 200 million reasons not to be overly concerned…

2.3 miles from the coast, but about 150 feet above sea level. Gonna keep an eye on things this evening….

What’s 10x Freddy’s Frozen Custard?

Agree, the founders didn’t get $100 million in cash. They likely sold some of their shares in the deal and the remainder was new equity capital into the business. So they probably got millions in cash out of the business and kept a minority interest in the business that ensures they remain engaged for at least a significant transition period. [EDIT: just read the founder’s post and actually it sounds like they did sell a large majority share, so they likely did get over $100 million is cash out of the sale…] I heard from somebody close to one of the founders a while back that the company was shipping over 10k putters a month over a year ago, so I could easily see 160k putters going out the door in 2025. Given their product pricing and their obviously large profit margins, their valuation should absolutely be over $200 million. My guess would be well over. All I’ve read is that it is ‘over $200 million’. The data may be out on CapIQ, but I don’t have access anymore since I retired.