Keith Pelley Might be the World's Greatest Sports Executive

Critics say he presided over a failing European Tour, but Keith Pelley might actually be the most adept performer in the highest stakes of global power games ... in all sports, not just golf.

Jan 30, 2024

This article is 3318 words. Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Neat closure is always impossible.

Keith Pelley, who recently announced that he will be leaving his position at the head of the European Tour, admitted as much.

“The timing is never right with these sorts of things,” he said.

And yet.

Take Pelley at his word, and you run the risk of becoming just the latest unwitting victim in the career political brilliance of one of the world’s greatest sports administrators and commercial dealmakers.

When Pelley speaks publicly, it’s wise to ask a question.

What’s at stake here?

Because with Keith Pelley, something is always at stake.

Keith Pelley … one of the world’s greatest sports executives

That’s not to suggest that Pelley is dishonest.

Not at all.

On the contrary, Pelley is a man who adeptly fills the two roles that only the great sports executives can fill.

Sports executives typically come in two forms: politician and businessman.

The politician can press flesh with hoi-polloi and riff-raff alike, always on the lookout for the photo op. A political-minded business leader I worked for once told me, “If there’s no photo, it didn’t happen.” With the politician, image is everything.

The businessman, on the other hand, can structure deals and get things done where other, lesser, men (and it is, of course, mostly men) never even saw an opportunity.

In Pelley, you witness the best of both, politician and businessman rolled powerfully into one incredibly capable, necessarily ruthless, and endlessly accomplished performer at the highest level of sport’s corridors of power.

You get the sense with Pelley that he could have been world golf’s mover and shaker, if he so wished.

But no: he leaves in a couple of months after almost nine years at the helm of a European / DP World Tour which is, in the eyes of LIV Golf defector Sergio Garcia at least, on the way to becoming “fifth best” in the global golf tour rankings.

Perhaps there’s a different story.

Perhaps golf is too small for Pelley, and his time at the European Tour headquarters in Wentworth Golf Club, England might in time be viewed instead as a stepping stone to something bigger and better on his way to the biggest and the best.

So let us return to “timing”, the one word that was on the lips and keyboards of everyone who thought, talked and typed about the news of Pelley’s departure since it was announced earlier in January.

He will leave the European Tour — now called the DP World Tour, by dint of one of Pelley’s trademark commercial deals — in April.

Pelley is right that neat closure and perfect timing are never truly possible, but notwithstanding that, his departure prompted many to ask a pertinent question.

Not why. But why now?

Senior executive job-hopping occurs in sports less frequently than in other sectors — Pelley is, after all, just the fourth Chief Executive in the half-century of the European/DP World Tour — but executives eventually come and go, so Pelley’s decision to move on could never be called a shock.

The shock is that it’s happening now.

Why, when the European/DP World Tour is locked in months-long negotiations that could have far-reaching implications for the future prosperity of the Tour — perhaps even, say the doomsters, its very survival — would Pelley leave now?

Could leaving now be construed as evidence that the European/DP World Tour ship has taken on a gash to the hull that makes keeping it afloat impossible, and Pelley is escaping before the vessel sinks?

That narrative is a compelling one. In terms of public awareness and cachet, the European Tour has probably never been at a lower ebb. Consider a few bald facts:

All the best European players now play on either the PGA Tour or LIV Golf
The last world-class European golfer to graduate from the European Tour was Rory McIlroy, who last played 20 European Tour events in 2009
The next generation of European stars — Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg — all graduated from the US collegiate system straight to the PGA Tour
In Pelley’s time, the minimum number of events a European Tour member must play per year to retain his membership has dropped from 13 to just four

This paints a sorry enough picture for the Tour. If you’re observing casually, you might think that what we’ve witnessed over the past decade or so, neatly aligning with Keith Pelley’s time in charge, is the crumbling of a once-great institution.

But the truth is always more complex and, as always, it lies just beyond the surface.

Let’s dive deeper.

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Why Keith Pelley Says He’s Going Now

First of all, let’s make sure we don’t do the man a disservice. We should, of course, pay close attention to his words — even if it’s to hold them up to closer scrutiny.

In all the reams of press releases and sound bites that accompanied the news of Pelley’s departure, for a new job back in his native Canada, there were two notable themes to his pronouncements.

The job he’s leaving is not yet complete, but will be completed by April. His focus for the next couple of months will be on seeing through on the one outstanding task: that of successfully concluding negotiations with the PGA Tour, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (the bankrollers of LIV) and private equity firm Strategic Sports Group (SSG) to finalize an agreement and bring into being the new company that will exert an iron grip on global golf for the foreseeable future.
The job he’s going to is his dream job. Pelley will take up the role of President and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd (MLSE), controlling owners of four Toronto sports franchises, ice hockey’s Maple Leafs, basketball’s Raptors, football’s Argonauts and soccer’s Toronto FC. He is — and whatever about his departure from his current job, there is absolutely no disputing this — a proud Torontonian and proud Canadian. Pelley’s former roles include: CEO of Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League for three years until 2007; President of Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada; and, immediately before joining the European Tour in 2015, President of the Toronto-based multi-billion-dollar media company Rogers Communications, where in 2013 he negotiated what was then the biggest media rights deal in National Hockey League (NHL) history. In announcing his departure from the European/DP World Tour this month, he said, “This was the only job I'd ever leave the DP World Tour for, unless there was an NFL team in Toronto, which there isn’t.”

Both of those themes encourage us to take something vital on faith.

Let’s take each one in turn.

The first item of faith: The job still to be done

It’s not stretching it one inch to suggest that the future of top-tier pro golf in Europe hangs on the outcome of negotiations over the next couple of months.

This is a big deal.

The European Tour has traditionally been a key player in world golf, the breeding ground of legends such as Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam, Jose Maria Olazabal, Padraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy.

On top of that, the European Tour is the administrator of the Europe Ryder Cup team, and despite — or perhaps, at least in part, because of — the absence of prize-money, the Ryder Cup has, over the past 40 years, become one of the most important dates in golf’s global calendar. (Even though, whisper it, it omits all of Asia and Oceania and Africa and South America from its orbit; golf has always had a healthy skepticism of DEI.)

So if it’s true that Europe’s place is under grave threat, then the next two months are seen to be critical.

Except for one thing. It’s not true.

The European Tour has changed irrevocably, but Europe’s place is not under threat.

Indeed, the current negotiations, which have been ongoing since before last June’s announcement of an agreement in principle between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, are likely to underscore Europe’s place at the heart of golf’s new global cartel.

Which brings us back to that first item of faith:

That the deal gets done, and gets done before Pelley finishes up on Easter Weekend.

Will that happen?

There are too many reputations, and too much money, at stake, so you can expect that it will. And of all the players in this great game of charades, the only one who has consistently — in the words of Pelley’s fellow Torontonian Wayne Gretzky — seen “where the puck is going” has been Keith Pelley.

Speaking after the announcement of his departure earlier in January, he said:

“The growth of the game is global. I think that’s where the focus needs to be. I think with the emergence of FSG, which owns Liverpool [FC], they understand the importance of global. PIF certainly understands the importance of being global. This is a global game. Every business now that is growing wants to be global. What I would like to see is the game becoming unified with a global strategy. I think the PGA Tour is coming to the realisation is global is the key for the growth. They have heard me say it once or twice.”

By virtue of his imminent departure, Pelley might actually have increased the chips at his disposal.

In this global high-stakes poker game, we have:

the PGA Tour delegation, which is desperate to do a deal but equally desperate not to lose face or status while they do it
the Saudi Public Investment Fund, with hundreds of billions of dollars to play with and now pot-committed to golf as a mechanism for nailing down a place in global corridors of power
the Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a billionaire class of high-powered private equity funds and sports owners, including Fenway Sports Group (led by John Henry of Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC), Cohen Private Ventures (Steve Cohen, New York Mets), RedBird Capital Partners (led by Gerry Cardinale and the new owners of AC Milan) and Crescent Capital (led by Mark Attanasio, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers)
the European delegation, led by Pelley and his already appointed successor, Guy Kinnings

What is the role of Europe in all of this?

In terms of financial clout and power, it’s obvious that it’s playing a bit part.

In terms of political clout and power, though, its role might be much bigger.

There are a lot of big egos and deep pockets in the room.

Golf is coming off two years of war. It needs a Treaty of Versailles moment, and politically, Europe is in the best place to bring all sides together.

On the one hand, it is a signed and sealed Strategic Partner of the PGA Tour, an alliance that has been strengthened at every turn over the past five years.

On the other hand, it is now firmly ensconced in the Middle East: the Saudi International first took place as a European Tour event in 2019, and the United Arab Emirates has become such a core part of the Tour now that the whole thing is called the DP World Tour (DP World being a Dubai-based conglomerate) and the annual championship, which used to be quaintly known as the Order of Merit, is now branded as the Race to Dubai.

A global business requires a global business entity, and after the politicking and brinkmanship of the past two years, the business of global golf will get its global business unit.

Negotiations are always a strange beast. Even when all sides stand to make massive gains, there’s always a danger that somebody could lose the one thing nobody wants to lose: status.

There is so much money and power at stake here — for everyone involved — that a deal will happen.

It just needs a dealmaker. And in Keith Pelley, they have one of the world’s best at their service.

It’s quite likely, as I write this in the last days of January 2024, that a deal has already happened, and that the establishment of a global cartel that will be designed to maximize global revenues and influence over the next three decades, everybody involved — the PGA Tour, the Saudis, the Pelley-led European delegation and the private equity partners in the Strategic Sports Group (SSG) — wins handsomely.

It’s quite likely that the only thing remaining to be ironed out is all the dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s and, most importantly, the PR plan.

The opportunity to make the most global PR capital suggests that we can expect an announcement shortly after the arrival of spring, as the golf-watching world looks ahead to the start of a new season of Major tournaments. Perhaps the week before the Players Championship, which starts on March 14th, is when that agreement, and golf’s new global firm, will be made real.

Perhaps on March 6th or 7th, golfers and golf fans all over the world will awake from their winter hibernation to the news that the world commercial and professional golf has been united as never before.

Golf, for the past two years, has been a bit like New York’s “Five Families”, but any public or private feuding is about to give way for a joyous quarter-century of maximal gain for all involved.

By 2050, Europe’s place at the center of a global body will be assured by the events of 2020-24, and concepts such as a location-specific “European Tour” will seem outdated, parochial and small-minded.

Pelley knew where the puck was headed.

He knew that the European Tour, as it had been, was impossible to save.

But he saw something much more valuable and powerful emerging in the distance, and he might well have played a masterstroke to secure European golf administrators their place in the sport’s global power game.

The second item of faith: Keith Pelley’s dream job

If the first item above reckoned with the entire golf world and a global game of diplomacy and dealmaking, this second one is much more introspective, focusing as it does squarely on Keith Pelley’s individual and private ambitions.

Reports surrounding the announcement implied that Pelley was leaving the European Tour to take up his dream job with MLSE.

But let’s consider the direct quote:

“This was the only job I'd ever leave the DP World Tour for, unless there was an NFL team in Toronto, which there isn’t.”

And let’s also resurface a separate quote from Pelley, one that he gave way back in 2011.

Back then, Pelley was inducted into the Sports Hall of Hame of Etobicoke, the locality in Toronto where he had been a football running back in his youth.

This was in the early days of his role with Rogers Communications, long before golf in Europe was even on his horizon, before even the landmark multi-billion-dollar NHL deal that marked him out as one of the leading movers and shakers in sports business.

In an interview to mark the Hall of Fame honor, Pelley reflected on his time with the Toronto Argonauts, where under his watch game attendance had tripled and the team returned to Championship success in the Canadian Football League for the first time in seven years.

Pelley said:

“I thought, wow, this is the dream job. I’ll never leave this one … But then the opportunity to run all facets of the Olympics for your own country (came up), and I said, how do I turn that down?”

You see, Keith Pelley does not have one dream job.

Or put another way, he has not yet arrived at his dream job.

And like the greatest chess grandmasters, he’s always thinking ten moves ahead.

His career has, in a way, come full circle, taking him from Toronto to Vancouver to Europe and back to Toronto.

But “full circle” implies that we are approaching the end of a sort of hero’s journey.

Pelley left his homeland, experienced all the challenges high-level sports business could throw at him, and then made it back home, changed and improved.

But Keith Pelley is nothing if not a mould-breaker, and there’s every chance he has at least one more big target ahead.

He won’t ever say it, of course, but there’s little doubt he’s thinking it, and plotting out his moves carefully, and his return to North America, in the biggests job in Canadian sport, takes him much closer to what might be on his ultimate radar.

The NFL.

Roger Goodell, the NFL’s current Commissioner and the highest-paid executive in sport, is contracted until 2027 and — 67 by that point — will likely push for another few years beyond that.

For the sake of speculation, let’s disregard everything above about neat closures and say Goodell does a victory lap in 2031 after 25 astonishingly successful years in charge.

Not only has it solidified its position as the top sports product at home (the Super Bowl is watched by approximately 100 million people in America; even the Draft was watched by 54 million people in 2023), the NFL, and American football generally, has been making massive strides in exploring commercial opportunities away from American shores.

While Pelley has criticized the PGA Tour for its America-centric view, he could never accuse the NFL of something similar.

There was a time when it would have seemed ludicrous to hold regular season NFL games outside the US, but sellout season games have now been held in London since 2007, and it’s increasingly likely that a franchise will be based there within the next decade. Brazil, Mexico and Germany are other markets ravenous for the NFL product.

By 2031, the NFL might just need a sports executive with a background of mapping out and achieving a way to world domination.

Enter Keith Pelley.

Everywhere he has gone, he has delivered.

At the Argonauts he delivered three-fold increase in fan attendance and a Championship.

At the Vancouver Olympic Games he delivered widely-praised exceptional television coverage for hundreds of millions of consumers.

At Rogers Communications he delivered the biggest TV rights deal in the history of ice-hockey.

At the European Tour he delivered powerful strategic and commercial relationships with both sides of golf’s civil war (the United States and the Middle East) on the way to securing a place for Europe at the top table of the most powerful commercial entity in the history of pro golf.

In business, finance and technology, Europe has lost ground to the rest of the world over the past 20 years. The geopolitical and global commerce reality is that Europe has either fallen forever from glory or never (in the case of tech) held much glory in the first place.

Successful Europeans — see colonialism — have always looked overseas for glory, and only the most short-sighted bureaucrats refuse to look outwards now.

Keith Pelley knows all that, and it is that knowledge, coupled with his extraordinary powers of dealmaking, that has helped him succeed in every stage of his career.

So when the NFL wants to make world domination its golf in the 2030s, is there anyone in the world better placed to do it than the former running back with a track record for playing the global game and winning?

Thanks for reading. The Wedge is a reader-supported publication. If you enjoy these articles and would like to support independent media focused on the business, money and mystique of the world’s greatest game, please consider a monthly or annual subscription or gift a subscription to someone who might value this content.