Call it the new Jay Monahan brain trust. 

After weeks of anticipation, the PGA Tour has at last completed an investment deal of up to $3 billion with Strategic Sports Group to form a new for-profit commercial entity, PGA Tour Enterprises, that includes equity participation by players. 

The deal, valuing PGA Tour Enterprises at about $12 billion, undoubtedly represents a major financial jolt for men’s pro golf. Though a separate pact between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf remains incomplete, the new group carries a combined net worth of about $50 billion. But what’s potentially just as impactful for PGA Tour commissioner Monahan, and maybe more so, is the deep well of operational experience within the new investor group, involving nearly every U.S. major sports property, as well as the Premier League. 

The Fenway Sports Group-led SSG includes: 

• FSG’s John Henry (above), Tom Werner, Mike Gordon, and Sam Kennedy, whose group oversees the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins, Liverpool FC, and New England Sports Network
• Linda Henry, John’s wife and an investor in the WNBA and League One Volleyball
• New York Mets owner Steve Cohen
• Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank
• Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio
• Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck
• Former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry
• Former Cleveland Browns president Alec Scheiner

Collectively, the group has more than 200 years of sports team leadership, and FSG will serve as the commercial advisor to PGA Tour Enterprises. Monahan will also be CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises. 

“There are all kinds of things happening across the business. There are big changes unfolding in the TV model, how you engage with fans. And [SSG] has been in the businesses you need to be in,” LeslieAnne Wade, founder of White Tee Partners and a former CBS Sports executive, tells Front Office Sports.

There is also an extensive base of existing relationships as FSG, Henry, Werner, Blank, and Scheiner are all investors in TMRW Sports, which operates TGL, the new high-tech golf league operating in partnership with the PGA Tour, while Cohen also has TGL’s New York team and Lasry owns the one in San Francisco. 

A trio of health and beauty brands are buying pricy commercial time for CBS Sports’ coverage of Super Bowl LVIII. Two of them are new to the Big Game, the third is returning from a long hiatus, and more brands could still enter the mix by Feb. 11, since some advertisers like to keep their plans a surprise. (Notably: There were zero national-in game ads for health and beauty brands last year.) And while those additions can’t be tied directly to Taylor Swift’s relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, or to her influence on the NFL and its female viewership, each of the ad spots targets female consumers or prominently features women: 

• L’Oreal’s NYX Professional Makeup will make its Super Bowl debut with a new 30-second commercial celebrating the “power of women” in the “traditionally male-dominated” football industry, according to Campaign.
• e.l.f. Cosmetics will air its first national Super Bowl commercial and is planning a star-studded spot featuring singer Meghan Trainor, actor Gina Torres, and others, according to Adweek.
• And Dove will advertise in the Big Game for the first time in 18 years. The new #KeepHerConfident commercial will promote body confidence in girls “to keep them playing the sports they love,” according to the personal care brand.

Some industry experts believe the connection to Swift is undeniable. “It has become one Swift world,” global trend spotter Marian Salzman tells Front Office Sports. “Honestly I think she is the best bridge [advertisers] have to women of all ages–and the men who shop with them.”

It’s difficult to pinpoint whether advertisers bought their commercial time before or after the romance became public in October (or the Chiefs’s winning the AFC Championship Game). But it stands to reason that Swift has had some influence in spurring advertisers to fork over an estimated $7 million for 30 seconds. (Although CBS has said its Super Bowl commercial inventory has been virtually sold out since November, savvy networks always keep a couple spots available to sell at a premium.)

Marketing consultant Ernest Lupinacci, a former creative director on Nike and ESPN campaigns, believes some beauty advertisers simply gambled early on Kelce’s Chiefs reaching their fourth Super Bowl in the last five seasons. “My theory,” he says, “is that some smart people said, ‘You know what? Let’s buy some ad time. It’s a big enough audience anyway. And if Kansas City makes it in there, we are golden.’ ”

Super Bowl Sunday is the one day where it’s a guarantee that viewers will be watching the commercials, and the game annually generates the biggest TV audience of the year: Last February, a record 115.1 million viewers tuned in for Fox Sports’ telecast of Super Bowl LVII. Throw in the Swifties, and this year’s number could set a new benchmark.

The Los Angeles Police Department made an arrest on Saturday that captures a trend in recent years: the mass pilfering of Nike shoes.

Nike’s supply chain has been under attack at each stage and Saturday’s was the latest instance in Southern California, which has been a hot spot for shoe thievery. 

LAPD officers arrested 37-year-old Roy Lee Harvey Jr. after he was found to be delivering stolen Nike products to a warehouse in Hawthorne, Calif. There, detectives working with Nike’s global security director found over $5 million in merch, including shoes, accessories, clothing, and “unique prototypes.”

But that’s hardly the first time in recent memory that the LAPD has unearthed such a haul: In June 2023, local authorities discovered several million dollars worth of stolen Nike products at a warehouse in Torrance, Calif., which were found to be linked to stolen cargo trucks at the Port of Los Angeles. 

Several weeks earlier, L.A. County sheriffs arrested a dozen people whom they alleged were part of a crime ring that stole roughly $750,000 in merchandise from a Nike store over the course of a year. 

Chicago and Memphis, too, have dealt with Nike-related crime of late. In early 2023, Nike closed its flagship store in downtown Portland, Ore., because of alleged theft. 

And Memphis, home to one of the company’s largest distribution centers, has suffered multiple recent large-scale thefts: $800,000 worth of product was stolen from a secured container drop yard in September 2022, and this past October another $200,000 was stolen from a Nike store.