In disagreements, the term “straw man” refers to the act of distorting an argument into something it is not (the so-called “straw man”) and then attacking the distorted argument instead of the real one.
We begin today’s Hot Mic with a reminder of this tactic, because you might have seen a prime example of it flash across your social media feeds on Friday, when LIV Golf announced the creation of “LIV to Win,” a new Fox Sports TV series showcasing behind-the-scenes of life for the rival league. The league announced the new show with a 65-second trailer, using player interviews to juxtapose criticisms about the league with dramatic shots from tournaments appearing to disprove them.
While there is surely more to be written about the trailer’s creation and framing, I was struck by this creative decision for a different reason: I think, on one critical piece of the straw man (media empowerment), LIV has a point.
In many ways, LIV to Win proves true a key component of the league’s existence: that LIV could structure golf so that its players would be incentivized to invest time and effort in media. In this thinking, LIV would buck the traditional trend of golf TV rights — where players sign over their exclusive media rights in exchange for entrance into high-paying events — by allowing players (and franchises) to operate their own media shops and retain ownership stakes in their own teams. Eventually, if those efforts went well, players could generate real sums from their media efforts independently of their performances on LIV.
