PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan earned more than $23 million in regular and deferred compensation in 2023, according to a copy of the golf league’s latest tax filing.
This total includes $12.1 million in bonuses and incentive compensation, $2.5 million in estimated post-retirement benefits and $6.7 million in long-term incentive compensation after 2023. The base salary of Monahan’s was $1,887,096.
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Just over $9 million of those profits are carried forward to future years and therefore could change in value depending on long-term interest rates, a PGA spokesperson said in an email.
Besides Monahan, PGA Tour chief operating officer Ronald Price also joined the nine-figure club, earning just over $13 million in regular and deferred compensation, including bonuses and incentives worth $7 .8 million dollars.
The nonprofit PGA Tour Inc. generated $1.82 billion in revenue last year, covering the six months before and after the league shocked the world — and many of its own players — by announcing last June that it would merge its activities. with the company LIV Golf, supported by Saudi Arabia. In addition to its earned revenue, the PGA Tour reported $2.52 billion in non-inventory asset sales, bringing its annual gross receipts total to $4.33 billion.
PGA Tour Inc.’s 2023 tax return, a copy of which was provided to Sportico upon request, disclosed $18.7 million in legal expenses after the tour and spent just under $21 million on outside lawyers the year before. Monahan said legal fees were a major factor in the organization’s decision to settle its lawsuits with LIV Golf and enter into a truce. At the time, according to At The Wall Street JournalMonahan told PGA Tour staff he expected legal costs could reach $50 million.
In June 2023, the PGA Tour, the LIV and the European DP World Tour announced a business merger, ending months of recriminations between the American and Saudi leagues. But the process has dragged on since then, exceeding its initial goal. deadline the parties had anticipated that the merger would be completed by December 31, 2023.
Earlier this year, the PGA Tour announced a new business venture, PGA Tour Enterprises, LLC, funded by Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a consortium of American professional team owners led by John Henry of Fenway Sports Group and the Mets owner Steve Cohen. which could support a co-investment from the PIF. (The entity was originally incorporated as Delaware LLC in October 2023.)
