Brian Rolapp knows you won’t read the end of this article.
The new CEO of the PGA Tour also knows that while you’re reading this, you will face a barrage of obstacles to your attention. Your scroll on your phone or computer will be diverted by push notifications, maybe, or any of the other distractors in your digital orbit, be they text messages or emails or FaceTimes or Slack messages or just plain boredom.
Rolapp knows that your brain is a machine optimized for attention, and the rest of the machines around it — your phone, your computer, your internet connection — are designed to seize that attention and keep it. He also knows that his job, as the head of golf’s largest pro tour, is to claw back attention however he can.
And as strange as it sounds, this is very good news for golf.
On Wednesday morning, Rolapp gave his first press conference as CEO of the PGA Tour, ushering in a new era of Tour leadership from the man who left the No. 2 job at the NFL. Rolapp’s debut was somewhat jarring in its transition from the man who introduced him, current commissioner Jay Monahan. The latter’s halting, scripted delivery has defined press conferences for most of the last decade on Tour, while the former’s off-the-cuff, self-assured demeanor breathed life into the otherwise staged environment.
But in a press conference that featured Rolapp’s views on everything from PGA Tour reunification to the plausibility of a PGA Tour Rulebook (don’t get your hopes up), the most compelling statement was not about golf, but attention.
“Anybody who’s in the sports business, their general competition is for the mind share of sports fans and for their time,” Rolapp said. “[Sports leagues want to capture attention] in a complicated world that is increasingly disrupted by technology, where you have a million things to do with your time, a million alternatives.”
Rolapp was responding to a question from Yahoo‘s Jay Busbee about comments made by his old boss, Roger Goodell, who reportedly said the NFL’s primary competition was not the NBA or MLB but “Apple and Google.”
Goodell’s comments were meant to illustrate the battle facing pro sports in the 21st century — a game no longer defined by TV audiences and rights agreements alone, but by the ways in which sports leagues managed to make their competitions relevant in the age of constant stimulation.
“I also think that is one reason why sports continues to be so valuable,” Rolapp said. “There’s very few things left in this country that can aggregate millions and millions of people doing one thing in a communal experience. I think you’ll see that this weekend when we crown a champion.”
There are some inherent advantages to golf. The stars are marketable and relevant in the long-term. The viewership is older and wealthier. The sponsors are eager to find a way in.
There are also some inherent challenges. A rapidly changing media world. New media competitors. The churn of the TV and streaming businesses. Oh, and the neighbors who keep stealing talent.
The path to long-term growth in the factor of the $1.5 billion cash infusion from the Tour’s private equity partners at the SSG requires acknowledging that the Tour needs to raise the stakes in all ways to make itself constant.
“You just have to constantly innovate,” Rolapp said, hinting at an appetite for change that could come to define his tenure. “I think if there’s anything I learned at the NFL, it’s that we did not sit still. We changed rules every March. We changed the kickoff rule. That’s what I mean by honoring tradition but not being bound by it. I think that level of innovation is what we’re going to do here, and I think that’s one lesson I’ve learned.”
Innovation. Interest. Intrigue. The lesson here is that it’s all related because it’s all drawing attention.
“Look, the sports business is not that complicated,” Rolapp said. “You get the product right, you get the right partners, your fans will reward you with their time because they’re telling you it’s good and they want more of it, and then the commercial and the business part will take care of itself.”
In all, the message seems clear: With Rolapp at the helm, there are few sacred cows at the PGA Tour.
And if you read this far, well, you know which one is most sacred of all.
