PGA Tour to consider gambling venture

Golf’s PGA Tour is said to be weighing up a new venture that will see it offer data companies the right to package real-time tournament data into feeds for betting and gambling operators.

According to a ‘request for proposal’ picked up by Bloomberg, the organisation is launching the strategy as part of a wider plan to “explore the risk/return trade-off associated with potential entry into the online sports gaming category”.

However, in response to the proposal, Ty Votaw, a spokesman for the PGA Tour, said the organisation sends out document such as this “all the time” and declined to comment specifically on the gambling pitch.

“We’re far away from any kind of deal,” Votaw said.

“We only talk about things when we announce them. We don’t talk about things in progress.”

The WME | IMG agency and sports and betting-related data company Sportradar are both believed to have opened talks with the PGA Tour over a potential deal, although spokesmen for both companies declined to comment at present.

Amongst the WME | IMG portfolio is a range of leading men’s and women’s tennis tournaments, while Sportradar also hold a plethora of rights, such as the North American NFL American football league.

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