"The middle class matters" - PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp takes lessons from his NFL days

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp is taking lessons from his NFL days and doesn't want the Tour to depend on just a few star faces. He recently said that if the Tour or any sport had just two or three players in contention, then it was a circus and not a sport.

Brian Rolapp joined the NFL in 2003 and over the two decades, played a significant role in the league's big transformation. Earlier this year, he was appointed as the PGA Tour's first-ever CEO as Jay Monahan plans to exit next year.

Last week, during the CNBC CEO Council Forum at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, the PGA Tour CEO spoke about several things regarding the circuit's future.

"Every sport has stars, but what really makes sports work is really the middle class," he said as per Golf Channel. "So, in my old job, sure, we put the Kansas City Chiefs on primetime as much as we can, but that’s not why the NFL was so successful."

"It was because when the Bengals are good, you watch, and when the Lions are good, you watch. The middle class matters. You cannot build a lifelong sport that outlives your stars if you don’t build a system that works beyond your stars."

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Brian Rolapp reveals why he joined the PGA Tour

During the CNBC CEO Council Forum, Brian Rolapp also shared an interesting reason for joining the PGA Tour. He jokingly said he wasn't looking for a job, as he was having a pretty good time at the NFL.

"But the more I studied the golf industry, and the more I studied professional golf and the PGA Tour specifically, I felt it was an extremely unique opportunity. If you looked at the game of golf in general, it has grown tremendously. The last growth sport really started in COVID, and I think it's been up, from a participatory standpoint, 40% since COVID."

Brian Rolapp cited the average viewership data, stating that some PGA Tour events on Sunday afternoon had more viewers than first-round NBA games and four times more than Sunday Night Baseball.

"Yet the entire narrative around golf was, 'Oh, it's fractured. It's messy," he continued. "There's some truth to that, but I looked at that as opportunity, because I felt no sport, if you study history, including the NFL, had become relevant or had become strong without a good old-fashioned crisis.

"The NFL had the AFL–NFL fight. They had labor issues. I lived through some of them. Golf had theirs. It was a little late, and if you look at the history, if you do things right, I think it's only opportunity after those crises. So I looked at all that, and I thought it was a tremendous amount of opportunity. So that's why I joined."

The PGA Tour 2026 season will begin with the Sony Open in Hawaii from January 15 at the Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii. It will be interesting to see how Rolapp takes forward his plans in the next season.