Jon Rahm leaves LIV Golf with a better contract than Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia

Jon Rahm has accepted the monstrous offer from LIV Golf and has joined the League that was born in 2022 promoted from Saudi Arabia, causing a seismic movement in world golf. In exchange for a figure that it has not been made official, but that different sources place it above 520 million euros – direct money and value of the percentage of the team that he will have on the circuit -, the Barrika golfer will abandon the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, the two with the most tradition. , and will embark on the start-up in which the Spaniards Sergio Garca, Eugenio López Chacarra and David Puig were already involved, whose signing for the Fireballs was made official on Tuesday. The magnitude of the figure is such that it is practically the same as the sum of the money that the PGA Tour has distributed in 2023 in all its tournaments.

The signing of Rahm, 29, elevates LIV Golf to a new dimension and creates a thicker fault in world golf waiting for a possible agreement between this circuit and the PGA Tour before December 31, as a result of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) having started the process to become a majority partner of the American circuit, draw a friendlier world outlook. Among the things to save is the expressed desire of the golfers on both sides to remain aligned, each in their position.

The LIV wins integers in numbers. It houses two of the last four Major winners: Rahm and his green jacket, and Brooks Koepka, with the PGA, in addition to raising to 13 the number of golfers who have at least one major in their career. Seven of the last 15 Grand Slam tournaments have been won by their boys and 11 of the last 23. And five players who have led the world ranking, who this year rejected the LIV proposal to adhere to their score, a scale that is used to classify. For the main tournaments on the planet, they are in the rebel competition.

More than Leo Messi

Rahm’s contract is the largest in the history of world sport, Well, the more than 600 million euros that Leo Messi earned during his time at Barcelona were the product of different renovations. In addition to the amount he will receive as a fixed amount, Jon, like the other 48 players who now make up the League – which will be expanded when the thirteenth team is formed – will fight in each of the 13 tournaments (not counting the team final) in 2024 for four million dollars for the winner in each event.

The reasons for the change have not yet been explained and would not only be due to an economic issue. Rahm has always promoted the discourse that golf has given him the opportunity that “several generations” of his family could live off the money he had earned even before this season where victory in the Augusta Masters and three other tournaments earned him reported 16 million dollars.

Also the Spanish champion, a student of the history of his sport, has been signified by the importance it attaches to the tradition of tournaments due to its record and that, now, due to the veto that the PGA Tour and DP World Tour have imposed on the players of the insurgent league, it will no longer be able to play. Competing in tender events and in a format that at the time did not convince him. However, the exaggerated tendency to comply with the wishes of Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods of the PGA Tour, almost the only voices heard by Jay Monahan, the commissioner, and the influence of Phil Mickelson, Jon’s close friend, could have weighed on the decision. by Rahm.

Another of his friends, Tony Finau, could arrive alongside the Basque golfer. twenty-first in the world ranking and another of the most charismatic players of recent years on the PGA Tour.

It is also unknown how his continuity will be on the European Ryder Cup team.. The new climate created as a result of the agreement suggests that it will not alter the option for players who are members of the DP World Tour, even if they do not play specific tournaments on this circuit, to be eligible.

The desire of the circuit whose CEO is Greg Norman, another former number 1, towards Rahm it existed since its gestation. Although the one from Barrika never wanted to know if his manager Jeff Koski received offers, last year, according to sources close to Arabia, there was one higher than the one received by Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson, until now the players who received the most money when jumping to the new circuit. The LIV season will begin on February 2 in Mayakoba (Mexico) and will have a test in Spain from July 12 to 14 in Valderrama, just before the British Open.