Most of the reason investment funds avoid tobacco and such is the lawsuits. That’s bad for the bottom line, so bad for the investors.
In the end it’s about money. And keep in mind LIV was on a path to supplant the PGA unless the PGA really changed. They’d lost most of the big names, and the LIV golfers were winning at majors (most of which the PGA doesn’t control), thus making a major play at having the better product. The PGA was either going to lose in 5 to 10 years, or get bought before then.
And as for “moral” component, all money winds up “blood money” at some point. If it’s not oil, or diamonds, or precious metals, or military hardware it’s something that makes money from them. I work on fax software, seem pretty innocuous, until you see our customer list. Just about every “dirty” business in this world makes money on real estate, and real estate lives on fax. So I technically get paid in “blood money” (and “not blood money”), and anything my company sponsors gets “blood money”, and anybody getting dividends from investing in us gets “blood money”. It’s all “blood money” if you look hard enough.
“In the end it’s about money. And keep in mind LIV was on a path to supplant the PGA unless the PGA really changed.”
Wrong. LIV was on a path to failure. They were not and could not get the audiences, the TV viewers and with that the revenue stream that comes with selling the TV rights and getting a share of their ad revenue. Monahan, the PGA commission admitted as much in his first public conversation about the merger, saying that the PGA was not only not facing financial failure but had no signs LIV would damage its success, even down the road. THAT only angers the players more, to hear that admission from Monahan and then try to understand the reasons he claims are the reasons he went ahead with it. Mertely to avoid the lawsuits was NOT a reason, as the logic of the lawsuits is totally undermined by the deal. Many of the lawsuits try to claim the PGA is a monopoly, which is not, and then the “deal” is to create a global golf monopoly. That hypocrisy is not most on a lot of the PGA players.
As for the players that went to LIV it was NOT “most of the top players” and many of the LIV players had been struggling to win (and didn’t) in recent years before joining LIV. Koepka has been the one exception lately. Michelson joined 100% for the money, to pay of his huge gambling debts. Yes for the LIV players it was 100% about the money. Clearly that was NOT the case with MOST PGA golfers, not even MOST of the TOP PGA golfers.