November 4, 2025 — Bubba Watson, Golf legend and LIV Golf team owner joins Sebastian Milo at ‘Invest In Sports: New York’ at the Nasdaq HQ to discuss the business of sports, why LIV Golf made sense over PGA, his investment in baseball and dream investment in the NBA.
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All right guys, Sebastian Mill with Sportical here with Mr. Bubba Watson. Mr. Watson, obviously so at this stage of your career, what influenced you to leave, you know, PGA and and head towards a new opportunity with live golf? I think you said it, a new opportunity. Um, you know, being in the same place, same hotels, same cities every every year, the same thing over and over. I wanted to do something outside the box. And if you would have told me as a kid there was a chance for me to own a franchise, a golf franchise, I would have jumped at the opportunity. And so now years later, I jumped at the opportunity. I want to do something different, be creative. I want to use my creative mind to try to build something um and try to change the uh the landscape of golf. Not I guess disrupt it, not really disrupt it, but more um just add a different avenue of it so people can around the world could see something different. What in particular? And when you mentioned disruption, what in particular about golf do you feel needs to be improved or added to and and that you can contribute to? I think it needs to be more fun. Uh I think that um it gets slow. Um it gets it’s the same thing over and over. Um the same voices the same thing, you know, adding music, adding concerts, um getting younger content. Um shotgun start where everybody knows we’re playing so it’s it doesn’t drag out the whole day. Um, you’re trying to make it entertaining for kids, for wives that don’t want to be there, for husbands that want to be there. Um, so you’re trying to make it familyfriendly, um, and make it more fun for everybody. No, that makes sense. It’s more of an entertainment experience from start to beginning, not just the sport. Now, from your experience obviously being at PGA and now at Live Golf, what would you say is obviously your experience working with both, but I guess that that piece at Live Golf that kind of transcends what PJ gave you, I think. Um, so I one thing that sticks out to me mostly is in golf, we play high school golf as team, um, college is team, and professional golf is individual. um the biggest tournament in the in the world um is a team event. It’s the writer cup. And so why not bring that to professional golf? And so that’s what I saw. That’s what I I tried to feed off of. And again, using a creative mind, trying to build something. Um it was a no-brainer for me to come and try to try to You’re not changing golf. You’re just add a new adventure to it, of course. And with your experience, obviously, I mean, it’s only a positive there. talent, talk to me a little bit about something that I don’t think a lot of your fans may know, but your involvement as a part owner of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, right? Baseball team. Um, do you have plans to invest in any other sports and and just why that team? Well, it’s my hometown. I’m from Pensacola, Florida. I still live there. And so to be a a double A baseball team owner, it’s a dream come true. Um, I can’t afford a big team, so I’m a little team. Um but yeah, I if my dream scenario would be NBA, I love the NBA because you you know the length, you know, um there’s no rain outs. You know, there might be some bad weather days, but you’re going to have um the the crowd there, you’re going to have energy, you’re going to have great entertainment from the from the athletes, you’re going to have other shows during halftime and in between timeouts. So, it’s just more you’re in there. You feel it better. You feel it um the lows and the highs, but you also you’re close to the action. You can feel it. You can hear it. Uh you can tell what how the how fast these big boys are moving. So, I’ve always been impressed with NBA. I was thinking obviously you were going to go down the route of saying an MLB team was the dream investment, but NBA is is the one. Is there a team in particular? Um I have some teams that I would you know that you would love to and I you know obviously where I live there’s no team so I would move to wherever I was uh and part of um my wife played professional basketball so basketball’s in our household quite a bit um and so yeah so I would love to move to a city because I was pulling for that team 100%. And now we actually have A-Rod speaking of baseball A-Rod’s going to be here. So, I’m curious to know who do you think would be better, A-Rod in golf or Bubba Watson in baseball? Oo, that’s a that’s a tough question cuz, you know, I I can’t say that I’m really good at all sports. I can say it, but nobody believe it. Um, my dad wanted me to be a baseball player, left-handed pitcher. Um, Don Madding was my favorite growing up um because he was left-handed and so my dad was a Yankees fan. Um, but um gosh, I’ve watched A-Rod play golf. I’ve played I’ve walked a few holes with him. It wasn’t good back then. That was years ago though, so it might be better now, but um I would have to say he’s a tremendous athlete. I I’ll give it to him. I’ll give him the nod because I’m trying to be polite. Fair enough. And you did mention obviously your dream investment, so I’ll skip over that one now. But from your perspective as a fan, right, fan of multiple sports, not just golf, what do you think in your lifetime has been the best sports investment? maybe one you’ve been a part of or just even just witnessing as a fan from the outside. Oh, that’s a great question. Um, you know, I I think that I think soccer is or we call it soccer in the United States, but soccer is is more and more people are playing it, more and more girls are playing it, more and more kids are playing it. Um, I think that um it’s growing rapidly. I never thought it would. And so even in my time period, I never thought it would. Uh, but it is. Um, and it’s it’s it’s mind-blowing to me because um, how easy it is to get into the sport, you know, in a community. Um, and it gets people outdoors and running, right? We want the young kids to run and exercise. Um, my son does not like it. He doesn’t like the running, but he’ll play basketball all day long. And I’m like, you’re running just the same. So, I think soccer is um, it’s through the roof now in the United States. It’s only growing because more and more people are getting into it, especially as other cultures are getting mixed into the United States. they’re bringing soccer or the experience or the love for soccer over here. Um, so that’s been one that I never thought would happen. Um, it was pretty amazing how much sports are taken over in general, but but soccer. Appreciate Mr. Watson. They give things.
