Steve Cohen is shopping for stars for his New York Mets club this winter, but the hedge fund titan has already secured a handful of big-name investors for his franchise in Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s new golf league, TGL.
Derek Jeter, Eli Manning, Jimmy Fallon, John McEnroe, Michael Strahan and CC Sabathia invested in New York Golf Club, according to Cohen’s family office, Cohen Private Ventures. In September 2023, Cohen secured the rights to the fourth of six TGL franchises via his family office.
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“We are thrilled to welcome some of New York’s most iconic sports and entertainment legends to the ownership group of New York Golf Club,” Andrew Cohen, co-founder of Cohen Private Ventures, told Sportico in a statement. “They share our love for this great city and the game of golf.”
Terms of the new LP investors were not disclosed. CNBC was the first to report the news.
TGL was set to launch in January 2024 but pushed the date off 12 months after the dome of the custom venue under construction collapsed after a power outage. The TGL tees off Jan. 7. Cohen’s team will be represented by Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele and Cameron Young.
The six TGL teams will each feature four golfers hitting shots into a 3,000-square-foot golf simulator screen until they are within 50 yards of the hole and the action transfers to a customizable short game area that transforms between holes. TGL rules also include a shot clock, and the league plans for players to be mic’d up during the action. A seating area for 1,500 has been designed around the playing zone. ESPN owns the broadcast rights.
The tech-driven golf league is the first venture of TMRW Sports, which was founded in 2022 by Woods, McIlroy and former Golf Channel executive Mike McCarley. In June, TMRW announced the close of its Series A investment round co-led by Dynasty Equity and Connect Ventures. The funding round valued TMRW Sports at nearly $500 million, according to someone familiar with the terms who was not authorized to comment publicly.
TMRW Sports has a deep roster of investors including team owners Arthur Blank, David Blitzer and Fenway Sports Group, as well as star athletes Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Lewis Hamilton, Alex Morgan, Shohei Ohtani and Serena Williams, and musicians Justin Bieber, DJ Khaled, Darius Rucker and Justin Timberlake.
Eben Novy-Williams contributed reporting.
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