Rory McIlroy on investing in Formula 1 team Alpine and fixing the 'fractured' sport of golf

Pro golfer Rory McIlroy knows a thing or two about winning on the course, four major championships among other big wins in his career attest to that. But McIlroy’s looking to win off the course too, with big investments.

Video Transcript

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Hey, guys. Pras here at Yahoo Finance at the US Grand Prix in Austin this year. You know, Rory McIlroy, four-time golf majors champion. You know how to win on the court, but you're also going to try to take your hand with some things off the course, as well. So I want to talk to you about that. Rory, thanks for joining us today.

RORY MCILROY: My pleasure.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: So big news, this weekend is Rory and along with Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes with Otro Capital joining the Alpine ownership group. Alpine F1, a French-based F1 team and road car company. So talk to me about how you were approached for this deal and why it was appealing for you.

RORY MCILROY: Yeah. Certainly my first foray into the sports team ownership space. But yeah, so we sort of had, I guess, the relationship with Otro beforehand. And, you know, they came to us and said, look, we're going to raise this money. We're going to buy basically, a quarter of a Formula One team Alpine. And they basically said, would you like to get involved. We'll send you the materials. We'll send you the deck. And we'll just let us know if you're interested or not.

So we got the materials, and we read through it. And I've always been a fan of F1. I think that has been heightened over the last couple of years with the Netflix show and how popular it's become in the United States as well. So I just thought it was a really cool opportunity. It's something that

I've sort of started to get into investing a little bit over the past four or five years. Started my own investment vehicle Symphony Ventures. And we've invested in a bunch of stuff, whether it be within the golf space or technology or some health care. But this was the first real opportunity to do something like this.

And to me what I've learned from investing over the years is like obviously you want to make smart investments and have your money work for you and, you know, obviously, ultimately make money from it. But at the end of the day, you know, I've realized you don't have to try to squeeze every single last dollar out of every single deal.

So I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to meet new people, partner with new people, especially as you said, like the ownership group that's got involved here, whether it be [INAUDIBLE] or Maximum Effort with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, or obviously, as you said, Travis, Patrick Mahomes, Anthony Joshua, some of those sports stars. It's just it's a really cool group to be involved with. And obviously, hopefully we can make some money along the way as well.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, making money is paramount, right? So what do you think it is about sports investment, or even F1, that's sort of intrigued you with this? Why sports?

RORY MCILROY: I think I can relate to it. And there's been times where I've invested in businesses or in companies. And they've done well and they've been good investments. But there's never really been real joy in the journey. It's just very much you invest and three years later, the company sells, and you make two or three times your money, and you've done well, and you move on. Where I feel this is a little different. I could actually really get invested in the journey of the team, the competitiveness.

As a sports person, I'm very competitive myself. So something to really rally around and get behind. And I'll be tuning in every-- whether it's like a Friday quali, or a Saturday quali, or a sprint race, or Sunday race. I feel like I'm really invested in the journey, which I think was important. So I'm happy to be involved that way.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: So I imagine you're bullish on the sports prospects of affluence prospects. The Netflix effect as well, right? That--

RORY MCILROY: Yeah, I think-- and I think as well, if you look at some of the valuations of some of these other sports teams in other sports. So Premier League teams, for example, the valuation that Chelsea sold out last year, Man United just sold 25% for a massive stake. I think seeing there's only 10 teams in Formula 1, there's only so-- it-- I think there's a ton of room for growth. It's sort of what I-- especially, a team like Alpine that have big aspirations and want to go places going forward, I just thought it was a really-- a really great opportunity.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Pivoting slightly to sports that are sort of growing a lot here in the States, and that's golf, TGL, Top Golf Live, your venture with Tiger Woods. Signed a big deal with ESPN to get broadcast rights. What's going on with that? And how excited are you for that--

RORY MCILROY: Yeah, I think TGL is going to be amazing. We've sort of tried to adopt a little bit of that sort of sports team model. There's six teams. We've already got some great ownership groups in those teams like someone like a Fenway Sports Group, and Steve Cohen that owns the Mets, we had Marc Lasry who part owns the Bucs plus Steph Curry, Andre Iguodala. We've got so many. Yeah. So it's been really cool to see people get excited about it. I think it's a different way to try to engage a different demographic and show them golf in a different way, try--

Golf skews pretty old in age in terms of the viewership. So try to make the viewership a little bit younger and try to appeal to that audience. And it's really exciting. We've done really, really well. We've obviously got ESPN as a broadcast partner. We've got some great sponsors involved already. The fact that we've basically signed all the best players in the world to come and play the first season of TGL, we're really excited about it. And hopefully, people at home once it is broadcast in January, they get to see why we're so excited about it as well. It's pretty cool.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: One last question. We can hear the cars racing around now. So I'll let you go. One last question. So we had a successful Ryder Cup just occur recently. Golf world sort of coming together that LIV's up-- sort of we're seeing a detente, and maybe a coming together. What's your sort of big picture take on what's happening in the golf world right now?

RORY MCILROY: Yeah, so I mean, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that PGA TOUR, and DP World Tour, and the Public Investment Fund come together and try to get some sort of a deal done. Because to me, with a fractured competitive landscape, it just divides the eyeballs in terms of-- I'd rather concentrate all the eyeballs on one product. So to me, it's a product problem. And trying to if we can all put our heads together and get to the point where the product is really good, I think it's full steam ahead. And hopefully, great things can happen.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, big year coming up for on the track on the course, everywhere. Rory McIlroy, best of luck. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

RORY MCILROY: Pleasure. Thank you.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Thank you.