"I’ve been trying to tell it” - Rory McIlroy wants PGA Tour to follow the NBA model

Rory McIlroy, the recently dethroned top-ranked golfer in the world (he now sits at #2 behind Scottie Scheffler once again), has shared his thoughts on how the PGA Tour should operate.

The PGA Tour has undergone some changes thanks to pressure from LIV Golf. The way the rebel league runs things has directly influenced the Tour and it's made them reconsider their decisions.

As per Outkick, McIlroy thinks the NBA has the perfect model. He said:

“If you have a product that this year is forecasted to do $2 billion in gross revenue, you’re trying to grow that product as much as possible."

He believes the star-centric way the NBA runs things is how the PGA Tour should operate:

“If you look at the NBA’s trajectory over the last 20 years, they’ve built that league around their best players and their stars, not around the 12th guy on the team. But because they’ve built that league up around the stars, the 12th guy on the team does way better than he used to. So that’s sort of the way I’ve been trying to tell it.”

McIlroy believes that helping the best players would in turn help the lesser-known players by extension. It's sort of a trickle-down model for the sport and McIlroy believes in it.

His comparison to the NBA makes sense. Stars like Steph Curry and LeBron James routinely force the league to increase the salary cap. When there's more money to go around, players like PJ Washington or Pat Connaughton get more on the back end.

Could the PGA Tour listen to Rory McIlroy and follow the NBA?

It's still geared towards rewarding top players, but the effect helps everyone else, too. On the PGA Tour, it would be that Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm would earn a lot more money, but in turn so would Cameron Tringale, Rickie Fowler and Davis Riley.

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Rory McIlroy's opinions matter

Whether or not the PGA Tour employs Rory McIlroy's ideas on modeling after the NBA, the fact that he said it matters. McIlroy has long been one of the best golfers on the tour, but he's quickly becoming very important.

He's serving on the board now, which means he has a say in things, much more so than he did when he was just a player.

In an unofficial sense, McIlroy has become the biggest ambassador for the league, going to war with LIV Golf and anyone involved with it.

He said in the Full Swing documentary that he truly believes he's fighting for what's good for the game:

"It's been contentious at times and I have maybe leaned into that part of it a little too much, and made it a little too personal in my mind. But I feel like what some people have done has affected the rest of the profession. I'm just trying to defend what I think is right."

That matters and everything Rory McIlroy does now is suddenly that much more important. He's got the ability to change the game and it's largely because he assumed the responsibility of ambassadoring the league and how it operates.

Ironically, he can now help shape that.