‘He was our rainmaker.’ NFL lost commissioner-in-waiting Brian Rolapp to the PGA Tour. Can he save it?

When it became apparent that Roger Goodell’s heir would never collect his inheritance, the Olympus of professional sports lost a god.

After a long courtship consummated on U.S. Open weekend, Brian Rolapp, who officially ran the NFL’s network and media wing, joined the PGA Tour as its first CEO. This effectively ended the erratic reign of tour commissioner Jay Monahan. From knee-jerk suspensions to backroom negotiations to cratering viewership to an emergence of ever more entitled, petulant stars, Monahan generally botched the tour’s response to LIV Golf, the loud and racy renegade league that is most dire threat the tour has faced in its 56 years.

Rolapp to the rescue.

He will be tasked with negotiating new broadcasts rights. He will try to remarket the tarnished names of cranky players like Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa and fading players like Jordan Speith and Justin Thomas.

Most importantly, though, Rolapp will have to resolve the issues surrounding the PGA Tour and LIV. From the fans’ perspective, the most urgent task involves reabsorption of LIV defectors, who have been banned from all tournaments except the majors for which they qualify. More practically, he will be tasked with forging a partnership between the tours, which turned out to be a task too daunting even for Donald Trump, and he wrote that bible of business-craft, The Art of the Deal.

With all due respect to the president, no one understands the art of sports deals like Rolapp. Whether it’s a compromise with LIV or the disbursement of the initial $1.5 billion investment in the tour from the Strategic Sports Group — the consortium that pushed for Rolapp’s hiring and is comprised of sports billionaires like Steve Cohen of the Mets and Arthur Blank of the Falcons — Rolapp’s mandate will be to spend that money to make more money for a long, long time.

I’ve been covering the NFL for 35 years but had only a vague knowledge of Rolapp’s value and role before June 12, when he became the talk of Oakmont Country Club, which held this year’s U.S. Open. By the following Tuesday, I’d finally gotten in touch with a well-placed NFL source with extensive knowledge of the league’s evolution and Rolapp’s role in it.

» READ MORE: Oakmont is again magnificent and so is J.J. Spaun as the U.S. Open host and Pennsylvania courses keep flexing

“He was our rainmaker,” the source said. “He’s going to be great.”

During his 22 years at the league’s offices and through five promotions, it was Rolapp who guided the NFL to a $111 billion media rights deal. How did the NFL make itself so irresistible? By creating team-to-team parity and by putting the fans first. That included chasing women, minorities, and internationals. You know, the sort of non-football fans who so closely resemble today’s non-golf fans.

“You sort of relentlessly focus on the game, getting the competition right,” Rolapp said. “Getting the highest level of competition is extremely important. That’s something we obsessed about.”

Rolapp had a new-sheriff-in-town meeting with several players on June 17 in Connecticut as they prepared for the Travelers Championship, which, ironically, is exactly the bloodless sort of “elevated event” the NFL would never consider. There is no cut, so everybody gets paid. What’s more, only about 25% of the world’s top golfers are allowed to play, which further dilutes urgency, drama, and intensity. It’s LIV Golf but with long pants and no music.

“If you think what’s best for the fan, it’s usually best for everybody involved,” Rolapp said, figuratively holding his nose. “So I think we’re going to keep that mindset here.”

These tenets are squarely at odds with the PGA Tour’s current player-centric initiatives, its indifference to folks who don’t look like its stars, and its own self-aggrandizement, which often is rooted in shameful tradition.

No problem. Having dealt with Jerry Jones, Woody Johnson, and the late Bob McNair, Rolapp is accustomed to changing the perspectives of old, white men.

One NFL source contends that Rolapp contributed far more than TV rights. It was Rolapp who, behind the curtain, often counseled Goodell over the last two decades as the NFL dealt with domestic abuse scandals, player health scandals, and the Colin Kaepernick/George Floyd crises. Now with the dust settled, the NFL is the strongest league in history.

For his efforts, Rolapp was considered Goodell’s inevitable successor. Goodell’s contract expires in 2027, but he’s only 66 and he is expected to sign at least one more deal. Rolapp, 53, would probably be over 60 before Goodell leaves the job. The job still might one day be his; after all, he is, literally, irreplaceable. The NFL says it will need five executives to cover Rolapp’s duties as he departs.

Coincidentally, it is Goodell who was the golf nerd in the NFL offices. He’s a green-jacketed member at Augusta National, and he might be sad to see his top lieutenant leave, but a five-time winner at Augusta is happy to have him aboard.

“Brian’s appointment is a win for players and fans,” Tiger Woods said in a press release. “I’m excited about what’s ahead and confident that with Brian’s leadership, we’ll continue to grow the tour.”

Woods should be happy, considering he was part of the PGA Tour policy board that voted to hire Rolapp, and is, by far, the most prominent of the board’s seven players. Monahan also sits on that board. It has foundered.

» READ MORE: Rory McIlroy sizzles in final round of U.S. Open, admits exhaustion, and hopes to recharge for the British Open

When LIV started almost exactly three years ago, Monahan decreed that any player who played on the tour would be suspended. Confusion ensued, because none of the four majors backed him up; all four allowed qualifying LIV players to compete. Brooks Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship. Bryson DeChambeau won the 2024 U.S. Open.

As stars like Jon Rahm and Cam Smith followed Phil Mickelson & Co. to LIV, backed by endless funds from Saudi Arabia, Monahan and the PGA Tour scrambled to retain players like McIlroy, Morikawa, and World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler by inflating purses, making the FedEx Cup even more lucrative, and creating eight bloated, no-cut, “elevated events.” The result: less drama, fewer rising stars, boring golf, falling ratings, and scant viewership under the age of 40.

If nothing else, Rolapp knows how to attract eyeballs. Thursday Night Football was his baby, and it was Rolapp who recognized the weakening of cable and broadcast — and the value of partnerships with streamers like YouTube TV, Amazon’s Prime Video, and Netflix. He didn’t create the NFL RedZone Channel, the insanely popular, nonstop Sunday highlights show, but it became must-see TV under his guidance.

Golf doesn’t exactly lend itself to Scott Hanson’s breathless histrionics, but you have to figure that Rolapp can encourage network types to do better than a bunch of sexagenarians who are always angry about how far the golf ball flies.

It will be fascinating to see what the game becomes under Rolapp’s rule, which really begins immediately, even if he’ll work in the shadows at first. Monahan said he will leave at the end of the year, but he remains under contract for 18 months, during which, one would expect, he will continue to act as the arbiter of player squabbles and rules violations.

» READ MORE: The raucous life and times of A.W. Tillinghast, the father of Philadelphia Cricket Club’s masterpiece

The PGA Tour might even retain the position of commissioner when Monahan exits. After all, Rolapp is only a casual golfer, with little expertise in the game’s tradition, minutiae, and politics.

This sounds like the sort of toothless job that would suit Davis Love III, a 61-year-old Hall of Famer who is steeped in the game, and happens to have the golf-iest name ever.

Use Love to negotiate common decency from the pouty players and to emit those easy North Carolina vibes to a fan base becoming ever more disengaged.

Save the important stuff for Rolapp.

At least, until he goes back to the NFL.