“You’re making me go
Then making me stay
Why do you hurt me so bad?”
“Love Is a Battlefield” — Pat Benatar

Later this year, the 40th anniversary of this timeless classic from innovative rocker Pat Benatar will be celebrated, which is hard to believe! The song was originally released in September 1983 as part of Benatar’s Live from the Earth album. The song reached the top of the charts in multiple countries, topping out at No. 5 in the Billboard Hot 100 (though it did reach the top spot in the mainstream rock charts in the United States).

The song’s lyrics describe a volatile, even confusing, relationship that the writer is experiencing with a partner. The “battlefield” discussed in the song is remaining in the relationship with the back-and-forth of the partnership, even when those from the outside may see the relationship as negative or toxic for those involved.

In the world of sports, such a partnership was seemingly begun this week.

For those who do not follow golf, you may have heard of the PGA tour before. Originally founded as the Professional Golfers’ Association of America tour in 1929, the PGA split, keeping the abbreviated moniker as its primary name beginning in 1968.

The PGA tour was actually formed as a compromise among tour professionals and the owners of tour events, combining two groups that were focused on significantly different objectives.

The PGA again changed its name in 1981 due to marketing disagreements, though the name change only lasted a matter of months before the next year’s tour began under the same name.

In other words, the PGA has always had a fairly volatile history, typically with the issues revolving around finances.

Enter the LIV Golf Invitational Series.

The LIV tour was financially supported by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, which put questions in play whether the tour was supportive or even financed by the myriad negative actions that the Saudi monarchy was taking, from oppressing minorities and women to murdering those who speak out against the monarchy.

LIV has continually maintained that the Saudi financing does not infer either a participation in the actions of the crown or approval of those actions.

That being said, the PGA had done some legal maneuvering to attempt to push out its new foe.

The PGA restructured its television deals to be exclusive with the major broadcast partners - the tour has exclusive deals with CBS, NBC, and Golf Channel worldwide, along with a few other major sports networks outside the U.S.

This led the LIV tour to set up a broadcast agreement with CW and to create a subscription-based streaming network, LIV GOLF+, with free broadcasts of LIV tournaments on YouTube and Facebook.

Former PGA champion Greg Norman went about recruiting many of the world’s best golfers to LIV in his role as LIV CEO, with deals that were reported to be into nine-figure range to pull a golfer from the PGA tour.

Dustin Johnson, a winner of 24 PGA events in his career, was reportedly paid $150 million to play on the LIV tour, though full terms of the agreement have never been confirmed.

The PGA got into the pocket of many members of Congress to encourage blockage of the LIV tour within the U.S., focusing on the Saudi connections.

However, that same lobbying did not prevent the U.S. Department of Justice from opening an investigation about anti-competitive behavior by PGA against LIV.

Then, 11 former PGA players now on the LIV tour filed an antitrust lawsuit to challenge suspensions from PGA tour play, as they were banned from PGA events when they began golfing with LIV.

The trial for the antitrust case was set to begin in September, which makes the timing of the deal this week fairly notable.

On Tuesday, PGA, PGA Europe, and LIV announced an agreement to merge commercial interests into one entity. That means the tours will now have one overarching entity that allows for each of them to have access to broadcast, advertising, and merchandising rights for the game of golf at a professional level.

The story of the PGA has been filled with being unwilling to compromise until legal action was taken or, often times, had been filed and deemed to have merit enough to potentially damage the PGA in court.

Over and over in its history, the PGA has only negotiated when put into a corner, and that is the view here from many sports business experts. The PGA tours made the agreement with LIV not out of some gracious desire to grow the game of golf and include as many partners in that endeavor as possible, but instead only because not doing so would have led to potential legal ramifications for the tour.

All too often, we all do the same. We aren’t willing to compromise about where the property line is during a dispute with a neighbor until a surveyor comes out and tells one — or both — that they’re wrong and not adhering to the new lines would be illegal, now that the true line is understood. People have one (or a few) drinks and hop behind the wheel of a car until they’re caught and have to pay the fines and potential jail time involved.

Heck, we have seen this over and over again in national politics where nothing gets truly compromised, despite ample opportunity to do so, until backs are completely against the wall.

Procrastinating the acknowledgment of the value of another’s viewpoint until forced to do so never ends up feeling like a real compromise, more like a forced action against someone’s will.

Perhaps, we can take the lead here for financial and elected leaders in society and show that compromise can be a daily act to build trust - not simply a tool of last resort, brought in only when things begin to feel like a battlefield.