The PGA Tour has been successful in seeing off a lawsuit related to ticket pricing and anti-competitive practices brought by an attorney linked to the rival LIV Golf competition.
A court in Florida dismissed the legal action brought by Larry Klayman, who asserted the PGA Tour broke state law by overcharging for his admission tickets for five events by 10% to 34%. The allegations over ticketing were just one part of a broad anti-trust challenge against the PGA Tour, initially launched in 2022.
Klayman’s suit said the PGA Tour’s pricing model for the five events was in violation of the Florida Antitrust Act and Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practice Act. During discovery, PGA Tour advisor Tiger Woods was forced to produce documents about his alleged involvement in what plaintiffs described as an “anticompetive scheme to monopolise the golf industry”.
However, Judge Luis Delgado has now granted the PGA Tour’s motion to dismiss the claim. Judge Delgado gave a series of justifications for dismissing the claim, including estimated overcharging damages of less than $200 to Klayman personally being far short of the $30,000 threshold required. Klayman had sought to meet the threshold by forming a class action.
Judge Delgado also noted that the Florida court did not have jurisdiction over some of the events and found the antitrust claim “legally deficient”. The judge wrote that he cannot mandate so-called “competitive” pricing for tickets, concessions and other items purchased at PGA Tour events.
Klayman has filed a notice of appeal and also issued a statement outlining plans to sue the organisation for “having fraudulently induced the dismissal” of his case.
Klayman, the founder of the Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch groups and a former federal prosecutor, has been supportive of the LIV Golf Tour’s emergence in the face of opposition from the PGA Tour and other groups. Klayman has also represented LIV golfer Patrick Reed in defamation suits against NBC’s Golf Channel and CNN among others.
Share this