The PGA Tour is giving its players another opportunity to make money — and it’s not by scoring under par. 

The Player Impact Program will reward competitors who drive fan and sponsor engagement to the Tour, regardless of how they perform on the course.

An “impact score” will determine 10 beneficiaries who will receive a bonus from the tour’s $40 million pool at the end of each calendar year, with the top score receiving $8 million. 

A spokesperson for the PGA Tour said it will provide extra resources to help players manage their own social media and branding. Participants will be judged on a variety of factors.

• FedEx Cup year-end rank
• Google Search popularity
• Nielsen Brand Exposure Rating — exposure a player delivers to sponsors while featured on broadcasts
• Q-Rating — familiarity and appeal of a player’s brand
• MVP Index rating — engagement driven across social and digital channels
• Meltwater mentions — the frequency with which a player generates coverage across a range of media platforms

The program, which started Jan. 1, has received mixed reactions from golfers involved.

“There I was thinking they were compensated enough,” said one Tour winner. “We earn our money through performance. What if you’re a really awesome player but don’t move the needle in those metrics?”

Justin Thomas, for instance, won the Players Championship and took home $2.7 million – the biggest single-tournament paycheck in PGA Tour history.

The Texas Rangers have averaged 27,300 fans in their six home games — nearly 65% more than the MLB average through the first weeks of the season. 

Better yet: There’s no indication that those larger crowds have led to increased COVID transmission. 

Globe Life Field, the lone MLB stadium at full capacity so far in 2021, drew the largest crowd at a U.S. sporting event since the pandemic shutdown with its official Opening Day attendance of 38,238. Free tickets given to medical workers pushed that count toward 40,300. 

“In general, we feel like things have gone about as we expected with fans and seems to be consistent across the league in discussions with other teams,” Rangers spokesman John Blake told Front Office Sports.

Arlington’s Tarrant County has fully vaccinated 25.8% of the population ages 16 and older as of Tuesday, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Nearby Dallas County has fully vaccinated 26.89% in the same category. 

Neither county has seen significant spikes in COVID-19 cases since the start of the season. 

The Rangers acknowledged that multiple workers tested positive for COVID-19 last fall at the NLCS and World Series. Officials were unaware of any community spread, and tickets were sold in four-seat “pods” for better social distancing, a person with knowledge of the matter told Front Office Sports. 

Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding told FOS there’s less risk in attending a baseball game than an indoor event with limited ventilation. He also wishes that the media would emphasize the real problem areas of ballpark activity.

“I wish whenever people show baseball games, they show how long the lines are for the concession and the bathrooms. That’s what people need to see.”

The Premier League’s value as a TV property will be put to the test, with NBC Sports’ contract expiring after the 2021-2022 season. 

The network wants to renew its deal. 

“We certainly want to continue our great relationship with the Premier League,” an NBC spokesman told Front Office Sports. 

Negotiations are expected to heat up over the next several months as NBC nears the end of its six-year deal worth $1 billion in May of 2022.

NBC has turned Premier League into a must-watch property for younger, soccer-loving American fans. 

ESPN and CBS Sports are also likely to make a play for the English football league’s U.S. rights, said sources.

Despite its Saturdays being loaded with college football, ESPN views the Premier League as a powerful potential attraction for its ESPN+ streaming service, said sources.

The TV talks will come in the wake of the Super League PR fiasco in which a half dozen Premier League clubs plotted with six European allies to break away from the Champions League. 

Within 48 hours, the plan crumbled. Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham pulled out.

ESPN commentator Ian Darke wrote that owners of these “Selfish Six” Premier League clubs should sell their stakes. 

Nike won’t be making new Kobe shoes beyond this year, but there’s a chance we may see new Mambas at some point down the road.

Bryant’s estate filed 13 trademarks since May 2020 for shoe and clothing brands, including Mamba, Lil Mamba, Baby Mamba, Lady Mambas, and Play Gigi’s Way. 

Part of Vanessa Bryant, his widow, and the Bryant estate’s frustration with Nike was a failure to produce kids’ shoes, according to ESPN. The brand also reportedly did not offer a lifetime contract, an arrangement exclusive to Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Cristiano Ronaldo. 

The split with Nike may have been inevitable. Venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar said in December 2020 that he met with Kobe in 2019 about his plans to leave Nike and start a shoe company called Mamba. 

Pishevar added that the design included a tracker in the back of the shoe that would connect to a fitness app. Kobe’s investment firm, which he co-founded with investor Jeff Stibel, invested in connected device company Tile and data display firm Datanyze, among others.

While it’s unclear how the Bryant estate will proceed, it’s prepared to go in a number of directions with a host of trademarks and one of the most beloved names in sports.