Brandel Chamblee is taking aim at Phil Mickelson again. This time, the target is the media rights fight that helped fuel LIV Golf. The comments come as LIV’s future is in doubt, with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund confirming it will withdraw funding at the end of the 2026 season.
Speaking on the We Need a Fourth Show podcast, the Golf Channel analyst said Mickelson “wanted to burn the tour down and tear the house down.” Chamblee said Mickelson believed he was entitled to his media rights, something he argued no athlete in any sport is entitled to.
His reasoning was simple. If players could film their rounds and post them to their own sites, Chamblee said, fans would watch there instead of the broadcast, and TV contracts would fall apart. That, he said, is exactly what networks pay for.
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Chamblee also compared golf to other major sports. He said the gap between Tom Brady and an average NFL quarterback is about 20 to 30 percent. In golf, he said, Scottie Scheffler is roughly 3 percent better than the 100th player on the money list and about 7 percent better than the last player in the field.
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His point was that golf’s stars turn over quickly. Chamblee said today’s stars may not be stars four years from now, and players nobody has heard of will be.
Mickelson’s complaint went public in a February 2022 interview with Golf Digest, where he blamed the Tour’s “obnoxious greed” for pushing players toward rival opportunities. He also argued that giving players back their media rights could prevent a breakaway.
Under Tour rules, players assign their media rights when they join. That lets the Tour charge a fee when members appear on television outside of Tour events.
Mickelson saw the fight as a matter of leverage. He told Golf Digest the Tour only responds when it is forced to, and he told author Alan Shipnuck that Saudi money finally gave players the power to force change.
The Tour defended its model, arguing it matched other pro leagues that retain media rights to maximize revenue. Commissioner Jay Monahan also told players they would receive 55 percent of the Tour’s 2021 revenue.
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The Tour then expanded the Player Impact Program to reward 20 players and introduced elevated events with average purses of $20 million. In June 2022, it suspended 17 players, including Mickelson, for playing in conflicting events without the required releases.
The rules have loosened since. In May 2026, the Tour announced updates to its player social media policy in a memo from Chief Marketing Officer Andy Weitz. Players can now post up to three minutes of on-site content on competition days, up from two, along with broadcast footage of up to six shots per round. They can also post up to 120 minutes of highlights on YouTube starting 72 hours after an event ends.
Players still cannot publish content that competes with the Tour’s broadcast partners, and the Tour retains ownership of the rights.
