Golf Question of the Week: Will Cuts in PGA Purses Set Precedent for Other Sports Leagues?

Greg Norman raised an eyebrow-raising point in a recent interview with Bloomberg Radio: he claims that, because of the state of the economy and the fact that several of the PGA TOUR’s title and presenting sponsors come from the financial services industry, prize money will start to be scaled back.

``There will be a correction,'' Norman said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio's ``On the Ball'' program. ``I can't see anything other than that because prize money can't keep going up at the exponential rate that it has been going for the last 15 years. I don't see that taking place anymore.”

Norman’s reasoning makes perfect sense. If it happens, though, I’ll be curious to see if the TOUR’s actions have any kind of rollover effect on how America’s other major professional sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA and NASCAR, in particular) deal with athlete compensation as it relates to the current economic climate. Because as I’m seeing it now, there doesn’t appear to be any letup in sight from those camps when it comes to crazy-money salary spending.

Baseball’s Manny Ramirez still stands to rake in more than $25 million a year with his next free agent contract; the NFL’s Oakland Raiders just gave DeAngelo Hall $8 million to play half a season and go away; and the NBA just raised its salary cap to more than $58 million per team.

I know that with major team sports, any restructuring in overall player compensation is complicated by the fact that athletes in those sports enjoy strong protection from players unions that can effectively fight any such move. But while the gross annual revenues of the NFL ($6.3 billion), MLB ($6 billion) and NBA ($4 billion) far outpace those of the PGA TOUR (now approaching $1 billion), it doesn’t take a Warren Buffett to figure out that PGA revenues are still significant enough to make other sports leagues stand up and take notice of any cost-cutting steps they make. Team sports or not, such precedent can have a powerful impact on others.

What do you think?