The antitrust litigation that has consumed professional golf for the last year is set to end as one of the conditions of the “framework” agreement announced last week between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, but the secrets the lawsuit attempted to uncover could still be at risk of becoming public.
The New York Times filed a motion in U.S. District Court Friday to unseal files in the antitrust and counterclaim lawsuits, citing both First Amendment and common law standards. The motion argued the public’s right to this information outweighed the Tour and PIF’s arguments that public disclosure of certain documents could cause “competitive harm.