NFL chief media and business officer Brian Rolapp is expected to become the CEO of the PGA Tour, according to a report Tuesday from Sports Business Journal.
Rolapp, a Harvard Business School graduate, has been with the NFL and/or the NFL Network since 2003. He came aboard the NFL Network in 2003 as the fledgling operation's director of finance and strategy. He moved up the ladder there over the next decade, eventually becoming the network's president and CEO in 2014, before joining NFL headquarters as the chief media and business officer in 2017. For the past eight years, Rolapp has been the chief executive in charge of, essentially, making the NFL money and getting its games on TV.
In that time, the NFL saw its annual revenue grow from $14 billion to $23 billion.
The PGA Tour has been in search of a CEO since early 2024, with Rolapp under consideration alongside NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps, TaylorMade Golf CEO David Abeles and former Ticketmaster chairman Jared Smith, per SBJ.
The PGA Tour CEO will be a separate role from commissioner Jay Monahan; as CEO, Rolapp will report to the board, and it's not immediately clear if the commissioner will report to the CEO. The PGA Tour started a for-profit arm last year, and as CEO Rolapp will be in charge of managing that as well as positioning the Tour for its next round of TV contracts, which expire in 2031.
As for the NFL, the League will now have to find a replacement for Rolapp. Either the league will find that selling professional football to the American public was as easy as passing out free Skittles to a kindergarten class, or if Rolapp simply made it look that easy.