What the PGA Tour Might Learn from the LPGA Tour's 2010 Schedule
by Ryan Ballengee on Nov 19, 2009 3:19 PM EST
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PrintTod Leonard of the San Diego Union-Tribune (and former guest of the 19th Hole Golf Show) put out a piece regarding the scary situation for the Torrey Pines event that is now sponsorless because of General Motors' bankruptcy filing.
The Century Club, who organizes the event, has been struggling to find a replacement title sponsor for their event - one hosted on a course that is site of one of the great golf duels ever and a tournament that perennially has the current two best golfers in the world in attendance.
Leonard details how difficult making the sale has been to familiar partners of the Tour and the bewilderment of approaching companies that are novel to the sport. Nothing has worked.
It seems, though, that the PGA Tour may have been asleep at the wheel in helping the Century Club find a sponsor.
"I've seen it in the last 90 days. The PGA Tour is completely aware the world has changed," said Tom Wornham, the chairman of the Century Club to Leonard.
Ninety days ago was in the middle of August, around the time that Tiger Woods lost to YE Yang in his bid for a 15th major championship. Perhaps the Tour was hoping that a Woods victory would propel some company to pony up the multi-million dollar price tag to attach their name with a course that should be better known as Tiger Pines. Well, Woods didn't win.
But that didn't stop the PGA Tour from thinking that things were looking good. A few short weeks later at the Tour Championship, Commissioner Tim Finchem was pretty secure in how the Tour would be doing in 2010.
That kind of optimism certainly has to be taken at less than value, though. The Tour's State of the Tour speech isn't exactly intended to share all of the bad news. If anything, the PGA Tour does a brilliant job of releasing bad news when no one is looking. Hell, they turned Buick's demise in the Michigan event into a celebration.
By contrast, the LPGA Tour's release of the 2010 schedule was taken as awfully somber despite the fact that the Tour had nine contracts for 2010 signed when former Commissioner Carolyn Bivens was ousted. Some 14 event confirmations in the middle of the summer and our national discontent is awfully impressive.
But, the LPGA Tour can also serve as a cautionary tale for what the PGA Tour may face next year when they have to secure about a fourth of their schedule to new deals. Many PGA Tour title sponsors have preemptively backed out of future commitments, perhaps taking advantage of the low point in our economy to hedge their bets on the future recovery. Others are very much in the air but off the record. It sounds an awful lot like the avalanche of bad news that trailed the LPGA Tour throughout the season.
In the end, the LPGA Tour lost three or four events from the final '09 campaign - eight or nine from the '09 schedule initially announced this time last year. That's a loss of about a third of the schedule. Still, there is cause for optimism.
In terms of average purse money between '09 and the projected '10 purses, the average dropped from $1.76 million this year to $1.7 million next year. $60,000 is a drop in the bucket for the average LPGA Tour purse. PGA Tour purses run some three times higher than LPGA Tour purses, so guys could expect to play from anywhere between $180,000 to $250,000 less each week if the same rules apply to the PGA Tour.
The thing is, though, that the same rules don't apply.
The PGA Tour has Tiger Woods who has won 14 majors and is the most transformative athlete in the world. By comparison, the LPGA's best marketing prospect in this country is a 20 year woman who just won her first pro tournament last weekend.
The PGA Tour has a business development staff that is second to none. They thrived in the post-9/11 downturn amidst the backdrop of negotiations for network TV deals. Purses continued to rise. The PGA Tour also has other options for cultivating sponsors. Potential PGA Tour sponsors can get their feet wet with the Champions and Nationwide Tours - exactly why the purses for those tours hold steady or even increase. While times may be tough, the Tour can still get sponsors under their umbrella. More often than not, PGA Tour sponsors hang around for four or five years.
On the LPGA Tour side, sponsors fall into two buckets - seemingly lifetime sponsors of the Tour, or one (or none) and done sponsors that look to promote real estate developments and other cyclical businesses. And the Duramed Futures Tour, which the LPGA purchased in 2005, is not mature enough to be able to do the same thing for the LPGA Tour.
Certainly, the PGA Tour will not escape this next year of negotiation without atrophy. It's going to happen. But in an interesting example of reverse benchmarking, the PGA Tour is making frantic strides to make connections with title sponsors in countries outside of North America. The Tour is thinking that it might take the schedule outside of the US more often if it has to in these times.
They're taking one from the LPGA Tour's playbook: when the well dries in the US, drill somewhere else.
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Only one problem with the whole average purse for the LPGA. Take away the U.S. Open and Evian Masters and the average purse is only $1,320,454. Now to be fair, a couple of events haven’t announced purse money yet, but this is a bigger drop than is being advertised, and a bigger drop than it should be. 2010 is definitely a rebuilding year, hopefully, 2011 will be better.
Actually, the LPGA might be the beneficiary of all this.
We all know Michelle moves the needle on ratings, and I’m not so sure the bashing she’s taken over the last two or three years hasn’t actually helped her in that respect. (In an economy like ours, people who beat the naysayers can really become an encouragement to the rest of us.) And let’s be honest: Sponsors pony up the bucks because they believe that golf is the best way to promote themselves.
It costs a lot less to sponsor an LPGA event than a PGA event. With Michelle’s win (hinting at a possible increase in future exposure) and the LPGA’s already obvious move toward becoming a worldwide tour (with much of the groundwork already laid and secured), many potential sponsors may decide the LPGA Tour’s lower purses are a better investment than the PGA’s. There’s certainly more potential for growth at a lower cost with the LPGA, wouldn’t you think?
Mike Southern
www.ruthlessgolf.com
maybe – even with some growth from the LPGA, the problem is still that it is women’s golf. A downturn for the PGA Tour doesn’t necessarily mean that people will be switching their viewing habits to the women. Sponsors would gladly spend less if they were getting similar exposure, but the women’s game has a long way to go to even get close to that neighborhood.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Court is right/Tiger factor
It doesn’t matter if Michelle Wie — or a slew of the LPGA Tour’s best-looking players, for that matter — begin to play really well. It’s still women’s golf, and despite more global diversity among the upper echelon of players the product isn’t as desirable as men’s golf, even if Tiger and Phil aren’t in the field on a weekly basis.
Ryan, you make a good point about the Champions and Nationwide tours serving as grounds for sponsors to “get their feet wet,” but in the event that PGA Tour purses decrease in order to accommodate the more-limited financial situations of potential sponsors, how can corresponding purse increases on the Champions and Nationwide tours be justified?
The bottom line is that the older Tiger gets, the more apparent it will no longer be business as usual on the PGA Tour. You rightly mentioned the Tour’s thriving in the post-9/11 period; well, that was when Tiger’s schedule wasn’t as methodical as it is now, and now, businesses who are looking to spend millions of dollars on sponsorship have certainly caught wind of his schedule.
I’m not saying every event where Tiger won’t be playing has to rethink the way it supports a title sponsor, but obviously there’s so much more potential for a higher return on investment when he is in the field. And that’s why Leonard is right to say there should be cause for alarm.
Eli Miller
http://www.southlandgolfmagazine.com
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/millertimegolf
by SouthlandGolf on Nov 19, 2009 5:12 PM EST up reply actions
The thing holding women’s back golf in some ways is that it a women’s sport. Women’s sports – no matter how interesting they are to their fans – don’t generate the same kind of corporate interest. At least so far.
Eli, great question about the Champ/Nwide Tours. I think that if the Tour kinda uses its feeder system, it would first use Fall Series sponsors, then Champ Tour, then N’Wide. And if there is a lot of borrowing/feeding, then all purses go down.
And you’re absolutely right that Tiger’s retirement will really be a big deal for the PGA Tour. Fortunately, we don’t have to think about that for another 15 years.
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Nov 19, 2009 5:17 PM EST up reply actions
I’m still wondering where this idea that Nationwide and Champions Tour sponsors are getting their feet wet in preparation to become PGA Tour sponsors comes from. All four tours take care of contracting their own sponsors. Most of the non-PGA Tour sponsors are much smaller companies who are taking on sponsorship on the level they can handle.
I’m also missing the point of how Tiger losing to Yang at the PGA has anything to do with Tour sponsorships. There are still only 4 majors, and still only about 17 tournaments where Tiger will be playing, and those are the same 17 he plays every year. Sponsorship is not going to dry up for majors – and if anything, Tiger still needing 4 more to tie Nicklaus instead of 3 increases interest.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
I got that idea from Bill Calfee, who runs the Nationwide Tour. He said that’s certainly not true in all cases, but definitely something that they can use to get a sponsor on board.
The Tiger-Yang thing has nothing to do with it, I was just putting golf happenings into context relating to the “90 days” comment.
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Nov 19, 2009 6:05 PM EST up reply actions
Let’s not forget that when tiger or phil are not in contention the LPGA holds it’s own just fine with the PGA Tour. Women’s golf is more popular in asia, among other places then men’s golf is. And in the next 10 years the women’s game, particularly the LPGA is poised for phenonminal growth.
That’s a tremendous point. Michelle Wie outdrew the also rans of the PGA Tour this weekend by double.
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Nov 19, 2009 7:29 PM EST up reply actions
Michelle Wie and the LPGA drew higher ratings on Sunday because she was tied for the lead to start the day – and the men’s tournament was a fall series event that only affected a very small handful of guys around 125 on the money list.
The most interesting thing that happned with the men was something that didn’t get any publicity – Stephen Ames birdie streak down the stretch using the 2010 grooves.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
The LPGA has consistently had very near if not even better ratings than the PGA Tour when the big guns aren’t playing and when on comparable networks, and that was before michele wie won. The fact is when she’s in contention or actually wins, the ratings for the LPGA are higher than for the PGA Tour, IF Tiger and Phil and the top 5 or 10 are not playing, hence what we saw at disney. Like i said, this tour is poised for phenominal growth over the next 10+ years. Especially since women’s golf is already more popular in many parts of the world, in particular asia, then men’s golf is.
courtgolf, most PGA Tour events without tiger are what disney was this past weekend, boring and unwatchable. The LPGA has a lot of potential since tiger plays only 18-20 events on tour per year. I’ve never seen the WNBA beat the NBA in any game ratings wise, or even come close for that matter. The WTA was more popular for about 5 years than the ATP because of the Williams sisters. The WTA didn’t capitalize on it, that was there downfall, hopefully if Wie continues to win the LPGA will.
I wish I could agree with you about the watchability of PGA tournaments without Tiger or Phil. I watch because I enjoy the game and I learn from watching the pros play – men and women.
You brought up the WTA. Women’s tennis blew up mostly thanks to technology in the rackets and how it affected the men’s game. The men’s game got incredibly boring when it became a serving contest – there are still only a small handful of guys who have managed to re-learn the all court game the men played in McEnroe’s day. The women play the same dull baseline game, they just picked up a little pace with the new equipment. The Williams Sisters helped build the fan base, but as the men’s game has improved, they are taking back the fan base…except for the guys who just show up for the short skirts.
The WTA is like professional golf – the players are independent contractors. The WTA didn’t have any say in what the Williams’ did. The sisters decided they didn’t want to work as hard as they did to get to the top of the game. Venus started getting injured, and somebody told Serina she had talent as an actress and clothing designer…both turned out to be amazingly wrong. She’s worked her way back up the ladder, but her personality is putting people off. The WTA isn’t a marketing firm – they can only work with players who want to be a part of the team.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
I happen to watch golf with or without tiger or phil, etc playing, the LPGA included. However, when the top guys aren’t playing the interest level is much more comparable to the LPGA, and that’s the truth. As far as the WTA taking advantage, i meant in the aspect of television contracts, etc which they did not do while the williams sisters were dominating a few years back. I agree with you on their personality turning people off now that they aren’t anywhere near as dominant, but that is not what the LPGA is facing. As i said the next 10 years provide the POTENTIAL for phenominal growth. However, the LPGA must execute in to take advantage of whatever happens. That, again, is something the WTA did not do. Personally i believe the LPGA will continue toward a more international schedule, and that’s not a bad thing. A lot of people complaining about this now weren’t fans 15+ years ago when us americans were dominating, aren’t fans now and probably will never be fans. In closing, the fact is the tour has a bright future with or without michele wie. Maybe not necessarily stateside, but definitely international where the women’s game is more popular in many places than the men are.
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