Carolyn Bivens on the State of the LPGA Tour

On the eve of the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill, LPGA Tour Commissioner Carolyn Bivens spoke with the Daily-Press' Dave Fairbank about the state of the Tour.  As any good spokesperson is, Bivens was confident in her remarks about the state of the Tour.

Bivens spoke about the gamble of Mission 2010 - having so many tournaments on the schedule have their renewals scheduled for this season and next so as to have a cable and network TV deal in place.

Is it difficult, and do we have a number of (tournament) renewals? Absolutely. If we could be renewing in a different time frame, we would sure have chosen that. We also had scheduled a number of these renewals to coincide with the new television deal. We didn't want tournaments to extend beyond not knowing what the new television partner with the platform would be.

The gamble turned out not to pay off, as there will not be a network television deal for next season.  It is likely that a handful or less of LPGA Tour events will make network air.  On the opposite side, the Golf Channel stepped in and is paying a rights fee to the LPGA Tour for broadcast rights.  This fee will likely not increase tournament purses, but may be used to supplement the quality of LPGA Tour event facilities.

Speaking of TV, Bivens seems pleased with the TV progress and cited the SBS Open at Turtle Bay as a mark of success.

I think the best test of that was the first event this year (the SBS Open at Turtle Bay in Hawaii). Annika was the defending champion, so were going up against television numbers from Annika in 2008, and the television ratings were up 35 percent this year.

That was propelled largely by Michelle Wie being in contention to pick up her first LPGA Tour win in her first start as a card-carrying LPGA Tour member.  Perhaps the example best shows that star power drives the LPGA Tour (or PGA Tour for that matter).

Returning to the schedule, Fairbank grills Bivens on the fact that about one-third of the current LPGA Tour schedule is played overseas.  It is a fact of the LPGA Tour that makes domestic critics of BIvens salivate and defenders of Bivens posture.  Bivens' defense appears to be twofold.  First, that it is a defense mechanism.

As part of our strategic plan, the organization will continue to play somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 percent of our events internationally. We view that as an advantage, especially as you go through cyclical downturns in economies. Some of those will be leading recessions and recoveries. It's sort of like having a balanced portfolio.

Wow.  35-40%?!  Basically, for nearly half of the year, the LPGA Tour will not be able to take in gate in the States.  So, the question becomes: will American fans go to watch a Tour that they will not see very often?  European Tour fans appear more comfortable with the globetrotting nature of their Tour than American fans may be.

The other part of the rationale is that the Tour schedule should mirror the player makeup.

If you look back at 2002, how many U.S. players were in the top 10 on the LPGA money list, there were three. If you look at how many U.S. players are in the top 10 on the money list at the end of 2008, there were three. Nothing has changed, except in 2002, those other top players were primarily from Europe. At this point, you still have Europeans on that list, but now there are more women from Asia.

This is a bit of selective use of statistics.  I don't think that the complaint is relegated to the top 10 players.  Rather, it appears to be that people complain that the influx of foreign-born (namely Asian) players in aggregate is hurting the Tour.  I have heard complaints that there are six players with the last name of Kim - not which one of them is in the top 10 on the money list.  The example aside, there may be some relevance to that statement.

The question for the LPGA Tour is how it balances the international interest in the Tour - particularly in Asia - with the fact that the LPGA Tour is still a domestic tour. 

Seems like the answer really depends on the commitment of the Tour to remaining an American sports organization or a global organization.  The PGA Tour has maintained an almost exclusive US-based schedule and is still the Tour of record compared to the European Tour.  Then again, the balance of players and talent in men's golf still skews heavily toward Americans - again, in aggregate, not necessarily by who is in the top 10. 

Perhaps the LPGA Tour will become more like the European Tour than the PGA Tour.  The European Tour goes around the globe and doesn't have the same continuity of coverage that the PGA Tour does.  At the same time, it is able to attract significant sponsors and has made every attempt to foray into all corners of the golfing globe.  Then again, the LPGA Tour has no equal in women's golf.  Its future may be more defined by where women's golf is popular than its competition.