News Flash! White People Are Losing Traction

Geoff Shackelford found this interview with LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens on a blog of my local paper, The Baltimore Sun.  The Q&A is generally what you would expect and the talking points are made.  Nothing extremely revealing, but I did think this back-and-forth was a tad bit interesting.

Do you need to have American players to attract U.S. sponsors and fans?

Before you read the answer, consider that the Golf Channel's lead analysts - Beth Daniel and Dottie Pepper - basically said, "No, but it can't hurt."  Ok, go.

Bivens: That is a question we get asked so often. The conventional answer is yes, we do. And that may be true for the next few years. The reality is that the face of the United States, who we are and our demographic makeup, is not what it was 20 to 25 years ago. I would contend that the LPGA, with 121 international members, looks much more like the United States than the traditional demographic. The white, Anglo-Saxons are not going to be the majority much longer and there are many major markets where they aren't right now.

Bivens is right.  Demographically speaking, white people in the United States are going the way of the dinosaur.  White people will be the minority by 2042, according to the US Census Bureau.  Well, at least according to their definitions of races and ethnicities.

Curiously enough, the nomination of Judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has brought up the question of race and its real application in the modern world.  Republican columnists and general cynics about the true meaning of race - which is really just a made up concept - have charged that this isn't actually true because millions of Americans identified as Hispanic are actually white.

So why tell you all of this?  Because the Commissioner is saying that it's ok that the LPGA Tour has people of all races and ethnicities as members - much like our country.  The problem?  The overwhelming majority of people that watch golf are older, richer, and white than almost all of America.