This golf ‘gold mine’ has the LPGA seeking out new investors

It is golf TV’s authentic “chicken or egg” argument, and it has by no means been in clearer view than throughout the sport’s nice two-week teamplay stretch in late September.

On one facet of the ledger was the Ryder Cup, golf’s de facto Super Bowl, enjoying its fifth-straight blowout. The event was by no means significantly shut, not with the Euros stomping the Americans throughout three of the first 4 periods, finally cruising to a painless victory early in the afternoon throughout Sunday singles — and it has not been significantly shut in a while. Yet it was an absolute enterprise bonanza for all events concerned, by all accounts. NBC backed up a Brinks truck price of advertisers for the broadcast, a large manufacturing that was the most-watched ever internationally (although scores sagged in the U.S.); whereas the PGA of America and DP World Tour had no downside filling their large hospitality buildouts with company purchasers, their hulking merchandise tent with a zig-zagging line, or their 5,000-seat 1st tee grandstand with individuals.

On the different facet of the ledger, in the meantime, was the Solheim Cup, enjoying its third-straight nailbiter. The event was shut from the very begin, so shut it truly resulted in a tie, which resulted in the Europeans retaining the Cup. When hometown hero Carlota Ciganda closed out Nelly Korda in a wide ranging end in entrance of the Spanish devoted, she delivered golf considered one of the greatest moments of the 12 months, the type of on the spot traditional, storybook ending that solely comes round each from time to time. Yet it was not a enterprise bonanza, or not almost as a lot of 1 as its male counterparts. The LPGA and LET held considerably extra modest seating all through the grounds, which have been packed however not overloaded; maintained a considerably smaller merchandise space; and welcomed considerably fewer company purchasers. Fortunately, the event didn’t want to fret a couple of Euro victory obscuring scores on NBC — it wasn’t even placed on the broadcast community! Golf Channel dealt with protection all week lengthy whereas a shoestring manufacturing crew struggled to indicate even the naked minimal of event protection.

In brief, there isn’t any query which of the two tournaments was extra compelling to look at, and there’s additionally no query which of the two tournaments earned extra viewer consideration. Thus, the rooster or the egg: how can bigger audiences discover girls’s golf if it’s not frequently on TV? And how can girls’s golf frequently be on TV if it’s not watched by bigger audiences?

This paradox has been circling girls’s golf for so long as most individuals concerned with the sport can bear in mind — and now the LPGA is exploring new methods to resolve the problem. According to a Financial Times report from Solheim Cup, commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan and the LPGA are nearing an settlement with a “strategic planning partner” that may assist the tour concentrate on enhancing its footprint and portfolio.

This settlement will run along with final month’s announcement that the tour was combining its gross sales efforts with Fenway Sports Group, however will share the widespread aim of serving to increase the profile of girls’s golf.

“It’s impossible to maximize value in any business without investment. We have this amazing product and we need to figure out how to commercialize it, monetize it and have investment come into it,” Samaan informed the Financial Times. “If you think about where the future could be, the returns are there.”

The accomplice, which has not but been named, will assist the league search out new investor alternatives throughout the company world with the acknowledged aim of serving to the LPGA bolster its broadcast protection — the Solheim Cup specifically.

“I’m 100 percent convinced that if we got even a small percentage of the investment made in the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup could be a huge home run for players, for fans, for broadcasters, for sponsors,” mentioned Marcoux Samaan.

The greater query appears to be: how would a new investor assist the LPGA do this? One avenue, as we first outlined throughout the Solheim Cup, is through manufacturing price range. Presently, the PGA Tour helps to foot the invoice for the manufacturing prices of its broadcasts, an effort that permits the Tour to take care of a substantial commonplace of TV manufacturing throughout the entirety of its schedule.

Part of the motive for lackluster Solheim Cup TV protection needed to do with the manufacturing firm employed to deal with the protection of the occasion, a small German-based manufacturing home named UCOM. The end result was a telecast that appeared completely unprepared for a manufacturing of the Solheim Cup’s measurement and technical specificity.

Outside funding might assist the LPGA entrance the prices for NBC to ship its ordinary manufacturing group to Europe — an estimated “seven-figure” endeavor, per one NBC supply — or it might enable the LPGA to work with different, extra certified manufacturing firms to enhance the total product. The funding might additionally assist the LPGA with increasing the Solheim Cup’s tv protection in the United States, which was restricted to simply 25 hours on cable tv, by liberating upfront prices for NBC to justify broader TV protection.

In any case, the cash might be used to assist carry the Solheim Cup into the properties of extra American viewers, an effort that would assist flip the Cup from its modest present kind right into a type of gangbusters occasion on par with the Ryder Cup. After all, the Ryder Cup was as soon as referred to in the identical means the Solheim Cup is now — till it obtained an expanded TV deal from NBC.

As NBC discovered then, and the LPGA is hoping to be taught now, the viewers is out there — you simply have to seek out them.

“I think we’re sitting on a gold mine,” Marcoux Samaan mentioned. “We need to capitalize on that.” 

James Colgan

Golf.com Editor

James Colgan is a information and options editor at GOLF, writing tales for the web site and journal. He manages the Hot Mic, GOLF’s media vertical, and makes use of his on-camera expertise throughout the model’s platforms. Prior to becoming a member of GOLF, James graduated from Syracuse University, throughout which era he was a caddie scholarship recipient (and astute looper) on Long Island, the place he’s from. He might be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.