Two Major Championships in the books, and we all know how quickly the calendar turns on golf season. In preparation for Open Season I have given some time really paying attention to the sport at many different levels. The term ‘growing the game’ is very important to many because the viewpoint relates to the underrepresented becoming a part of the ecosystem. The reality that I have come to recognize – ‘growing the game’ defines the amount of new money that can be poured into the sport.
Many golf fans reminisce about the play of legends in significant tournaments we have witnessed in our lifetimes, the same way that we get excited about seeing “The Immaculate Reception”, or MJ hitting the hanging jumper over Cleveland. Moments absolutely matter. In sport today, the corporate part of the game is responsible with crafting the ways that moments can be monetized. In the world of golf, the opinions to create that ‘growth’ come from a legitimate global perspective. We can all agree that professional football, baseball and basketball have made deliberate strides to take their products across the globe, where golf based on its origin alone makes it a sport that has roots and history on multiple continents.
In 2023 SPORTICO reported the NFL, NBA and MLB all saw sponsorship revenue increase no less than seven percent over the previous year with MLB topping all US sports leagues with a twenty-three percent increase to $1.5 Billion. The PGA Tour reported TOTAL revenue of 1.59 Billion for 2022 which illuminates the opportunity for growing the game. Professional sports leagues and athletes across the spectrum of competition aren’t operating these days as if the platforms they represent are in a period of contraction, therefore the game of golf is poised to become more marketable than it ever has been in its existence.
The last few years can easily be considered the ‘disruption’ phase for professional golf due to the fracturing of the highest men’s professional circuit. Many a business analyst will argue that disruption within a business model provides opportunity for strategic growth, yet today there is also the notion that what is happening in professional golf is a correction to the product that we currently have come to know.
To increase the opportunity for monetization in the game there is no better source than the professional players. There is no argument that the amount of purse income made by Tiger Woods was a fraction of the true value that he provided to the game. One of the beautiful facets of the game is that everyone who enjoys playing golf can effectively emulate the stars past and present, where team sports just do not allow a fan the opportunity to experience the location and collective competitive experience of the team.
The issue lies in how this generation of players embrace playing excellence over the balance of being faces of the game. Fans of the sport crave dominance, flamboyance, and the singular pursuit of greatness, yet with those demands also comes the need for villains, conflict, and the occasional push of the envelope towards arrogance. These demands just may not fit the current cadre of the ‘best of the best’, however golf churns out talent regularly and the next crop of can’t miss players may very well need to embrace their marketability as much as their stroke average, while those with a vision for the game also need to have an eye towards what drives interest just as much as a 300-yard drive.
Like many of you who love the game of golf, we have an abundance of questions, instead of a clearly defined NEXT, but that unknown is the bridge that took us from Magic & Bird to Michael, the path from the dynasty of the 70’s Steelers to the ‘Patriot Way’. The game of golf will grow, and that growth will come from new investment that creates even more attention and expectations. Opportunity is a byproduct of growth, and there lies the area where the game will expand exponentially.
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