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The wheels of the professional golf business have recently turned to ambitious companies, including merger talks, Strategic Sports Group’s multibillion-dollar investment in a new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises, and the launch of a program that turns players into stockholders. It is honed just as intensely. Tour players during Monday qualifying.
It adds a powerful sponsor that already has a significant influence in golf marketing. FedExFDX has been named title sponsor of the DP World Tour’s Open de France. The logistics tycoon already has the continent’s largest tour presence, including the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the mid-season FedEx Cup race that culminates with the winner taking home a whopping $18 million in prize money. I’m trying to add the old National Open.
A coordinated sponsorship program helped push this deal over the finish line. Three years ago, when a strategic partnership was formed between the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, the most important driver was to provide more playing opportunities for members.
A second founding principle on the commercial side of the ledger was to provide sponsors with more options and meet the growing demand for global exposure. The aforementioned harmonized sponsorship platform was recently launched to achieve that objective, offering brands the opportunity to partner with both organizations, offering rights and benefits that span both tours.
“Giving them more options is central to what we’re trying to do,” said Christian Hardy, PGA Tour’s International SVP.
For FedEx, it made sense when the French National Open became available. The multinational’s largest international aviation operation departs from Charles de Gaulle Airport, serving more than 45 European countries and employing more than 5,500 Parisians. The tournament was previously sponsored by online car retailer Cazoo and will be held from October 10th to 13th at Le Golf National.th, while going about end-of-season business. Branded as the “Back 9,” the course has hosted high-profile historic and national opens, setting up a doubleheader for the circuit’s playoffs: the Abu Dhabi Championship and the DP World Tour Championship. It’s a feature.
The newly formed team of eight PGA Tour and DP World Tour employees is dedicated to exposing the brand to cross-marketing opportunities. Sponsorship tiers for both Tours are now in sync, so there is consistency in the underlying structure of title sponsorship and official marketing partnerships, and a built-in option for existing partners interested in pursuing a multi-Tour marketing strategy. Provides a sense of fluency.
“We’re generally a U.S.-based tour. We’ve certainly done events in North Asia in the past, and we still do events in Japan. But when we go out and talk to brands, “At a time when, especially in one of the biggest commercial markets in the world, brands all have interests outside of their country, so being able to have conversations across the portfolio, including DP World Tour, was really important and helpful,” said Hardy. he explained.
In the past, if FedEx had approached the PGA Tour and wanted to strengthen its presence in France before the strategic partnership and this initiative began, its options would have been limited.
“There were probably some conversations with the media, but nothing beyond that. And from our perspective, this is something that the DP World Tour complements and, thankfully, the PGA Tour. Because when our central and large partners say, “We’ve got the biggest international hub in France, what more can we do there?” DP World Tour is not going to do that. The tour helps complete that equation,” Hardy added.
Cross-marketing on both sides of the Atlantic
A major and demonstrative example of international brands wanting to cross-market on both tours was promoted by South Korean automaker Hyundai’s luxury brand Genesis. The company has sponsored his PGA Tour events since 2017, and five years later added title sponsorship of the Scottish Open to his sports marketing mix.
“That was a great example of kicking us off. Genesis had seen how well PGA Tour golf did at the Invitational, so we knew it would be good. They’re at home. They were also involved in the Korean market and had expanded into Europe with the UK as their main market, so it obviously made sense to look at golf and see if it could be a big platform for them. It was,” said Max Hamilton, Group Commercial Director, DP World Tour.
No discussion of sponsorship in the world of professional golf would be complete without mentioning the emerging Saudi-backed tour that continues to garner attention. Asked about the impact LIV has had on sponsorship sentiment, as LIV continues to poach high-profile players from the current Tour squad, Hamilton didn’t shy away from addressing the elephant in the room.
“My job always involves talking to them. Of course they always want to be updated and want to know what’s going on, but we’re seeing continued growth. From a sponsorship perspective, we believe our revenue this year will be double compared to 2019. Despite the challenges presented, we have not had any impact on that aspect. Hmm. The game is progressing well and there are still commercial opportunities.”
That sentiment is reflected on the U.S. side of the pond.
“I just look at the data from the PGA Tour side. We’re fully sponsored. Our pipeline is full and we’re not seeing any drop in demand at all. This from our sponsors. It’s great to see support like that,” Hardy said.
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