If it is not apparent, I am a HUGE fan of the LPGA and like any fan of women’s golf I am very concern with its survival.
The new commission of the LPGA, Michael Whan, will be facing the survival challenges for sometime now. Like everything today that challenges every move of a business its cash flow will reflect how much business it can do. That will probably be the biggest, or long term, issue Mr. Whan will deal with as long as he is commissioner.
What has to be done to shore up the LPGA existence?
The answer to that is simple. Keep the current sponsor happy and keep turning over rocks to find new sponsors.
What will help keep the sponsors and sell new sponsors to come on board?
This answer is a little more complicated but boils down to the LPGA partnering with their sponsors to improve their revenue horizons.
Having the tour players mingle more with event sponsor is a good direction to take to keep the sponsors happy. However, what will happen, if it has not already happened, the Tour players sponsors will object with their contracted players mingling or helping their competitors.
Still, this is an issue and if sponsors for these LPGA events cannot see clearly that their involvement as sponsors is improving their business’ bottomline it will be easy to turn their head to commissioner Whan’s effort to sell the LPGA events as a place for them to market and do business.
There are a number of other issues he will face on the other end of the LPGA list of problems and developing a stronger and more skillful American women’s golfer programs needs to be moved up the list of issue to solve immediately. Again, this issue is more than likely reflective of the US economy since many parents are out of work and are having to make tough decisions on what extracurricular programs their kids will be involved in learning.
The girls junior golf programs that teach America’s future LPGA players the game of golf will dry up if they are not properly funded and as anyone in golf knows it takes a large amount of funds to sustain a golf addiction.
I am sure all of the challenges the LPGA has will be address and Mr Whan on the surface seems to be qualified to meet these challenges. I wish him luck and extend my support to help.
What are your thoughts on the issues the LPGA has to survive?
