LPGA Summit Focuses On Expanding Fan Base, Engaging Community
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Kerr Says Players Have Been Encouraged
To Utilize Facebook, Twitter |
The LPGA Saturday and Sunday held a mandatory player summit at the Kingsmill Resort & Spa in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the meeting "focused on how the players can expand the game's fan base by not only playing great golf, but by engaging themselves in the community as well," according to Hank Kurz Jr. of the AP. LPGA Players Exec Committee President Michelle Ellis: "We haven't done something like this since 2002. I think with what we're going through with the economy and stuff like that, I think the players are scared. I wanted to bring them together." Golfer Cristie Kerr said that the meeting was "part business and part pep rally," and that the players were "encouraged to utilize social networking avenues like Facebook and Twitter to stay engaged with their fans and the sponsors whose dollars make the hefty purses at tournaments possible." Int'l Tennis HOFer Billie Jean King and World Golf HOFers Nancy Lopez and Judy Rankin addressed players, and Lopez and Rankin "agreed that the product has never been stronger on the course, and better day are certainly ahead" (AP, 5/3).
TRANSITION GAME: In Virginia, Dave Fairbank wrote the LPGA is an "organization in transition," as the tour is "younger and more Asian than even when [LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens] took over in September 2005." But the LPGA is "on firmer financial ground and for the first time has a long-term TV deal, with the Golf Channel beginning in 2010." Bivens: "We've had the last three years to be able to shore up the foundation of the LPGA, so that this year we're able to provide more in the way of player benefits, and we're able to provide more for our sponsors and our partners. Last year, the LPGA delivered almost $2.5[M] worth of cash for our tournaments. That's a 40[%] increase over the year before and an all-time high. Is it difficult, and do we have a number of (tournament) renewals? Absolutely. If we could be renewing in a different time frame, we would sure have chosen that. We also had scheduled a number of these renewals to coincide with the new television deal. We didn't want tournaments to extend beyond not knowing what the new television partner with the platform would be" (Newport News DAILY PRESS, 5/3).
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Writer Says Sorenstam's Retirement
Places LPGA At Disadvantage |
UP & DOWN: In Virginia, Tom Robinson wrote the talent level on the LPGA "has never been as good or as deep," but fans "often don't know when or where to find it when it is on TV." Three of the seven LPGA events so far this year "haven't been seen in the U.S." -- while the April 23-26 LPGA Corona Championship "came down to a thrilling final-round duel" between Lorena Ochoa and Suzann Pettersen, the tournament was "televised only in Asia." Bivens: "It's not one of the things that I'm terribly pleased about, so I won't spin that one for you. Here's the upside: The Web site hits and the leaderboard hits were off the charts." Robinson noted proceeding following the retirement of golfer Annika Sorenstam is a "problem for the women's tour akin to a PGA Tour without Tiger Woods," and "picking up and moving along is the recurring theme beneath the LPGA's roiling surface." Bivens: "If I had my choice, of course, Annika wouldn't have retired. But the timing couldn't have been much better, in that we've got a pretty big group of players who pick it up. ... The LPGA is in a much stronger position than it was three or four years ago" (Norfolk VIRGINIAN-PILOT, 5/3). But WORLDGOLF.com's Stacy Solomon wrote Sorenstam's retirement "placed the LPGA at a huge disadvantage," as she was the "heroine of the decade" for the tour. Adding the "economic woes of the country to the mix with fans cutting out extraneous spending and the LPGA could be at risk" to go the way of the AFL (WORLDGOLF.com, 4/30).
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