Tim Finchem Says PGA Tour To Place More Emphasis On Charities
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Finchem Hopes Charitable
Giving Surpasses $100M |
PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem yesterday during his annual press conference at The Players announced a new emphasis on the tour’s charitable giving. As part of the plan, the Tour will use some of its television and online ad inventory to promote the charitable efforts of players, tournaments, sponsors and volunteers under the new tagline, “Together, anything’s possible.” TV spots will debut later this year. The PGA Tour will increase its promotion of player foundations and provide a way for fans to become involved with them. It will also match tournament volunteers with the HandsOn Network, which recruits volunteers to help back a collection of 70,000 nonprofit organizations. The shift is part of the PGA Tour’s recent attempts to put more promotional muscle behind charitable giving. The tour generated $124M for charities in '08 and $1.4B since '38, the majority of which has come from sponsors and tournaments. Finchem also said charitable giving through the PGA Tour will be off as much as 16-18% from last year’s figure. “If we’re north of $100M in this environment it’s pretty good,” he said (Jon Show, SportsBusiness Journal). The AP's Doug Ferguson noted part of the campaign "will involve bringing together the tournaments, sponsors and the 2,000 charities involved with the tour so they can learn from each other what works best in raising money." Finchem said that the Tour's Web site "would enable fans to see what charities a player supports so they can get involved -- either by donating to the charity of their favorite player, or finding which players support a particular cause." Golfer Phil Mickelson: "We've been getting an unfair rap, if you will, in Congress about some of the dollars being spent for entertainment, spent for sponsorship of these events. And yet, we're doing a lot more than just entertaining clients here. We're helping the community." Finchem said that the campaign "had nothing to do with criticism earlier this year from" U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) over title sponsorship of golf tournaments (AP, 5/5). Finchem: "We think it's timely because of the economic climate. We've been talking about a number of these issues for two or three years" (FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, 5/6).
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