Officials with the Boca Raton-based PGA Tour Champions Allianz Championship are "exploring the possibility of moving the sponsorship to a South Florida-based company" when the contract with Germany-based Allianz expires after this weekend, according to Brian Biggane of the PALM BEACH POST. Tournament Dir Ryan Dillon said, "We’ve built a lot of equity in this tournament over 11 years, and maybe now we can get a (few) more dollars for a title sponsor, make a little bit more for charity, and take this to another level." Dillon said that Allianz, whose U.S. offices are based in Minneapolis, "remains interested going forward and will have exclusive negotiating rights until the end of the summer." Allianz currently pays $3.5M annually for naming rights. Dillon: "We have a positive dialogue going with them, and are fully expecting a tournament in 2018. But what they did was allow us to say, OK, we want to open up some doors, to see if somebody local wants it. We’ve had three or four companies show an interest. For me, it’s nicer if it’s a local company. There’s a lot more that can be done with the year-round community, on a local level” (PALM BEACH POST, 2/10).
