The first year of inside ticket sales from the PGA Tour’s new call center will generate more than $1 million in additional revenue this year and at least five promotions for rookie sales representatives, the tour said.
Those five promotions will place sales reps, who have been trained at the call center for the past 10-11 months, in sales positions with PGA Tour tournaments.
“The new revenue was fantastic, but what we really hoped to accomplish was to grow our talent pool,” said Troy Tutt, who was hired by the tour a year ago to establish a call center near the PGA Tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
The 12-person call center opened in late January with a team of entry-level sales reps. They were charged with selling ticket packages for six PGA Tour events — the WGC Cadillac Championship, The Players Championship, the Tour Championship, the WGC Bridgestone, the Northern Trust Open and the Web.com Tour Championship.
Tutt, the senior director of national sales, came to the tour from the New York Yankees, where he oversaw premium and suite sales for the past three years. He and sales manager Scott Gordon, a former Cleveland Cavaliers ticket manager, trained the new hires, most of whom were in their first job after college.
They focused on renewals, as well as ticket packages, all-inclusive deals, and premium sales for the corporate crowd. New ticket sales represent about 75 percent of the additional revenue that was generated, while 25 percent came from renewals.
“The No. 1 goal of this program was to develop sales talent that could move on to events looking to grow their sales staff,” Tutt said.
Five of the 12 sales execs have already been promoted into ticket sales positions with specific tournaments. The Wyndham Championship hired two of them: Michael Manesiotis and Dan Woods. The Northern Trust Open brought on Amanda Humer, while The Memorial hired Vince Hoffart and the Travelers Championship plucked Brandon Schroeder.
The five were promoted based on how they performed against a set of sales goals. They also were graded on how they cultivated leads and performed on business calls.
“We also looked at intangibles like leadership and attitude,” Tutt said.
The tour is in the process of hiring to fill those five new vacancies. Tutt said he expects two or three more of the tour’s sales reps to be hired by tournaments in the coming months, which will create more vacancies.
