Marketing and Sponsorship
PGA Tour OKs gaming deals
Loosened rules expected to quickly produce new sponsorships for the league and players
Expect the PGA Tour to cash in quickly with a gambling partner after ending restrictions on gaming sponsorships for both players and the property.
“The tour is a deliberate organization, but they have been studying this for a long time and they know what they want their partner to be,” said MKTG Principal Dave Grant, whose agency represents FedEx, the tour’s biggest sponsor. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you heard something in the next 60 days about a deal at the official marketing partner level.”
The tour last week made significant sponsorship changes by opening up the gambling category at the tour, tournament and player levels.
The change will allow sponsorships with casinos and gambling resorts, effective immediately. But the tour will not permit sponsorships by companies whose primary purpose is sports betting, so sportsbooks will be shut out of the category.
The tour is allowing official marketing partnerships and tournament title deals with certain gambling entities. For the first time, tour and player sponsorships can include the daily fantasy category.
“We can see that the public sentiment around gaming has changed and it is favorable,” said Andy Levinson, senior vice president of tournament administration for the PGA Tour. “We felt now is the right time to open up those categories with some limitations. We’ve felt for a long time that sports betting is an opportunity for us to reach new audiences. Partnering with these type of companies that have tremendous amounts of customer engagement will help us reach that goal.”
Levinson expects player deals with gambling companies will come faster than an official marketing partnership or tournament title deals.
“We have allowed players to have relationships with a gaming company but they have been strictly focused on the resort aspect,” he said. “Many of those relationships will now just be expanded to cover casinos. It is low-hanging fruit. The official marketing partnership and title sponsorship relationships take a longer time to formulate.”
A source said official marketing partnerships with the PGA Tour range roughly from nearly $1 million to $3 million annually for larger categories.
With MGM Resorts signing prior league sponsorships with the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NHL, and Caesars Entertainment having a league deal with the NFL, experts said the PGA Tour’s move to open the gambling category was simply a matter of time.
“It is open season right now with all the leagues making sure they are monetizing this opportunity,” said John Von Stade, a partner at Accelerated Growth Partners, which represents Charles Schwab in its PGA Tour deal. “MGM and Caesars are the only two that have jumped in full bore and hit the market aggressively. If I’m the tour, I’m making sure they know I’m open for business. I’d be shocked if we didn’t see an official marketing partnership deal fairly soon.”
But Von Stade does not predict an immediate gambling sponsorship gold rush for tour players, with only select players expected to land casino deals.
“The sensitivity is there from a direct players standpoint,” he said. “The deals are too small for the casino. I’m not sure the upside is there compared to an official marketing partnership or a title deal where you get a lot more exposure.”
