Sunday, April 12, 2015

Crawford's Golf and Sports Biz Combo, For April 12th, 2015

By Gregory Crawford--- COO of Kiyokawa Crawford Sports Management--- on twitter @crawssportsbiz @kcsportsmgmt @wchoops

Future Of Golf---- There is no question that Jordan Spieth is a great Masters champion, humble, but golf next big super star. He played great to win and deserved to win.

As Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo went on and on, about how great the future of golf is with Spieth and other young stars, I had to jump out of my chair.

Jordan Spieth, Rory, Patrick Reed, Kevin Na, Billy Horschel and all the young stars are certainly great for golf on TV. But are they really good for the game of golf? Will they bring more players to the game, which is sorely needed.

Quick history tells us as great as Tiger was for TV golf, bringing many viewers who never played the game before and many who only would watch becasue Tiger was playing, he never in reality brought more players to the great game.

If Spieth can bring more players, more power to him, but what it takes is less expensive golf and clubs, more places to learn the game and much better marketing plans for the game.

Masters---- The people at Augusta National Golf Club hold their cards pretty close to the vest. So we watch every year and enjoy, but just how much do we know about the economics of the greatest golf tournament there ever has been and will be.

Some pretty good sources we have tell me a few things about the economics. The revenue for the 2014 tournament, 2015 still to be determined, was right around $115 million. That amounted to a profit of $28 million. Revenue included merchandise $48 million, ticket revenue $34 million, International TV rights $25 million and concessions $ 8 million.

Just think how much the Masters would really make if they sold the United States TV rights, which they do not. This years was the 60th consecutive year of telecasting by CBS, on a one year contract, in which neither they or Augusta National make any money off of. In 2013, Fox Sports signed a 15 year deal with the USGA, which starts this year and gives the USGA $93 million per year, for  Fox's rights to televise 6 USGA events per year.

Baseball--- As new commissioner of baseball, one of the agenda items for Rob Manfred was to hopefully speed up the game. Last year, the average time for a major leage baseball game was 3  hrs 2 minutes. It is way early, but so far this year's average time has been reduced by 10 minutes.

Golf Earnings----Jordan Spieth took home $1.62 million for winning this year's Masters. In 2014 Arnold Palmer never made a dime on any Tour, but his off course dealings brought "The King" $40 million. Same for Jack Nicklaus, no Tour checks, but off course endorsements, $22 million.

Over his 20 year career, Tiger on the course has won $156 mllion in prize money, off course earnings amount over that period add up to $1.2 billion.

One great exception in 2014, was Fed-EX Cup champion Bill Horschel, who won $15.2 miilion in prize money and earned $2.2 million from endorsements.


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