Combine PGA and LPGA Tour Events?

[Braivo]

The issue of how to get more attention for the women's game, including more equitable pay, has come up in various topics and I thought I'd discuss it here. 

After watching the US Open tennis tournament earlier this month, then watching the Solheim Cup this weekend the thought occurred to me that perhaps the LPGA and PGA Tours should play their events simultaneously, or perhaps the same week/same venue somehow. 

Now, I haven't vetted this out completely, perhaps the logistics would never work, but I know for sure the women's tennis gets a big boost and much more interest from being played simultaneously with the men's events than it would as a stand alone event. 

Maybe there is a way to play the LPGA events on the same course and the same week as the PGA events? Maybe start the LPGA on Tuesday/Wednesday and they overlap a day or two? Anyone else have thoughts on this? 

[iacas]

Why would the PGA Tour want to do that, and how on earth are you getting 288 players around the same course in a day?

No way no how. And for the men, no reason.

[Jeremie Boop]

  On 9/16/2019 at 3:47 PM, iacas said:

Why would the PGA Tour want to do that, and how on earth are you getting 288 players around the same course in a day?

No way no how. And for the men, no reason.

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This has already happened in Australia, but it was the European Tour, LPGA, and the Australian counterparts.

LPGA backs pioneering men's and women's Aussie golf tournament

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LPGA backs pioneering men's and women's Aussie golf tournament

I don't know that I see it catching on though, guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[mcanadiens]

Obviously its not practical to do that with full fields unless you are spreading it out across multiple courses.

Wasn't there some sort of mixed team tournament involving PGA Tour and LPGA players?

Maybe that was a few years ago.

[DaveP043]

I can't see how you could have full-field events sharing the same course, there aren't enough hours in the day.   A similar idea was tried out in 2014 when the US Opens for men and women were held on consecutive weeks at Pinehurst #2, and that did seem to draw a little more attention to the Women's open than it would usually get.  The downside was that the course gets pretty beat up during a full week of competition, so that the conditions for the women weren't quite as good as for the men.  It wasn't as bad as some had predicted, but the wear and tear was noticeable.

[Patch]

Perhaps not a weekly combined event, but certainly feasible, say once a month, or maybe once every couple of months. Hell, maybe just 4 times a year. 

Make it a coed event. All the pga tour guys don't need to show up. Alot of them wouldn't want to, especially the higher profile players. There's enough pga players available who could use another pay check.

Run the event(s) during the silly season. 

Depending if enough lpga women showed up, you could easily have a 72 women, and 72 men event.  

The event could even be run like a pro/am event to garner more sponsorship. 

Get a charity, or two involved. 

The purse, which would most likely be larger than the lpga plays for now, could be split evenly between the sexes. 

Another purse option might be to divide it into thirds. 1/3 for the guys. 1/3 for the girls. 1/3 for mixed teams. 

A combined event is doable. Someone just has to get serious about it. 

 

[rehmwa]

no....

as noted by a poster above - a combined event might be a lot of fun.  Combine all the events?  no way, no reason

"equitable pay" - so subjective.......IMO an argument looking for a problem that doesn't exist.  Equal pay needs to be driven by comparable profits/results coupled with a similar demand/supply pool.  As individuals, if we want to get LPGA pay higher, then we need to watch LPGA events, attend LPGA events, advocate for LPGA events. I'm only doing that if the events are interesting (i.e., I watched the Solheim this weekend.  Much better than the Greenbreier or the champions event) Anything else, then it's just people talking about nothing and not doing anything substantial.  I'm a big fan of letting the market drive the results and not faking it out.

Edited September 16, 2019 by rehmwa

[Jeremie Boop]

  On 9/16/2019 at 5:15 PM, rehmwa said:

no....

as noted by a poster above - a combined event might be a lot of fun.  Combine all the events?  no way, no reason

"equitable pay" - so subjective.......IMO an argument looking for a problem that doesn't exist.  Equal pay needs to be driven by comparable profits/results coupled with a similar demand/supply pool.  As individuals, if we want to get LPGA pay higher, then we need to watch LPGA events, attend LPGA events, advocate for LPGA events. I'm only doing that if the events are interesting (i.e., I watched the Solheim this weekend.  Much better than the Greenbreier or the champions event) Anything else, then it's just people talking about nothing and not doing anything substantial.  I'm a big fan of letting the market drive the results and not faking it out.

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When people *typically celebrities or social media "influencers"(unbelieveably stupid thing imo)* start complaining about equal or equitable pay it just annoys me. They point at things like women's golf/soccer/basketball pay and claim that there's a problem that can somehow be solved by just paying more money. The pay is driven directly by the interest in those sports. Is it fair that people by and large have less interest in female sports? Maybe not. Funny thing though, I don't see them complaining about how male models get paid way less than female models. As I've mentioned before, either here or somewhere else, people who watch male sports pretty much already know that there are female versions as well. If they were interested in watching, they probably already are. The growth in viewership and event attendance would most likely be very minimally increased, if at all by these type of events.

[rehmwa]

  On 9/16/2019 at 5:41 PM, Jeremie Boop said:

When people *typically celebrities or social media "influencers"(unbelieveably stupid thing imo)* start complaining about equal or equitable pay it just annoys me. They point at things like women's golf/soccer/basketball pay and claim that there's a problem that can somehow be solved by just paying more money. The pay is driven directly by the interest in those sports. Is it fair that people by and large have less interest in female sports? Maybe not. Funny thing though, I don't see them complaining about how male models get paid way less than female models. As I've mentioned before, either here or somewhere else, people who watch male sports pretty much already know that there are female versions as well. If they were interested in watching, they probably already are. The growth in viewership and event attendance would most likely be very minimally increased, if at all by these type of events.

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in the soccer stinkup - did they ever figure out if the women's team had a better, worse, or just different (voluntary and signed by both parties) contract than the men's?

[Jeremie Boop]

  On 9/16/2019 at 5:45 PM, rehmwa said:

in the soccer stinkup - did they ever figure out if the women's team had a better, worse, or just different (voluntary and signed by both parties) contract than the men's?

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Couldn't tell you to be honest, I don't really care enough to look too much into it. The only thing I saw was that proportionally speaking, they actually got paid a higher percentage of profits than the men do, but because the overall men overall bring in more money the men get paid more even though they get a smaller percentage. That may not even be completely accurate, but that's what I recall.

Of course, this conversation is OT, but it does tie in to women's professional golf in that neither the women's soccer nor women's golf generate enough revenue to support equal pay. The best they can do is go for equitable pay. Except, going for equitable pay may actually see a cut in payouts...... 

[Braivo]

  On 9/16/2019 at 3:47 PM, iacas said:

Why would the PGA Tour want to do that, and how on earth are you getting 288 players around the same course in a day?

No way no how. And for the men, no reason.

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I suppose the financials wouldn't make sense because the tours are not affiliated in any way. If they were owned by the same people perhaps there would be incentive to share resources and build a crossover audience. 

As for getting 288 players around the course, what if the fields were cut down to, say, 75 in each field? Maybe for some select, lower tier tournaments? Rather than seeing #100-#125 on the PGA Tour, I wouldn't mind seeing #1-#25 on the LPGA tour, for example. 

As for personal experience, I went to the Rocket Mortgage Classic held here in Detroit in June. The biggest name in the field was Ricky Fowler. I am certain having Lexi an a few other LPGA stars (maybe with a Saturday finish?) might have increased the overall excitement of the weekend. Just throwing out ideas. 

[bkuehn1952]

  On 9/16/2019 at 3:37 PM, Braivo said:

perhaps the LPGA and PGA Tours should play their events simultaneously, or perhaps the same week/same venue somehow. 

Anyone else have thoughts on this? 

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An interesting idea but not likely to happen. If one were to try, perhaps the two tours could play a full field event at a venue like Torrey Pines.  Men play the North course on Day 1 while the women play the South.  Then flip flop on Day 2.  The last two days the Women play the North and the men the South.

The downside could be that the disparity in the number of spectators might be underlined rather boldly. Also, lining up enough volunteers for essentially two full tournaments could be difficult. 

 

[mcanadiens]

  On 9/16/2019 at 5:45 PM, rehmwa said:

in the soccer stinkup - did they ever figure out if the women's team had a better, worse, or just different (voluntary and signed by both parties) contract than the men's?

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Mediation broke down and the lawsuit is set to go to court in May 2020. The contracts are definitely different and they were both collectively bargained. 

While naturally, the LPGA golfers would like to make more money, they are in a considerably more comfortable position that the average female soccer player. The pro league, the NWSL, is actually subsidized by US Soccer. Should a player fall off the national team roster, they'd be scraping to just pay the bills. Hence, why they are fighting so hard.

[iacas]

  On 9/16/2019 at 4:41 PM, Patch said:

Depending if enough lpga women showed up, you could easily have a 72 women, and 72 men event.

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The PGA Tour has NO incentive to do that.

  On 9/16/2019 at 4:41 PM, Patch said:

Get a charity, or two involved.

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Charities are better served with a full-field PGA Tour event, like they do now.

  On 9/16/2019 at 4:41 PM, Patch said:

The purse, which would most likely be larger than the lpga plays for now, could be split evenly between the sexes.

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That's hardly fair to the men.

Unless the PGA Tour just wants to "be nice," there's no reason for them to ever really entertain such a thing.

  On 9/16/2019 at 5:15 PM, rehmwa said:

"equitable pay" - so subjective.......IMO an argument looking for a problem that doesn't exist.  Equal pay needs to be driven by comparable profits/results coupled with a similar demand/supply pool.

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Equitable pay is dumb, given the paltry audience size, etc. of the women's game. For all we know they're making more than they should be given their viewership, sponsorship/reach, etc.

  On 9/16/2019 at 6:11 PM, Braivo said:

As for getting 288 players around the course, what if the fields were cut down to, say, 75 in each field? Maybe for some select, lower tier tournaments? Rather than seeing #100-#125 on the PGA Tour, I wouldn't mind seeing #1-#25 on the LPGA tour, for example.

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Again, there's no reason for the PGA Tour to do that. None. They'd be bringing 95% of the audience, resources, etc. They're the much heavier hitter. And they get 50% credit or whatever? Pffft. Horrible deal for them.

[rehmwa]

  On 9/16/2019 at 7:44 PM, iacas said:

The PGA Tour has NO incentive to do that.

Charities are better served with a full-field PGA Tour event, like they do now.

That's hardly fair to the men.

Unless the PGA Tour just wants to "be nice," there's no reason for them to ever really entertain such a thing.

Equitable pay is dumb, given the paltry audience size, etc. of the women's game. For all we know they're making more than they should be given their viewership, sponsorship/reach, etc.

Again, there's no reason for the PGA Tour to do that. None. They'd be bringing 95% of the audience, resources, etc. They're the much heavier hitter. And they get 50% credit or whatever? Pffft. Horrible deal for them.

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I think this whole series of responses really highlights the nature of political correctness type "equity" arguments in that every action that is 'supposed' to help the 'oppressed' group comes at an expense to other groups (in this case, significant hurt to the PGA, or even to the charity events that would be forced to align).  In this case, it's not fair in that neither the PGA, nor any hypothetical charity event, took anything away from the LPGA and they are innocent bystanders - they don't 'owe' anything to the other group.

IMHO - True improvements, true evolution (broader comment on equity policy and pushes in general) are false and will fail unless they actually come from sincere market and societal trends.  i.e., you can't 'fake' it, you can't force it, it has to happen organically.  And there has to be a real justification other than a subset thinks it "should be this way. 

my apologies for the tangent

[iacas]

  On 9/16/2019 at 7:55 PM, rehmwa said:

I think this whole series of responses really highlights the nature of political correctness type "equity" arguments in that every action that is 'supposed' to help the 'oppressed' group comes at an expense to other groups (in this case, significant hurt to the PGA, or even to the charity events that would be forced to align).  In this case, it's not fair in that neither the PGA, nor any hypothetical charity event, took anything away from the LPGA and they are innocent bystanders - they don't 'owe' anything to the other group.

IMHO - True improvements, true evolution (broader comment on equity policy and pushes in general) are false and will fail unless they actually come from sincere market and societal trends.  i.e., you can't 'fake' it, you can't force it, it has to happen organically.  And there has to be a real justification other than a subset thinks it "should be this way. 

my apologies for the tangent

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Then you may have badly misread what I said.

I'm simply arguing the business sense: the PGA Tour has no incentive to want to do this.

[rehmwa]

  On 9/16/2019 at 7:59 PM, iacas said:

Then you may have badly misread what I said.

I'm simply arguing the business sense: the PGA Tour has no incentive to want to do this.

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no, I got it.  the rest is my separate spin on it.

However, it is interesting how pushing many agendas seems to be in direct conflict with just good business sense....

[Bonvivant]

Erik Anders Lang talked about the exact opposite when he was in Japan. Over there the female tour does way better than the male tour, in viewership/revenue/etc. He interviewed/played a match with a Japanese American woman that went to Japan to play because it was a much better deal for her over there. It really is about what the people want, and you can't make people like something by lumping it together with something else.