NAPLES, Fla. — LPGA Tour commissioner Craig Kessler launched a „flywheel“ and spoke of his „Venn diagram“ on Wednesday in releasing a 2026 schedule and plotting a street map for a way the tour can seize on the surge in ladies’s sports activities.
The LPGA schedule has 31 official tournaments with a report prize fund of simply over $128.5 million. Fourteen tournaments raised their purses, wherever from $100,000 to $2 million.
The LPGA additionally has co-sanctioned a Women European Tour occasion funded by Golf Saudi. The Aramco Collection at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas replaces the Match Play, and the purse goes from $2 million to $4 million. Kessler didn’t rule out extra tournaments from the Aramco Collection.
„While you begin a partnership it is essential to return out of the gates robust,“ Kessler stated forward of the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. „And when you execute nicely, it opens up the likelihood for many superb issues to occur. It is no completely different right here.“
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Kessler, the previous chief working officer on the PGA of America, has been on the job solely 120 days and has introduced excessive power in assembly with gamers and sponsors and constructing a management employees round him.
His first massive transfer was a partnership with mutual insurer FM for main upgrades to the published manufacturing, resulting in the primary time each North American match shall be proven stay, together with a 50% enhance in cameras and shot tracing know-how.
„For us to lastly get our shot at having stay TV and for folks investing in our product out right here has been superb,“ Nelly Korda stated. „I can not wait to see the place it’ll go, but it surely all come downs to having nice management and that is what we actually do have right here on the LPGA.“
The published improve was the primary a part of Kessler’s „flywheel,“ which features a schedule with a greater geographic move. The hope is that creates extra followers, which in flip helps with media rights and advertising and marketing companions, resulting in a stronger money move that will get invested again into the product.
„We’re nonetheless — say it the way you need, a progress inventory or a reduced inventory — if I had been an investor pondering of coming in as a companion of the LPGA, now could be the time to do it,“ he stated. „We have not but had our breakthrough second. And if I as an organization seeking to get behind a corporation as exceptional as this one had an opportunity to do it, now can be the time.“
With little time since he took over in the summertime, the schedule appears largely the identical as final yr. He put the 2 Michigan tournaments in consecutive weeks in June that precede the KPMG Girls’s PGA in Minnesota. There’s an Asia swing early and late once more.
The long-term plan is to construct a schedule primarily based on routing, golf programs and prize cash.
„I hope the LPGA is rapidly perceived as among the best companions in all of sports activities,“ Kessler stated. „We do what we are saying we are going to do, and we’ll should take that under consideration as we convey to life what we imagine is the optimum schedule.“
His Venn diagram — three circles that overlap — accounts for efficiency, character and marketability, and a willingness of gamers to advertise themselves and the tour.
Kessler stated he has had two participant conferences through which he stated they should do their half.
„And on the finish I requested, ‚Who’s in?‘ And just about each hand within the room went up,“ he stated. „Now it is on us to truly convey that to life.“
The LPGA is wrapping up a most uncommon season through which solely two gamers — Jeeno Thitikul and Miyuu Yamashita — have gained greater than as soon as. Korda has did not win after capturing seven titles a yr in the past, however even her exceptional season did not assist the LPGA get any extra traction.
There’s power and optimism, and Kessler was nicely conscious there is a lengthy technique to go.
„We compete within the consideration financial system. It isn’t simply in opposition to different sports activities,“ Kessler stated. „Something that has the potential to caption a fan’s consideration, we’re competing in opposition to that. So it is our job to be differentiated, to be fascinating, and seize followers‘ thoughts share in each method we probably can.“
