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Nelly Korda and LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan on Tuesday of Chevron week.
Jack Hirsh/GOLF
Nelly Korda had simply won her second major title, her fifth LPGA occasion in a row, and he or she was beginning to get those self same outdated questions once more.
What’s it going to take to raise ladies’s golf? How can we get extra folks to look at the LPGA? When are extra folks going to come back to your occasions?
She had answered a majority of these questions earlier that week in The Woodlands, Texas, and her reply remained the identical days later.
“We’d like a stage,” Korda stated. “We should be on primetime TV, and we have to showcase the expertise we have now out right here, which is so much. We additionally want the assist from not simply the crowds however the tv networks.”
Her callout of TV networks was well-received by followers after a reasonably mediocre NBC final-round broadcast of the Chevron Championship, which appeared understaffed and was unable to fully engage viewers with graphics and storylines.
But it’s hard to look at the way Korda has performed in 2024, successful all however one in all her six begins and grabbing a stranglehold on the highest spot in ladies’s golf, and never draw comparisons to what Caitlin Clark did over the previous 4 seasons for ladies’s basketball.
Clark, who simply completed her profession at Iowa, rewrote file books for scoring and assists for each males’s and girls’s faculty basketball gamers. Behind a renewed advertising and marketing push from NCAA broadcast associate ESPN, Clark’s closing look within the ladies’s NCAA title recreation drew 18.9 million viewers, essentially the most for a basketball recreation at any stage since 2019 and marking the primary time ever the ladies’s championship recreation bested the lads’s.
Why Nelly Korda was right to call out TV coverage after historic victory
The ultimate spherical of the Chevron drew simply 936,000 viewers on NBC, even lower than it did a 12 months in the past. Regardless of the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage in a rain delay for a lot of the published window on CBS that day, greater than twice as many individuals nonetheless tuned in to that broadcast.
On the grounds at Carlton Woods, the folks have been out to see Korda make historical past. With the win, she turned simply the third LPGA participant ever to win 5 occasions in a row. LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan informed a bunch of reporters whereas strolling down the eighth fairway that it could have been the most effective crowd at a home LPGA occasion since she took over as commissioner three years in the past.
However there may be nonetheless work to be executed, and if there’s anybody who heard Korda’s name for a stage loud and clear, it’s Matt Chmura.
Chmura is the LPGA’s chief advertising and marketing, communications and model officer, and he’s nonetheless simply two years into the job. On the Chevron, Chmura sat down with GOLF.com to debate what the LPGA is doing to capitalize on Korda’s play — she goes for her sixth straight win this week — what the league has discovered, the place it’s going, the way it can get extra eyeballs on the ladies’s recreation and extra.
(Ed. be aware: This Q and A has been flippantly edited for size and readability.)
Jack Hirsh: So I perceive your position is considerably new to the LPGA. How so?
Matt Chmura: Yeah, it’s a job that, Mollie [Marcoux Samaan], our commissioner, type of created and I don’t need to confuse issues, as a result of there have been lots of people performing some features of selling within the group, nevertheless it was by no means type of constructed out in a strong means. Not advertising and marketing per se, like we had folks in artistic. We had folks in broadcast. We had some folks in content material. We had comms, however what we’ve actually tried to do is create a recent advertising and marketing division.
It has 4 verticals inside it: communications, broadcast content material, advertising and marketing after which enterprise intelligence.
Lots of my time within the first 20 months was type of understanding our enterprise, studying our enterprise. Like seeing the place the shortfalls have been after which type of creating the technique to type of carry the place we’re.
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You simply listed off 4 totally different verticals. What would you want to do this if or if you go away this position, you’d really feel profitable?
I feel it’s like doing the foundational work and setting the infrastructure in place that anyone within the group and anyone on the workforce can go away and the Tour is in a very good place to maintain the momentum. Our athletes deserve the most effective and so they need to have the right infrastructure in place that may create that business worth for them to drive towards fairness and for us to drive towards fairness. And you may’t skip steps alongside the way in which. Like our web site. We’re redoing our web site and our app proper now. It’s a large funding for the tour. It’s one thing that hasn’t been executed in nearly a decade.
You talked about leaving the LPGA in a very good place. Do you assume it’s in a very good place now?
Yeah, I imply if you have a look at how a lot purses have grown from 2021 to now, it’s vital. I feel we have now a number of work to be executed throughout all areas of our enterprise, and I feel that we’re always striving to get higher. And I feel that we’re uber-focused on doing these foundational issues. After which as soon as we get that executed, then I hold driving for higher for our athletes. That to me is without doubt one of the coolest elements of what we’re doing due to the enterprise construction of our entity, like the cash that is available in via the business worth that we create goes proper to our athletes.
It’s no secret what’s occurring in ladies’s sports activities with ladies’s basketball and Caitlin Clark. What goes via your head if you see the NCAA Girls’s Nationwide Championship outrate the lads’s title recreation?
It doesn’t matter in the event that they’re male or they’re feminine or what sport they play, elite athletes are elite athletes, and I feel folks need to watch elite athletes. And that’s what our gamers are, is elite athletes. And I feel you possibly can see the funding that the broadcasters [ESPN] have made on that aspect, in each the manufacturing high quality and the timeslots that they’re on and the advertising and marketing round it. You’ll be able to see the emphasis the NCAA has positioned on it, and if the infrastructure is there and the elite athletes are there, there’s a marketplace for it.
What do you need to do to get Nelly Korda the stage she needs?
It goes into a number of the work that we’re doing. It’s having the fitting digital platforms, having the fitting methods to achieve all of the totally different followers wherever they eat content material. And so a few of them are going to eat NBC/Golf Channel. A few of them are going to eat ESPN+. A few of them are going to eat our social channels. A few of them are going to eat content material that’s on our internet and our app. It’s getting all of these properties, maximizing the potential that we have now in these properties after which letting our athletes carry out. I feel the stage is thru all of these.
What we have now to do is present content material on every a kind of channels that’s compelling of our athletes, so that each totally different fan can eat the nice play of our athletes via the channel they like. And I feel for us, that’s a giant focus is offering that stage. I feel she’s spot on.
Korda has received 4 instances this season, however solely $1.2 million in prize cash (she doubled that by successful the Chevron for her fifth straight win). That’s only a third of what Scottie Scheffler obtained for successful the Masters. How can we get nearer to equal pay throughout genders?
It’s one factor to ask for fairness. And positively, we would like fairness, however we have now to do our jobs to proceed to offer that business worth for manufacturers. If you’re sitting in there saying, “Now we have X amount of cash to spend on advertising and marketing, the LPGA is simply nearly as good of choice as their male counterparts.” And so we have to drive in the direction of that.
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It was reported the LPGA is now working with Naomi Osaka’s media firm, Hana Kuma. What does that partnership entail?
Our athletes are so targeted on what occurs on the golf course, as they need to be. However we all know we have to assist them with social presence, and so they don’t essentially have the groups that a few of their male counterparts do to assist them with that. And so, the Hana Kuma workforce has been a terrific associate thus far. Once more, like on my aspect of the enterprise, we have now SeatGeek, who’s dealing with our tickets. Now we have Aspire who’s promoting our tickets. Now we have an organization really out promoting tickets. The LPGA has by no means had that.
And so Hana Kuma is working two totally different type of sides of a program for us. We’ve picked eight athletes (the names will likely be unveiled at a later date) which were hand-selected that wished to do this. They’re going to have interaction with Hana Kuma on actually creating their social presence and higher understanding all that goes into social media. The opposite half is that they’re working a program for all of our athletes who need to be concerned, to only train them extra about social media and what’s efficient and what’s higher for them and the way they will lean into it and the way they need to use it.
Our athletes aren’t workforce sport athletes who signal a five-year deal. They must carry out to remain right here week in, week out. So that they’re laser-focused on what occurs between the ropes. And so our job is to offer them as many instruments as we will to assist them achieve success outdoors the ropes.
When you’ve gotten an athlete like Nelly who’s received 4 (now 5) in a row, does that make your job simpler?
We’re witnessing generational greatness and I feel that’s a very good factor, clearly. However we have now a number of stars and elite athletes on this tour, so I feel placing that strain on Nelly is unfair, or suggesting that she is the one that should carry our tour up. This isn’t one individual. It’s a collective effort. It’s the gathering of athletes which might be out right here, which might be elite, that stare one another down each week.
