Is women’s golf the best investment in sport right now?
Women’s sport has been having time in the sun of late.
Arguably the catalyst for this trend was the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Broadcast figures were lauded at reaching over a billion viewers – 1.12 billion to be exact – and the world’s most popular sport had finally woken up to the potential of targeting the other half of the globe’s population.
For reference, a year earlier, the men’s tournament had a viewership of 3.57 billion. Whilst at a 3x ratio, this may seem like a ginormous gap, but a billion people is still a billion people.
Cricket, slightly surprisingly, is the most watched women’s sport in the UK at 41% of the 33 million total viewership in 2021. We can likely attribute this to The Hundred’s free-to-view broadcast and as a consequence of England’s World Cup win in 2017 at Lords.
The Netball Superleague has become a case study in how to run a sports federation. In 2019, Sky Sports dedicated an entire channel to netball, and they broadcast all 60 games of the world cup held in England free on YouTube with participation numbers increasing as a result.
So where does that leave us with golf?
The headlines over the past six months have been encouraging. Prize money at the top end of the game has increased significantly.
The USGA announced that their US Women’s Open prize purse be $10 million in 2022 thanks to their presenting sponsor ProMedica. The Chevron Championship followed suit by raising theirs to $5 million as a part of their new sponsorship deal. With the PGA of America following suit, doubling their women’s purse to $9 million.
However the women’s game is still criminally under promoted and supported. The talent level is no less, and yet the commercial realities are troublesome to say the least. For a more articulate view on this I would encourage you to read some of Meg Maclaren’s written word.
Alongside the dollars and cents, the women are playing a different game at the moment. In a time of infinite data and cutting edge performance tools on the men’s side, the LPGA only starting utilising strokes gained last summer. The knock on effect is a lag for the professionals in how to improve, practice and train.
Broadcast coverage is secondary in terms of time windows and scheduling. Ultimately this is understandable from a broadcaster perspective due to the viewing figures, but is there room for innovation here? Could you play Sunday to Wednesday for some tournaments perhaps? Equally, wherever you sit on the LIV debacle, wasn’t it a huge miss not to include women in some fashion?
The women’s game does have a few aces up its sleeve to play. In a time of the golf ball going too far, the women have a distinct advantage: tournament venues. The mouth salivates in the US at the Country Club of Charleston in 2019, this year’s Pine Needles and Riviera CC in four years time. Whereas in the UK, the WBO will head to Muirfield, Walton Heath and Royal Porthcawl over the few years.
The talent level has never been higher. Jin Young Ko at the end of last year had 15 consecutive rounds in the 60s, earlier this year hit 66 consecutive greens in regulation, and also set the LPGA record for most straight sub par rounds (lol).
Couple the above with some genuine super stars at the top of the game, namely the Korda sisters, Minjee Lee, Lydia Ko’s and a dozen others, and you have yourself some real excitement to get your teeth into.
The Volvo Scandinavian Mixed tournament was a great success with long hitting Swede Linn Grant beating Open champion and compatriot Henrik Stenson by 9 shots. The vista of having the same course played by men and women, competing for the same prize pool is another step in the right direction that the LET and DPWT should be lauded for.
The green shoots of change are there. We would urge you to watch this documentary on the Stanford Women’s Golf Team for instance. The narratives created are so rich that when Rose Zhang and Rachel Heck make it out on tour, they will have a plethora of fans that should begin to solve some of the issues laid out above.
We at VPAR are bullish on Women’s Golf, and believe more should be too.