The European Tour: The Problem and the Road Ahead.

At one point, the European Tour was the place to be: European golfers were dominating the golfing world with Seve Ballesteros leading the way. The United States' most prestigious tournament, The Masters, had 11 European Winners within 20 years. It was a strange time for golf in The United States as the greats such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus had passed their peak and Tiger Woods was starting elementary school.

In recent years, however, the golfers in Europe have continued to show dominance whilst the European Tour has noticeably went downhill while the US PGA Tour has been constantly growing. The first thing that the audience look for is the players who are playing in the tournament, they tend not to care where the tournament is or what tour it is on. Viewers just want a quality level of golf with some headline acts. Appearance money is the main channel in order to bring in those "A-Lister" golfers. You may wonder where can The European Tour could these extra funds without looking too hard? Prize money. For most dedicated professional golfers, they tend to care more about the World Rankings rather than the prize money. Therefore, the European Tour should decrease the prize money and use the additional money to compile a group of golfers who are the crème de la crème. If they manage to clinch a couple of big names then other well-known players will follow as they want to play the best. This would be a sufficient test market to run for a trial in order to prove that a substantial increase in viewership would occur if they gathered well-known players.

If this were to be a success then the European Tour would be able to increase television rights and increase sponsorship costs, as it would be in more demand, allowing them to reinstate the prize money to the initial point or even higher.

Why is The Ryder Cup so special?

Now that I have recovered from the adrenaline rush that was The Ryder Cup, I can now write this blog. Golf is a sport that is stereotypically boring to watch. A sport that many say is not a sport. However, something that sticks out like a sore thumb are the statistics for The Ryder Cup: the 3rd most watched sporting event behind The Olympics and The World Cup of Soccer. This event really is something special, but why could it be claimed that it is bigger than major championships that have been going on much longer than The Ryder Cup?

The atmosphere is what makes this event so dramatic. The top players of the world thrive off it. No prize money is involved: competing for complete bragging rights. However, The President's Cup offers the same event and golf being introduced to The Olympics was quite frankly an anti-climax.

From a marketing standpoint, the commercials during the climax towards The Ryder Cup give me goosebumps already as the video above justifies. The whole brand of The Ryder Cup from the merchandise to the blue or red stands, as shown in the images below, does not compare to any other event in the golfing world.

The Ryder Cup has been so big over the past decade as it is a close battle each time. There are many events such as Olympic Basketball where The United States are obviously going to win and The World Cup of Hockey where Canada are likely going to win. Team USA and Team Europe in The Ryder Cup both have equal confidence in bringing The Ryder Cup home. Therefore, the atmosphere that has been built up from the marketing strategies, the brand management, and the competitiveness had created the greatest tournament on the golfing calendar.