Kostis Calls For Purse "Rollback"
Retired Tweeter Peter Kostis has never been a fan of a ball rollback but he believes the PGA Tour should immediately cut all purses 10%, sending five percent of the savings to charity and the other five back to sponsors.
I'm sure the stand-up guy he is, Kostis has offered CBS a similar deal. Cut 10% of his pay and give half to the Les Moonves's bonus fund and the other half back to CBS.
Everyone is down, and spending in golf is seen as a very bad corporate idea when people are being laid off.
We need to have an immediate 10 percent rollback in purse structures. Of that rollback, 5 percent should go to local charities of the event and 5 percent should go back to the sponsor.
The Tour is fond of two words: partners and charity, and both need some help, a lot more than Tiger Woods needs another $10 million. If we can highlight the Tour's good charitable work and make some short-term concessions to the sponsors, then maybe we can change the perception that golf is a rich guy's game isolated from the concerns and problems of regular working people. Because golf is the game of regular working people, as you can see every day at your local muni.
And as a country club member, Peter can attest!
Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 07:07 PM
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Reader Comments (28)
I am sure CBS loves their employees giving business advice to customers...
Is he talking about golf in the UK?
Last time I checked, the golf scene in the US was still pretty much dominated by Private Clubs, RE Developments/clubs and CCFADs that are nowhere near affordable for "regular working people".
Furthermore, most "affordable publics" in the US provide their consumers with 5+ hour rounds that are driving people away from the game in droves.
Reducing purses at PGA tournaments by 10% will do nothing to change the landscape of the game or the perception that "muni golfers" have of pros in the US.
Professional golf IS played for far too much money. Playing for so much money causes players to lose touch with reality.
American players won't go outside the USA because it's all just too much trouble;players complain about having to work 25 weeks a year;tournaments are sold to undesirable venues merely because of the money they offer.
None of this is particularly healthy.
cbs is an openly for-profit entity, while the tour is a phoney-baloney charitable organization which would have everyone believe that its only reason for existence is to bring happiness to little bald-headed cancer kids. giving money to charities is consistent with what real charitable organizations do.
DM
The PGA Tour depends on corporate sponsorships. . . Those sponsorships are tied to charitable donations in the local communities. . . The financial viability of these tournaments is dependent upon those sponsors - unlike other sports in which Teams own themselves, derive most of their money from attendance and media support then make discretionary donations to charities of their own choosing out of their profits. . . At a time like this, when charities are struggling for funds, the PGA Tour, which constantly "talks the charitable talk," should "walk the walk" and use the Kostis suggestion to help charities and sponsors. . . PGA Tour players are NOT overpaid compared to other major sports - especially since they must perform every year without guaranteed contracts. . . But, the PGA Tour has a very different business plan compared to other sports and they should act to assist their so called "partners." . . . If sponsors drop out and tournaments go away, the damage is to the community and not so much to individual Tour players.
So Kostis should continue to profit from the non-profit because he works for a non-profit, even as he calls for a reduction in the non-profit's purses?
Maybe Kostis is making this call for his corpoate masters at CBS, who would like those sponsors to buy extra ad time with their savings. Then his call doesn't seem so wholesome does it?
But Geoff - your question about whether Kostis offered the same deal to his bosses at CBS was classic.
Walking G - you couldn't be more wrong. Better take a look at the numbers of courses in the US. The majority are munis and public courses - not private country clubs.
also, kostis's legitimacy (to the extent he has any) is not dependent on us thinking that he spends all his time making sick and underprivileged children feel better, or whatever the current tour narrative is. as i understand it, the tour's value proposition to sponsors is that by sponsoring a tour event, they get to look like good corporate citizens by associating their event with a local charity.
Or do the tour stops actually give a lot of money? If they do, then calling names is not so very refined of you.
I haven't read Kostis' twitter tweets, but the idea is worth putting out there. Maybe he's got one eye on what's happened to the LPGA. Or maybe he's just one more guy that's a little sore about these lifeless schmucks walking off with so much cash in their pants.
thusgone's reply basically took the words out of my mouth, but I was going to also add that you don't seen to have any idea what you are talking about and you tried to hide behind some kind of word-play.
I spent 20 years on a muni and had no idea it was incorrect to say muni. I naively thought muni was short for municipal and not some derogatory term.
I won't say muni anymore.
Muni. Ok, that's the last time.
Muni.
Muni. Muni. Muni
I think his idea makes sense, and what's occurring here is nothing different than what occurs when a golfer speaks out and is criticized... despite the media saying they'd like it if more golfers spoke out.
Kostis's suggestion is short-sighted. It's a preposterous notion that a 10% purse cut will make the PGA Tour more appealing or somehow make sponsors more content. Yes, purses are high and lots of guys make a living playing the PGA Tour without making much of an impact. Heard that one for years, and some of it is true.
However, to think that the image of the elitist image of the game is driven by PGA Tour purses is a stretch. I believe as with too much of Peter's work, he has conflicts that raise questions. golf.com should not have run the piece because Kostis has a potential conflict of interest here that as happens way too often, he abuses. CBS could stand to gain from his idea, since ad revenues are surely down and sponsors are buying the minimum required amount of spots. Extra purse money saved would go either to the company coffers or CBS, and do nothing to help golf's image as a rich guy's game.
The idea would hold more weight if he himself proposed doing the same out of his love of charity and the game. Or maybe he could give all of his Titleist and infomercial proceeds to charity? It's easy to suggest taking money away from players (and their caddies), but not so fun of an idea when you apply it to yourself.
And is golf's image really going to improve when the Northern Trust Open goes from $5.6 to $5.1 million? Is Northern Trust bank going to be more likely to stay on as a sponsor because of the gesture? Will the "muni" golfer suddenly find the tour more relatable again? Sure, maybe a few people would enjoy the gesture, but most just want the PGA Tour to be exciting to watch, whatever the purse may be.
Indeed. Return to the 60-exempt TOUR and watch the competitive balance reassert itself based on actual ability to excel at tournament golf at the highest level.