The Future of the PGA Tour Is Riding On Tiger Woods' Knee

The PGA Tour earns the majority of its money through five main sources of revenue: Sponsorships, television contracts, corporate hospitality, and tournament attendance.   

Although the PGA Tour is larger than one man, it is quite obvious that Tiger Woods holds a significantly influence over the tour’s sponsorship deals, television contracts, corporate hospitality, and tournament attendance.

The PGA Tour’s rise to becoming a mainstream sport in America over the past decade has been largely to the massive number of fans Tiger Woods has drawn to the game.

For true, die-hard golf fans, the remainder of the 2008 season after Woods went down with the knee injury was very intriguing. 

However, for good or for bad, the vast number of fans Woods has drawn to the game are interested in Tiger Woods and only Tiger Woods. 

Those hordes of "Tiger Woods fans" don’t really care about Padraig Harrington winning back-to-back majors or Kenny Perry’s shocking resurgence in 2008, they are interested solely in watching Tiger Woods and the incredible theatre he provides at just about every tournament he enters.

NBC’s final round telecast of the US Open, where Tiger was leading the tournament while playing on one leg, had one of the highest television ratings ever for a golf tournament.  The number of viewers watching the final round of the 2008 US Open even exceeded those watching Game Five of the NBA finals which was broadcast at the exact same time.

Three days after Woods’ improbable win at the US Open, he shocked the golf world by announcing that he would be having season-ending reconstructive knee surgery. 

From that point on, television ratings and tournament attendance figures took a serious nose dive.

The television ratings for the 2008 British Open dropped 14.6% and would have been significantly worse if it were not for 53-year-old Greg Norman’s miraculous run at the Claret Jug. 

Despite Padraig Harrington making a late Sunday afternoon charge en-route to his second consecutive major championship, the ratings for the final round of the 2008 PGA Championship were down 55% from last year when Woods won the event at Southern Hills.

The ratings for the AT&T Classic and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, two events Woods normally attends, saw a dramatic drop in their ratings without the presence of Woods.

Television ratings were down 48% for the AT&T Classic and 39% for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

The AT&T National, which Tiger hosts and participates in, saw a drop more than 32,000 in their 2008 attendance figures.

Now, unless you have been living under a rock for the past six months, you will know all to well that we are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

This is the type of financial crises that is not just restricted to Wall Street; every corner of the business world is likely to be affected before we pull ourselves out of this ditch, and the PGA Tour is, after all, a business.

Luckily the PGA Tour has planned well enough to lock up all title sponsorship and television contracts through the 2010 season.

However, no one really knows just how long this recession will last and a normal course of action for the PGA Tour would be to begin renegotiating their sponsorship and television contracts during the 2009 season as to ensure that they are prepared for the 2011 season.

The most serious issue facing the PGA Tour is that close to 50% of their title sponsors are companies that are in either the auto or financial service industries.  These are two industries poised to be hit harder than any others during this recession and it will be highly unlikely that many auto or financial service companies will renew their expensive PGA Tour sponsorship deals, if they are still in business at all after this year.

Television ratings and attendance figures are the PGA Tour’s main selling points when attempting to peak the interest of new potential title sponsors, and as demonstrated in this article, neither of those selling points carry much weight without Tiger Woods.   

If Tiger Woods is able to successfully return to the PGA Tour in 2009, it is almost a certainty that the television ratings will once again go through the roof.

Even if the attendance figures remain low as a result of the recession, television ratings are what the sponsors are most interested in.

In addition, if Woods is able to demonstrate that he has made a full recovery from his reconstructive knee surgery, we are likely to see Woods break Jack Nicklaus record of 18 career major wins in the coming years which will be one of the most historic events in the history of the game.

Woods’ pursuit of Nicklaus’ 18 majors will draw the fans and significantly increase the television ratings, which in turn will draw the interest of sponsors and television networks.

As if recovering from a major surgery and returning to the PGA Tour to resume his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’ 18 majors didn’t present Woods’ with enough pressure, he can also tack on the pressure of the PGA Tour’s future riding almost solely upon his back. 

Luckily for the PGA Tour, Woods is arguably the greatest pressure player in the history of sports.