Megan Khang<\/a>, a Boston native, had this amazing comment [Wednesday], she basically said to New Englanders, \u201cJust come see us.\u201d She\u2019s right. When I took our boys to their first LPGA event, they fell in love, and now they want to watch golf on the weekends, women\u2019s golf on the weekends. The more we can do to give people exposure, the faster they\u2019ll fall in love.<\/p>\nQ. Media deals are part of that exposure, but how about social media and telling stories there?<\/p>\n
A. Storytelling is critical. Here\u2019s how I think about it. Think about a Venn diagram with the highest-performing athletes in one circle, the most-marketable athletes in another circle, it\u2019s the folks in the center \u2014 we need to create stars out of those women, and hopefully as fans hear their stories and those stories resonate, they\u2019ll continue to tune in, week in and week out, to watch their favorite players.<\/p>\n
Q. You can\u2019t authentically create a star, can you, in terms of performance at least? <\/p>\n
A. Think about some of your favorite athletes in any sport over the course of your life. There was a combination of those two things. Generally, they weren\u2019t just great athletes, or they weren\u2019t just super interesting personalities, it was the combination of the two that made them so special. It\u2019s our job to identify who those players are and then work with them on a plan to bring those stories to life.<\/p>\n
Q. In North America and worldwide, women\u2019s sports is riding a wave \u2014 it\u2019s \u201cnot a moment, it\u2019s momentum,\u201d right? Where do you see the LPGA on that wave?<\/p>\n
A. I think we\u2019re on the precipice of having our breakthrough moment in a really sustainable way. People love our athletes. We just need more people to get exposure to them. And when these athletes become household names, I think what you\u2019re seeing in the WNBA is totally possible for us to have, that kind of breakthrough.<\/p>\n
Q. What will it take to follow through on that vision? Is it getting the women\u2019s stories out there? And their talent?<\/p>\n
A. What I\u2019m learning is there is no single silver bullet solution, but brick by brick we will get there. So storytelling is a part of it, building into existing associations. We don\u2019t do enough to talk about the colleges that many of our athletes went to, and those colleges already have built in fan bases. We should be tapping into that. <\/p>\n
We have 34 events on the schedule. Every one of those sponsors has a platform and a megaphone. We should be leaning into those megaphones in order to expand the reach of the LPGA. <\/p>\n
As you think about the quality of the broadcast, we\u2019re lucky to have partners in the Golf Channel who, week in and week out, are looking for ways to elevate the quality of what shows up. My point in mentioning all these things is it\u2019s not just one thing but the culmination of lots of little things that will ultimately get us there.<\/p>\n
Q. Is there a women\u2019s league or not just a women\u2019s league, somewhere you can point to and say, \u201cI like how they\u2019re doing it, they\u2019ve done it and this is something we can emulate\u201d?<\/p>\n
A. I\u2019ll give you a great example: The WNBA and what [commissioner] Cathy Engelbert has done. She\u2019s leaned into their partners. So now, when you watch commercials on television, often times when you see an NBA player, you see a WNBA player right next to him. One of the ways fans learn about the personalities of athletes is commercials on television. Let\u2019s showcase ours.<\/p>\n
Q. The WNBA and NBA have a very close relationship \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of investment from the NBA. With the PGA Tour, is there room for more collaboration or a partnership or do you have to do your own thing?<\/p>\n
A. Let\u2019s go back to something we talked about a minute ago. I see an unbelievable amount of opportunity in front of us at the LPGA, and the only way we will capture it is by tapping into partners, anybody who\u2019s willing to help us. We can\u2019t wait to have the conversation, and that includes the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
Q. They\u2019ve done a lot of innovation, some of that\u2019s maybe a reaction to LIV and obviously they have TGL and then there\u2019s their new Futures Committee \u2014 are they in their own silo or can the LPGA be there, too? Are you thinking of innovating in a similar way or can you join forces and innovate?<\/p>\n
A. I think there\u2019s a lot in the question you just asked. Take it any way you want. Yes, innovation is critical to any organization. If you\u2019re not innovating, you\u2019re dying. You know, it\u2019s no different at the LPGA. I think innovations like Topgolf and TGL are critical to growing the game. <\/p>\n
If you look at research from the National Golf Foundation, women and girls are the primary engine of growth right now in the amateur game in the United States. Topgolf plays a huge part in that there are more people playing golf off course at places like Topgolf than there are playing on course for the first time in the history of golf. Those things are huge assets to us. If we can tap into that momentum, our tour will certainly benefit.<\/p>\n
Q. Is there anything else, like baseball using a pitch clock, anything just obvious that you\u2019d like to see?<\/p>\n
A. Totally. Here\u2019s one thing I give the NFL and Major League Baseball enormous credit for. What they\u2019ve recognized is that their primary business is entertainment. If you had told the world five years ago that in extra innings you\u2019d start with a runner on second base, or that there\u2019d be a pitch clock, or that something called a \u201ctorpedo bat\u201d would be a thing, the purists would have said, \u201cNo way.\u201d And guess what? These things have been introduced, and it\u2019s working. Attendance is up. Viewership is up. <\/p>\n
If you had said a handful of years ago in the NFL that the NFL would rethink the kickoff rules and then an extra point would go from 2 yards away to whatever it is now, 15 yards away, the purists would have said, \u201cNo way.\u201d But they\u2019ve leaned into the importance of entertainment. We have to do the same here.<\/p>\n
Q. Any concrete ideas?<\/p>\n
A. I\u2019ll save the concrete ideas for now, but know that we\u2019re working on a few things.<\/p>\n
Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego native, husband to a Dartmouth graduate and father of three boys, exuded a calm but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-119516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}