Raymond James, the financial corporation best known for its longtime sponsorship of the Buccaneers\u2019 home stadium, is expected to be the new title sponsor of Greensboro\u2019s PGA Tour event, which is also expected to have a place on the tour\u2019s top-level Championship Series in 2028, according to sources. <\/p>\n
Raymond James\u2019 entry comes as Wyndham\u2019s 20-year title sponsorship of the Wyndham Championship expired with this week\u2019s event<\/a>, which had led to some in the industry to question the future of the event. Sources expected Wyndham to return in some form as a sponsor of the tournament. As SBJ previously reported, the event is expected to be a full-field tournament in 2027 and a Championship Series stop in 2028. <\/p>\n In addition to the host course Sedgefield Country Club, industry chatter has been that the tour could potentially look at other Greensboro-area options. It\u2019s also not out of the realm of possibility that the tournament could move to a different place in the calendar; for years it was played in the spring. Just this week, the first three rounds were all suspended at some point due to inclement weather amid North Carolina\u2019s hot and humid summer. <\/p>\n The length of Raymond James\u2019 deal was unknown, as well as how much it paid. The tour is said to be commanding at least $30M annually from Championship Series title sponsors (along with yearly escalators). The North Carolina General Assembly also is offering up to $40M<\/a> to help keep the tournament on the tour and at the Championship Series level, and at least part of that is expected to help with some of Raymond James\u2019 sponsorship cost. The bill states the tour would have to enter into a binding agreement with the Piedmont Triad Charitable Foundation, which runs the tournament, requiring the tour to hold at least four successive \u201cqualifying events,\u201d meaning Championship Series tournaments, over a four-year period.<\/p>\n The tour has confirmed five other Championship Series events for 2028: the Sompo Championship<\/a>, The Sentry<\/a>, the Travelers Championship<\/a>, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and the Cadillac Championship<\/a>. It\u2019s widely expected other Signature events will become Championship Series tournaments, including the Truist Championship, RBC Heritage, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Memorial Tournament and Genesis Invitational. Others said to be in play for the top level include the WM Phoenix Open and the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. <\/p>\n BMW\u2019s current sponsorship of the BMW Championship is set to expire after the 2027 event, though it\u2019s widely expected the automaker will renew into the 2030s. Unclear is whether it will be a Championship Series tournament or part of the tour\u2019s postseason, which is still being ironed out. Details on the revamped postseason are expected closer to the Tour Championship later this month.<\/p>\n One perhaps surprising tournament said to have put in a bid for the Championship Series is the 3M Open, the only PGA Tour event in Minnesota. Though sources said 3M\u2019s bid isn\u2019t related, the former chairman and CEO of 3M, Michael Roman, was added to the PGA Tour\u2019s Policy Board in late July. Earlier this year, it was reported<\/a> that the Texas Children\u2019s Houston Open was eyeing a top-level event.<\/p>\n Last week, SBJ reported that the FedEx St. Jude Championship was not going to be part<\/a> of the Championship Series. Only a handful of available Championship events remain<\/a> from a sponsorship perspective.<\/p>\n Raymond James\u2019 sponsorship of the Buccaneers\u2019 stadium is slated to run through the 2027 NFL season. The PGA Tour did not comment for this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raymond James, the financial corporation best known for its longtime sponsorship of the Buccaneers\u2019 home stadium, is expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,3332,99],"class_list":["post-808620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-pga-tour","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808620","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=808620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}