Hello friends.
Denny Cash will be making his triumphant return to the podcast soon. I’m opening the floor to any questions you may have about finances in professional golf. What would you want to know?
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We always hear about how wonderful the pension is. Let’s hear the actual details, with actual (could be sample) numbers.
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This may be a bit too much inside baseball, but I’d be interested to know how pro golfers manage their earnings (and pay themselves), e.g. do they use LLCs, S-Corps, etc, things of that nature.
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How does the player equity stuff even work? Say Rory owns 5% of the PGATOUR through equity. Does he sell it back to them? Is it worth cash? Could he sell it to anyone he wants? Wouldn’t it get diluted eventually by more and more players earning more and more equity? Is the equity tied to the overall value of the PGATOUR? Who values it? How does SSG work?
It’s a total black box for me right now.
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If a tour pro had to buy their equipment how much would they be spending per year? Another point in the “we can’t bifurcate because we want to play the same equipment as the pros” but pros are constantly changing staffs, balls, drivers, adding and removing clubs. Think it would be cool to see how much money you would have to spend to stay on par with the professionals.
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Tax talk!
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Unsure if it has been covered before but how long does it take from tournament ending to player getting paid?
This is something I’m curious about too
Like with golf pass be contracting directly with Rory McIlroy or Rory McIlroy LLC
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Pretty sure it’s been mentioned multiple times from multiple players that the winnings usually hit on Tuesday after the tournament.
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I would like Mr Cash to go into detail on exactly how companies find value in spending $12-$15 million to be the title sponsor of an event. Are there really any extra sales generated as a result of the brand exposure, or is it more of a loss leader concept where the goal is to keep current customers happy.
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Many of these guys talk of their “teams.” And choose “we” when describing how “we” performed. Long swing, short game, putting, and mental coaches. Agents. Caddy, etc.
All those folks cost money. I’d like to know how high into the yearly money you need to be to cover all of those personnel expenses. Top 100? And what are the arrangements to pay these folks? Hourly? Do they get a cut, etc. Maybe good sponsorships cover that and the on course winnings are gravy?
I’ll hang up and listen, thanks.
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Aside from the money being offered by a potential sponsor, what do companies include in their sales pitch to a golfer when trying to sign them? Less a question about the OEMs and more about the fortune 500 sponsors.
Additionally, do companies come in saying we want the left sleeve or the right sleeve? 
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Blue Owl has introduced a model in tennis of sponsoring players round by round, more based on the opponent than the sponsored player. Do you think a version could work for golf based on playing partner? Why not? Lack of guaranteed coverage? Players favouring longer deals?
Hasnt Soly given the KPMG answer on this before? $15M is a rounding error on and P&L sheet for these companies, all to schmooze their top clients or targets. Its outrageous money to us, but not to their bottom lines.
A friend of mine is a co-owner in a small air-con filter business and they rent a large corporate box for $50K to one of the big AFL games each year. Bring their biggest account and 2-3 prospects…on average it nets them 2x new $200K accounts and keeps their biggest one happy each year. Small fry compared, but the parallel is probably fair.
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I’m curious on this generally, as well. Like, what does it cost just to be a touring professional golfer? I assume the travel costs can vary wildly and assume even outlay to coaches, managers and all that can vary considerably as well but what is the range? What is the least you can reasonably spend to be on the KFT? On the PGAT? What’s the high end?
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James Nicholas, KFT player, did a breakdown on his full year costs, if you’re interested. Would love more detail on the pod though.
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Isn’t this exactly what the first Denny Cash pod covered?
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I don’t remember to be honest
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Might not have been the Denny Cash ep but there was one in the last year or two where they went deep into the “why do companies sponsor events?” topic
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Is the PGA Tour a Ponzi scheme? The purses have gone up tremendously and the sponsors are still there, but viewership hasn’t been great (although better last year). Also a lot of new things like PIF over the last decade that didn’t exist beforehand.
In short, where is all this money coming from? Did they liquidate all the Phil NFT assets?
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