In today's WSJ, they had a collection of quotes from various folks from various walks of life, asking them about their New Year's resolution. Martha Stewart adroitly surmised that, in her opinion, it does no good to fein a resolution as a cold-hard promise to ones-self because the truth of the matter is a real resolution needs to be tweaked throughout the year to work.
To me, that's a recipe that I can get behind...I mean, how many of us start a promise only to break it a few weeks later? But tweaking it throughout the year, now that's reality.
That's the world we live in now.
Gone are the days when you could put your 401k on autopilot and sleepwalk to 7% annualized returns...unless you're a Madoff ex...to you, you have my condolences. Due diligence (tweaking) is a required step to get your piece of the pie back.
Sports also are entering an era where there will be less pie to share...all-stars will garner the biggest slice...and it will be crisis control for those not connected to the all-stars.
Gone are the days when the PGA can count on as the ATM of the Tour, and Sorenstam the Western Union of the LPGA. New talent will most definitely need to step-up THIS YEAR to close the income-gap for those less than all star members of these proud organizations. Otherwise, golfers will be downsized faster than a Detroit Union-worker.
I believe the PGA's resolution for 2009 can be seen in the current ad trumpeting the start of the 2009 PGA Tour season. The ad shows a compelling picture of Anthony 'It's the Buckle Stupid' Kim...although the face is obscured by a Nike hat, it sort-of looks like Tiger in a classic pose...until we see the buckle, then we know it's Kim. It's an exciting ad, promoting the Mercedes Benz Championship in Maui. The headline is 'Today Maui...Tomorrow the World'...
...it's a good marketing effort by the PGA (which has been rarer than a Ruth Chris steak), it shows that the PGA is moving on from Tiger-mania, and is taking a page from the most successful sports franchise...the NFL, as they are portraying the golfer as the spokesperson of the PGA, not an individual. I am certain promoting this image will be successful, but I would hope that the PGA's resolution of 'Tomorrow the World' will take a page from Martha's cookbook...
...and be tweaked to resolving to making 'tomorrow'...'today'. The PGA needs to go multi-national now. Its fans and future stars depend on it.
...as does their pie.
Thanks for reading. Keep it in the short-grass,
JFB
2 comments:
The PGA Tour needs to promote the young guns like Kim and Villegas, but it still depends much (if not solely) on Tiger to draw casual fans to the sport. That's just the way things are in golf.
I'm sure the PGA has considered it, but Tiger is bringing in so revenue at the moment, they probably wouldn't want focus their energy elsewhere. I do agree they should consider it and that Kim and Villegas would make great role models.
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