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 News from Around the Americas | July 2005 
A Teenage Golfer May Also Be a Marketer's Dream
 Louise Story - NYTimes
| | Michelle Wie, following her putt in Ohio last week. What stands between her and endorsement riches? Maybe only a victory. (Photo: Kiichiro Sato) |
Michelle Wie came in 23rd at the United States Women's Open last month, behind other personable young golfers - the winner, Birdie Kim, 23, and Brittany Lang, 19, and Morgan Pressel, 17, who tied for second place. Ms. Wie failed to survive elimination in the P.G.A. Tour's John Deere Classic this month and fell short in her attempt to qualify for the Masters tournament next year.
Yet Ms. Wie, 15, is the golfer that sports marketers have their eyes on.
Advertisers say that what differentiates her is her blossoming talent, her personality and her determination to compete with male golfers.
No woman has survived elimination on the P.G.A., the men's golf tour, since Babe Didrikson Zaharias did it in the 1945 Tucson Open. But Ms. Wie, from Honolulu, has made changing that her quest. Ms. Wie, who made history last week as the first woman to qualify for the men's United States Amateur Public Links Championship, is generating a following that one marketer called "Michelle mania."
"She's very much focused at competing not at the top of the women's world, but at the top of the golf world," said Peter Stern, president of the Strategic Sports Group in New York. "She's a great sports story."
Advertisers and network executives said that Ms. Wie could increase interest in golf and command large endorsement deals on a par with the tennis stars Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, who are each earning about $20 million this year. Tiger Woods earns about $80 million a year in endorsements. The question is whether a female golfer could reach that level.
"There's a lot of speculation that she is to women's golf what Tiger was to men's golf," said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. "As Tiger has moved past that and has just been good for the game of golf, in some many ways I think Michelle will hopefully have the ability to transcend her gender and just be a golfer."
If she survives elimination in the next few years in a P.G.A. Tour event, Ms. Wie would be good at reaching young women and girls, marketers said.
"She's their age and watching her compete with, and in some cases beat, men is pretty inspiring," said Jim Brighters, golf editor for the Sports Network, an international sports wire service based in Hatboro, Pa.
Individual female athletes often gain more attention than women on sports teams, sports marketers said. Golfers, the marketers said, were particularly suited to advertising because golf was generally followed by wealthier people and because golfers usually had longer careers than athletes in other sports.
Within a year of entering the P.G.A. Tour in 1996, Mr. Woods signed five-year deals with Nike for $40 million, with the Titleist unit of American Brands for $20 million. After winning the Masters in 1997, he signed with American Express for $13 million and with the Rolex Watch Company for $7 million, according to Brandweek magazine.
But, in terms of endorsements, Mr. Woods is in a league of his own. He now earns more from them annually than the former National Basketball Association star Michael Jordan, who was the first athlete to win many huge endorsements. Mr. Woods far outearned the tennis star Andre Agassi, who was second in endorsements with $44.5 million last year, according to Sports Illustrated. Most other athletes who earned more than $25 million made the bulk of it in salaries, rather than through endorsements.
Serena Williams made the fifth-highest amount in endorsements last year, $20 million. Since then, a fellow tennis player, Ms. Sharapova, has surpassed Ms. Williams, according to Forbes magazine estimates for June 2004 to June 2005. Other female athletes with endorsement deals in recent years include Anna Kournikova, the tennis player; Mia Hamm, the soccer player; and Marion Jones, the track star.
The most prominent player on the women's professional golf tour, the L.P.G.A., Annika Sorenstam, has endorsement deals with companies like Callaway Golf, Mercedes-Benz, Oakley and Rolex. She earned $7.3 million, third-highest among the female athletes featured by Forbes. Ms. Sorenstam was unsuccessful in making a P.G.A. Tour cut in 2003.
The golf industry has benefited from Ms. Wie's gumption this year. On June 24, about 700,000 people watched the United States Women's Open, the event where Ms. Wie placed 23rd, the highest number of viewers ESPN has ever had for a women's golf event, said Dan Quinn, an ESPN spokesman.
John Wildhack, ESPN's senior vice president of programming, said: "I think she definitely has the ability to be one of those athletes that can drive ratings. The next step for her is to win."
The commissioner of the L.P.G.A., Ty M. Votaw, said Ms. Wie had accomplished a lot for a 15-year-old, but still had a lot to prove.
"If she has just played men's events and missed cuts between now and the time she's 25, that market is not going to be there," Mr. Votaw said. "You have, in Michelle, a very unique situation where she has the ability to be compete on the L.P.G.A. tour and the marketability to be attractive to P.G.A. sponsors who want her to play in the P.G.A. Tour events. How long that lasts, time will tell."
Where Ms. Wie ultimately spends most of her time playing - the L.P.G.A. or the P.G.A. - may depend on where she can play best, Mr. Votaw said, adding that Ms. Wie may be able to make more prize money in women's tournaments.
But that does not include endorsement money.
Golfers say it is only a matter of time until Ms. Wie makes the cut at a P.G.A. Tour event.
"She's got to win," said Bob Dorfman, executive creative director of Pickett Advertising in San Francisco, who specializes in matching athletes with marketers. "All the female athletes that are successful are winners. They've won big events." |
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