April 26 -- With the less-than-shocking news that the PGA Tour golfers, execs and TV producers confabbed recently to figure out how to breath life into its on-air telecasts, perhaps it’s time to think beyond the idiot box and into today’s wired media.
The Club Cup is an event-in-the-making in which two LPGA Tour golfers and two PGA guys would play actual tourneys alongside each other. The brainchild of a group of Boston entrepreneurs who believe television is so yesterday, the event would broadcast live on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets.
Who needs TV? “We’re not talking about building a TV audience,” Ken Smith, The Club Cup founder and chair, said in a recent interview with Boston Golf Examiner. “We’re talking about a Facebook, LinkedIn audience...where you’ll get more bang for your buck.”
The Club Cup is quietly building Facebook and Twitter followings for matches that would pit two players from each major tour against golfers from their own tours. The attention-getting gimmick would be that they would all play on the same course at the same time.
“This is a new-format professional tour event,” Smith said. “We’re addressing issues involved with attracting new players, sponsors, and more women to the game.”
Wired for golf. Organizers are targeting young, wired tour players as those most likely to be open to the new concept. With a handful of PGA and LPGA players reportedly expressing interest, Club Cup organizers are jazzed about the possibility of this thing taking off.
“We have 2 PGA and 3 LPGA young players interested and they are all wired/online/facebook/twitter/etc.,” Smith typed in an e-mail.
Hmmm. Might we see Rickie Fowler jousting with Ian Poulter in a Club Cup tourney? Twitter queen and colorful LPGA star Christina Kim, who gushed about the LPGA's new Mojo 6 format, would be a natural for the alternative Club Cup.
Smith remained tight-lipped about who the golfers are, citing tour confidentiality rules. It’s not out of the question, however, to wonder if Twitterati poster-children Kim, Fowler, and Poulter are among those considering teeing it up in the Club Cup.
Invitation-only. The Ryder Cup-style events would be by invitation only (serial philanderers need not apply, said Smith) and would include pro-am events. Smith’s idea would be to have the women tee off first, and then the foursome would play honors.
“Rather than just watching Ernie Els hit an iron shot on holes 14, 15, and 16,” Smith posited, “maybe someone would also like to watch Michelle Wie hit her iron shot on [the same holes].”
If that flies, and pending involvement by golf courses and equipment suppliers, there could also be a night-time event under solar-powered lights.
Wait’ll next year? The inaugural one-week event, which Smith said he hopes to launch in the Orlando, FL, region in the fall of 2011, would also involve activities aimed at attracting women and young players to the game of golf. Additional activities might include “Learn to Play” lessons from caddies and pros at the events, a golf-themed fashion show, and a golf gear pavilion and product demos targeting women. Tourney director Doug Hollandsworth will run the actual events.
Smith promised the Club Cup would be no rinky-dink operation.
“We’re talking about big money involved,” he said, noting that shrinking TV audiences (except, of course, when Tiger Woods is involved) may spur deep-pocketed sponsors such as Facebook to shell out cash for an event that’s “radically different from anything out there.”
Not your father’s sponsors. The corporate check-writers themselves would likely be different from the typical AIG, Waste Management, and the ever-popular official PGA Tour sponsor Cialis (can someone please explain the two bathtubs, please?).
With all the players involved having their own Facebook accounts, Smith envisioned the golfers blogging about the event to all their followers.
“This is a Facebook event,” he remarked. “This is a new event, new format, with new players, for a new era of technology and media.”
Growing interest. The Club Cup has 19 new-media sponsors and some 400 Facebook followers, according to Smith. And in the interest of full disclosure: The Club Cup’s home page lists Boston Golf Examiner as the first publication under its “New media coverage” section. BGE is also on the panel of experts for the Voice of Women’s Golf (VOWG), one of the Club Cup’s several sponsors.
Speaking of new media, Tiger Woods tried his hand at blogging last week. While golf observers believe Woods had absolutely nothing to do with the actual writing of his inner-most thoughts, you may read how the golf ace apologized for cussing during the Masters, and many other fascinating nuggets of info.
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