Despite the difficulties stemming from the current feud with LIV Golf, the PGA Tour continues to enjoy the confidence of sponsors. That was evident after Commissioner Jay Monahan announced that 14 sponsorship deals worth $400 million were signed in the last quarter.
According to the Golfweek report, this represents a 143% increase over 2024 and brings the amount of sponsorship commitments to the tour to $4 billion over the next 10 years.
During his meeting with the press ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Monahan highlighted not only the level of sponsorship, but also the loyalty to the Tour, as more than a few have been sponsors of Tour events for more than a decade.
“We are very blessed to have a partner base that, you think about all of our partners, 40 percent of our partnership deals are deals that (have been running at least) 10 years,” Monahan said, according to Golfweek.
“I think looking at the Valspar announcement last week, the 3M announcement this week, and, you know, the strength in those announcements and the commitment that they’re making says an awful lot about the complete platform of the PGA Tour and I just want to say that, on behalf of the players, we’re all very grateful for that.”
At the same meeting, Brian Oliver, the PGA Tour’s executive vice president of corporate partnerships, said that sponsor confidence has been built on the organization’s transparency in doing business.
“There’s a variety of things leading to it,” he said, “but the fundamental part of it is we’d expect and encourage all of our partners and prospective partners seeking a relationship with the Tour to do an evaluation to see if the Tour is the best expenditure for their marketing dollars… it’s validating that they go through that exercise and are continuing to determine that the PGA Tour is the best place to invest to help their business.”
The PGA Tour has not stopped announcing the arrival of new sponsors for both the Tour itself and the tournaments on its calendar. The most recent were a five-year extension with 3M (title sponsor of the 3M Open), the extension of the agreement with Valspar (title sponsor of the Valspar Championship) through 2030, and the agreement with Stanley 1913 as the Official Insulated Drinkware of the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions.
In recent months, several sponsors, such as Honda and Wells Fargo, had severed their relationships with the PGA Tour, but others have steadily arrived to take their place. This group includes Truist, ProCore, Cognizant and OnePassword, among others.
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