2015 European Tour schedule announced

First topic message reminder :

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/news/newsid=243647.html

Good to see the European Open back + a new tourney in Scotland. A few dodgy additions such as the Mauritius event. And still hard to comprehend why we have to wait till mid-May to have a tourney in Europe. But all in all the schedule looks better than this year.

Any thoughts?

Mac,
I just see no reason why Europe should throw in the towel, resign itself to losing its premier players to the PGA Tour, or even the web.com.
Meanwhile Europe has been a terrific kicking off point for the careers of so many International golfers, the risk would be run of losing them also.
Don't forget, Europe has tons of other attractions as well; it's not all about money, but it certainly has to be respected.

Kwini

Not sure you are understanding the point.  The European tour could offer half a million dollars more than any other tour - per tournament - other than the PGAT, and reduce its current costs.

In what way does the current model make sense?

The European tour offers half of what the PGAT does per event.

The European tour offers 1.8 million more per event than the next best tour.


It will never match the PGAT and currently overly out competes the remaining tours.  Money is being spent in beating a non existent competitor.  It would not be throwing in the towel to admit the PGAT can never be matched.

It could reduce the funds offered per tournament drastically without altering where European players choose to play.   Why would a player suddenly up sticks from europe to japan or SA to earn less, just because the euro tour offered less than it previously did?

I understand your point, Mac, I just don't agree with it; or would at least approach it in a different way.

Let's just say that I think the European Tour massively underleverages (sure that's not a word) its assets, and that's where I'd start.

The ET (or any other tour) will certainly not attract the best golfers trotting the globe like they do (given the comforts, convenience and purses the US tour offers). Try to make a living week in and week out and have any semblance of a family life is not easy  as you are hopping continents. Seeing all that "the world" has to offer, I would suggest, has very limited appeal to most top professionals.

Were I king I would try to get even more events in Europe (UK in particular) and around the Open Championship window (either side). It's the premier event on the ET and one I would exploit further.

I think everybody on this board exagerates the problems of the european tour. Its always going to be second to the pga tour but it does a good job. Do the players really care weather events are in europe? Would a player rather play in China with 7m prize money or denmark with 1m prize money? If it wants to remain the second tour it must follow the money. Ideally there would be more events in europe but the players would join the web.com if every event had the same prize money as denmark.

Mac, remember that your ET prize figures include the Majors and WGCs, events most regular ET players would not be eligable to play. If you take that away, and reduce purses of 'normal' ET events further, I'm sure many 2nd and 3rd tier ET players would rather try their luck on the web.com, with the prospect of one day making it into the PGA Tour. The result would be an even weaker ET.

pedro

They dont. I took out majors and wgc's from all the tours.

Good conversation going on the ET events... but I think the #800 gorilla in the room, appearance fees and its effect on the ET is hardly getting a mention. I mean let's face it, a good number of the biggest events with the deepest pockets are attracting a good portion of their "chalk name players" via appearance fees. I came across this 2012 ESPN article discussion fees on the European Tour. One example they give is Abu Dhabi with a purse of $2.7 mil at the time... but an appearance fee budget of around $5 mil. I've read that Dubai in January is about the same fee budget, and Qatar about 60% of that.

http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/7493655/european-tour-plays-show-money-star-golfers

Bottom line: With these early M.E. events along with only a few events sprinkled throughout the season and loaded up on the end paying massive appearance fees... HOW in the world is anything else in between supposed to be able to compete? They can't... so the net effect is you already have the cream of Euro players splitting their schedule in the US... then you have them bunched into pretty much the same events when they return (minus the onsies and twosies of Sergio in Spain, Bojrn in Denmark, etc). That leaves everybody else with basically NO field of marketable names.... and little to attract a quality long term sponsor, or otherwise build on.

In the article linked above... Tiger's agent Mark Steinberg addresses the lack of appearance fees on the PGA Tour and nails the reason WHY they don't allow them... "It's a tough question, because I don't think it'll ever happen,'' said Mark Steinberg, Woods' agent. "I think [PGA Tour commissioner] Tim [Finchem] and the board are dead set against that. I don't think they want to create a situation of haves and have-nots."

Now that's not to say appearance fees are non-existent on the PGAT, because there certainly are some {{wink-wink}} arrangements via personal services contracts (like Greenbriar) and ambassador programs (Like Zurich, McGladrey, RBC, MasterCard & McGladrey). But... they've yet to get to the point that they've completely undermined the financial integrity of the lesser events on tour. But I think they have in may cases on the ET tour...

I reckon ambassador programmes are just as pervasive as appearance fees - but the largesse is just distributed differently.

And Tiger patronises two or three events for which his "foundation" (another euphemism) is the sole "charitable" beneficiary, which channels money from public benefit to private bounty.

kwinigolfer wrote:I reckon ambassador programmes are just as pervasive as appearance fees - but the largesse is just distributed differently.

And Tiger patronises two or three events for which his "foundation" (another euphemism) is the sole "charitable" beneficiary, which channels money from public benefit to private bounty.

Of course they are part of what's going on here... but nowhere near to the extent that they make the financial impact on the PGA Tour they make on the ET. Take the Abu Dhabi and Dubai for example... effectively those events have around a $7.5 million purse... more than any "regular" event on the PGA Tour... but the problem is only 1/3 of that purse is paid via the competition on the course... the other 2/3's paid in the form of guaranteed appearance. I mean come on... that just ain't right. I don't blame the players for taking the money... but the system that allows it.

But that said.. IMO fees are becoming a PROBLEM here... and if not held in check, we could see the same appearance fee issues the ET has now, and effectively eviscerated the "regular tours" of tennis. I mean it's one thing for a player who's sponsored by Acme Widgets to play in their event, but when an RBC starts signing large teams of players with the {{wink-wink}} expectation they will all participate in the events... that's a problem. As IMO the "active player" connected events starting to proliferate here are beginning to become a problem. Such as the Quicken Loans & Deutsch Bank (Tiger Woods)... McGladrey (Davis Love). It's one thing for Jack and Arnie to have their events... they're retired, but Tiger and Davis are active and rather they do or not.. those events could be viewed to somehow give a player a competitive advantage of some sort. (and there's a lot more MON/TUES "outing" deals going on than people ever know)

Tournaments built on a foundation of appearance money is a house of cards.

It won't take much to make it all come crashing down.

And that is why IMO, a World Tour is not sustainable.

Seems they realised that their own description of how Final Series points were allocated was jibberish.

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/news/newsid=243975.html

I wouldn't be surprised that next step is to introduce a FedEx Cup style points system - which would give smaller events a higher importance in the R2D. No doubt that you have next to no chance of winning the R2D if you're not in the WGC's and majors.