home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

DEUTSCHE BANK CHAMPIONSHIP

September 4, 2005

Jay Monahan

Seth Waugh

NORTON, MASSACHUSETTS

SETH WAUGH: It's been another great week, a little different than we envisioned probably Media Day a month or so ago, thought we had Vijay and Ernie but it's still a great leaderboard and we're excited about the rest of the week.

Just a couple things I want to talk about relative to what we're doing here and also here to answer any questions you might have. First of all, one of the things, the questions that a number of you have asked over the last couple of weeks, we have one more year to go in our original contract. And where we're going with that going forward. Let me just say that we've had an unbelievable experience here. It's exceeded all of our expectations and the results that we've had have impacted the brand, the perception of our clients that we entertain here. And so we've hit a home run, not to mix metaphors, but it's been a home run on all fronts of everything we want to do.

We have begun some preliminary conversations with the tour. As you all know, there's a few moving parts going on there and we are start of waiting for them to figure out a few of those, but certainly we have every good intention and good faith effort to work out making this a very long term commitment for all of us. And certainly the intent on both sides, it's been a very good partnership.

We love Boston, we love this weekend and we think we turned an odd weekend for golf before we got here into one of the more special weekends of the year. I think we've turned Labor Day into part of our brand, and we think we've made it from a disadvantage to an advantage in terms of making it a family event and we're very excited about it. It represents a lot of the values of golf. With the Kids Zone this year, the kid area out front has been a huge success. We love this time, we love the Monday finish and we love being in New England and we love being in Boston. We have every intention to hopefully be a partner and neighbor for a long time to come.

Other thing I wanted to talk about while we're having this unbelievable week and weather and fun and a special week and such a happy week for all of us, obviously not so happy throughout a major part of the country, it's hard to set up here and not mention that. We announced on Wednesday night that we would be donating some of the proceeds from the championship to the relief effort. We can't talk about a number yet because we don't know what our proceeds are and we don't know how much, but certainly that's our intention. We've talked about it, Tiger has talked about it, the TOUR has talked about it as well and certainly that will happen.

I also wanted to talk about Deutsche Bank specifically. We a tradition of giving across the board one of most proud things and one of most proud of setting a record the first two years and we hope to do so again within this tournament, but we also do that all year long through our foundation (roar from the crowd outside) hope that was Tiger doing something, because Brad is already off the course.

We give all year long and try to help those communities and we also try to be there when the world needs it most, and we were there in a huge way for 9/11 and we were also there in a huge way for the tsunami. We are announcing right now that we're committing a minimum of $1 million to the relief effort, and we're also looking at other creative ways to try and make that a much bigger number. Without giving a lot of the details, we're looking at a similar thing that we've done around 9/11, which creates a lot of interest and the ability to us to donate some of our profits. We hope that we can talk about that in the next day or two, but we are very committed to helping out down south.

So with that, I think I'm happy to answer any questions.

JAY MONAHAN: As Seth mentioned up front, it's been a great week. We set out at the beginning of the year to really looking at Labor Day, to take an ownership position around families and to create a great family and kid environment here and we've loved what we've seen so far with our Kids Zone, our Kids Village, we've seen so many families I spent the morning yesterday watching families get off the bus and walk on site. We'll be doing that moving forward.

As Seth mentioned, you know I think whenever you see 48 official PGA TOUR events, you see a number of different companies are involved with the PGA TOUR, and I think what makes us apart from the success we've had up to date what makes us truly unique is we have a phenomenal title sponsor in Deutsche Bank. As soon as we saw what was happening down in New Orleans, Deutsche Bank came to us and said we need to find a way to do something to make a difference here. We've obviously added them to our list of charitable beneficiaries. We are also running a program with WTKK here; we're selling bracelets in conjunction with the PGA TOUR Wives Association to raise funds for the Katrina Relief effort. At our awards party on Thursday night, we had a silent and live auction and raised over $100,000 for the Tour Wives Association and again part of those proceeds will go back to Katrina.

But as we talk about the long term position of this championship, I think anybody in this marketplace has to recognize that we've got something special in Deutsche Bank, and we have something very special in the date and it's going to continue to make us truly one of the unique and special events on the PGA TOUR.

A number of you have asked me independently of about the players, the field and our thoughts on it, and we're excited about what we have here. Obviously we've got Tiger, the world's No. 1 ranked player, and we love our association with his foundation and we're still proud of that. To have Freddie, to have Davis, to have Justin, have Trevor Immelman all Presidents Cuppers, and I think what's developing here is kind of just what the doctor ordered. In terms of Billy, Tim, Brad, all starting to play well in sort of their home town; and I think it's going to be tremendous tomorrow in terms of the turnout and the interest in our championship here. Like Seth's comments up front, we thank you for all of your continued support and helping us to make this championship the great championship that it is.

And we'll now open it up to question and answer.

Q. The Monday finish, is everybody happy with the Monday finish?

SETH WAUGH: Yeah, we really are. I think it's unique. I'm not sure, the only people that probably are not happy is next week's tournament, they probably lose a little bit from that, but the players like it. It gives them an extra day off, a little extra space I suppose.

It's also allowed us to do the Monday Red Sox deal which has been hugely successful for us and turn this into a two month long thing instead of a one month long thing. So we do some really interesting stuff around the premiere, the etc., etc. We also think that Labor Day, we get a lot of traffic back on Monday, from a foot traffic perspective, people coming back from the Cape and having an extra day to come back.

And from a TV perspective, last year was a home run, while we had one of the greatest showdowns of the year last year, but we had an unbelievable ratings. And really basically other than the Open and the Masters, we outrated everybody else. Obviously not just because of Vijay and Tiger, but if you're a sports junkie, there's not a lot on on Monday afternoon. So to be there when you have a day off at the end of the day with a 7:00 finish, it also helps with a lot on that front, but it's been terrific for us. When we start with the conversations with the TOUR, one of the things that we talk about a lot is this weekend. We love the Monday finish.

Q. I know the original plan had something to do with the Red Sox on Monday. Has their rescheduling of the game with Chicago, has that thrown a monkey wrench in?

SETH WAUGH: Only because all of the employees want to be here. Everybody I've talked to, they hope they get the game done so they can watch the end of golf. I say that tongue in cheek a will little bit, I think we would have gotten a lot of the players and others, but I don't think we're going to lose many. I think it's added actually. 12:00 to 3:00, let's hope it's nine innings. Scheduling at noon was not a coincidence.

We all knew ourselves to be in it together and just making sure we kind of raised the product, the sports product, one of the great sports towns in the world. So I think we all work together to make it competitive and also the Patriots scheduling Thursday night and last year they played on Wednesday, so now everybody is sort of looking at each other doing the right thing.

Q. Would you please clarify what some of those moving parts are with the PGA TOUR and how that might affect next year and 2007?

SETH WAUGH: Well, I don't know that I can a huge amount and it's probably better to ask the TOUR that. I don't want to get away from what they are doing. Obviously they are trying to invest how to make the end of the season more interesting and make the overall product more interesting. We applaud that.

We think that we've created something very special here. That was our goal when we started was not to have another week on TOUR, but something that people both fans and players kind of build their schedule around. I think we've done that. We've delivered a golf course, we've delivered an event and we've delivered an experience that's really special.

As I walk around and see the players, every one of them says they want to come back next year. It's got that way. So we think that we've created that buzz, and I think the TOUR would like to have that buzz. And as far as the quote, unquote playoff deal, I think they would like to have the season sort of end with a bang as opposed to adrift. We applaud that concept and we think this raises the overall product, and if it does happen, we'd like to be a part of it.

Q. Do you think the galleries will be less enthusiastic, more enthusiastic, if this were a 30 man field?

SETH WAUGH: I don't know that's the concept. I think the concept that they are looking at is to have a tournament within a tournament, so you have a full field event, but within that you have a tournament within a tournament. So I don't think it comes down to I think there would be more enthusiasm with 30 people, but whoever just the Top 5 are in that tournament.

Q. The long term commitment, is that contingent on you having Labor Day weekend?

SETH WAUGH: Contingent is too strong a word, but we love what we have and we'd have to be proven that it was something better than what we already have. So it doesn't mean that we're not open. We don't have a total pride of author ship here. We think some other people might have better ideas than we do occasionally but we really like where we are. That's certainly our premise but we're happy to listen to what.

Q. Can you gentlemen talk about the Pro Am; it seems to take on a life of its own.

SETH WAUGH: We always like it to be a big deal because it's our major, right. But we've tried to make it again we say special, one of the other things I like to think about is making it the happiest week of the year. We've got Labor Day as the holiday weekend, you've got family, kids running around, and you've got unbelievable weather the last couple of years. And where else would you rather be in the world than New England on Labor Day?

So for that, we want it to be fun and a lot of the stuff that we have done around it, it's business for us, but also we want to create it to be a fun atmosphere, so the premiere, the Red Sox thing, the concert we're doing tonight for the volunteers and guests, all of these things are meant to make it a terrific thing. I got to throw out the first ball on Friday night. That's pretty cool for me, too.

But the Pro Am, a, is an important time for us to spend time with our clients and also our founding sponsors and get a chance to do that along with some other folks. We want it to be a bit of theatre, great golfers and fun amateurs but we also try to add a few personalities. We'll continue to do that. We had Chris Berman this year, it was a lot of fun, the World Cup ski champion and Donald Trump who is always good fun. So, yeah, we want to make it not a circus, but we want to make it kind of a fun celebrity sort of day.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297