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ADT CHAMPIONSHIP

November 14, 2007

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA

CAROLYN BIVENS: Good morning, welcome. Good to have you here. Beautiful, beautiful day, and I want to welcome you to what I certainly consider one of the most exciting events in all of sports.
When I stood here last year it was the culminating point for the first-ever ADT playoffs, and I thought we were onto something. I think that not only last year proved we were on to something, but you'll see some of the minor alterations that were made for this year are going to make every day of play extremely exciting.
2007 has been a year of transformations and triumphs for the LPGA. Most importantly it's been a year of crystallizing our vision while moving aggressively forward to put the LPGA on par with other top sports.
The ADT Championship is a perfect place to take stock of where we've been over the past year and to launch ourselves into 2008.
The strides that we made in 2007 don't exist in a vacuum, rather they're tangible reminders that the LPGA is in the best position it has ever been in and that the momentum we've created is a catalyst for changing the business model of our operation.
Last November at the ADT Championship, 20-year old Julieta Granada won the first ever million-dollar paycheck for a professional woman golfer. The LPGA playoffs 2006 was the first-ever playoff system in our sport, and it's been universally viewed as a model of success.
Also we were the first in our sport to have an implementation of a universal drug testing program and the policy. This will begin in 2008. We're pleased to join with the other leading golf organizations around the world.
Some of you have just come from Ponte Vedra. We had an executive committee meeting of the World Golf Foundation yesterday, which represents the heads of all the major golf organizations around the world, and we are, in fact, working in concert, and I would say for the first time on any of the major issues that we are together in terms of anti-doping policy.
There will be nuances within our individual programs. There will be staggered starts for the various Tours. We have discusses everything from the model prohibited-substance list to sanctions.
They say that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. So with that in mind, as we come to the end of our 2007 season, we deliberately chose the ADT Championship as the first tournament to exclusively display our brand new logo, the LPGA's first new logo in 15 years, and one that truly reflects and celebrates the diversity, the global strength and the evolution of our brand.
This tournament and our logo both epitomize our commitment to a bold new look and to bold business, especially when you look at the LPGA has taken ownership of the ADT Championship for the first time. This year everything you see, from beginning to end, the LPGA is calling the shots. Another first, we are actually producing all nine hours of television that you'll see.
As we acquire more strategic assets, the LPGA brand will continue to flourish. Last month's launch of our first-ever on-line pro shop opened for business. For those of who have not visited, LPGAproshop.com is part of a merchandising program that we expect will grow to be a significant revenue stream for the LPGA. Also located very closely to the media tent, not by accident, is our first-ever pro shop and merchandise shop, so please visit. You have all week.
We're also interested in investing more aggressively than ever in our future. As such, we acquired the Duramed FUTURES Tour, the LPGA's official developmental Tour. The FUTURES Tour is the Tour where Lorena, Julieta, Meaghan Francella all honed their skills. Bringing the Duramed FUTURES Tour under our tent gives us immediate access to players as well as the sponsors, the staff, the fans, the communities, the viewers, purchasers of merchandise and potential LPGA sponsors.
Additionally, the combination of LPGA and Duramed FUTURES Tour provides the ability to look at a variety of alternative tournament formats and structures in order to increase the number of playing opportunities for all of the LPGA members.
Nothing illustrates our bright future here at the LPGA better than the 2007 majors. All four of the 2007 major championship tournaments were won by women who had never before won a major. All were 30 or younger, from 19-year-old phenom Morgan Pressel, 18 at the time, to the top player in the world, 25-year-old Lorena Ochoa.
At the Rico British Open this summer, our athletes took center stage at the world's most iconic and venerable venue. The literal crossing of the Swilken Bridge at St. Andrews was also an appropriate metaphor for the bridges that we've crossed and the barriers that we've broken as an organization in 2007.
The excitement carried over into Europe as the U.S. and European team members played with tremendous pride, and as the U.S. defended their Solheim Cup crown under the leadership of captain Betsy King.
In two weeks that team is headed to Washington, D.C., to visit the Oval Office and the President. I for one can't wait until 2009, Rich Harvest Farms, and the teams that will be led -- the U.S. Team by Beth Daniel and the European team by Alison.
Overall our fan base is growing as evidenced by increased attendance at tournaments and our website traffic. As just one vignette which proves what's happening in women's golf, on Sunday of the Rico Women's British Open, there were nearly 91/2 million page views to LPGA.com, a new record. We launched an LPGA website in Japan, not a Japanese translation of our domestic website, but a Japanese LPGA website this year, and we renegotiated our television rights fees.
Some of you may know that in Asia, the interest in women's golf far exceeds men's golf. We hope that's an omen that translates to this side of the ocean. We actually were able to renegotiate our rights fees for a 300 percent increase.
We are aggressively pursuing media rights in countries all around the world. While we're talking about the international part of our membership, I also want to salute the members and our player services department for the work that they've done on providing language services.
Beyond a number of our U.S. members who learned key phrases in various languages to use as we play tournaments around the world, not one on-camera interview in this country was conducted by any LPGA member in a language other than English. That achievement is one in which we take a great deal of pride, not just because we're a U.S.-based Tour, but because we also think that it provides tremendous economic opportunity for our international players.
Off the course, our players are connecting with diverse audiences like never before. Broad and positive media coverage on and off the sports pages, in local communities and nationally, is on the rise.
All of these are signs that point to the strength of our product, to our members and to our brand. I want to thank you all for recognizing the talents and the attributes of our players and for sharing their stories with your readers.
Outside the world of golf, coverage of the LPGA could be found in airline magazines, Business Week, Newsweek. In fact, in mid-October Lorena was actually the cover story on the Latin American edition of Newsweek. One of our greatest strengths is the fact that we don't separate our people from our product. Our people are our product. The LPGA is an organization, and our members as individuals are not afraid to assume greater responsibility and to hold us all to a higher standard.
While others shy away from being called role models, our members actually embrace it. I believe that the women of the LPGA stand for everything that professional athletes should stand for in today's world. There are not many other professional sports organizations who can say that.
The women of the LPGA are independent, they're empowered, they're talented, they're accessible athletes who bring passion to our game and to their lives. They are proud to be part of an organization that benefits so many worthy causes around the globe, so whether it's the numerous LPGA members who raise money for various forms of breast cancer research or support their individual causes, philanthropy is a core value at the LPGA. Mi Hyun Kim would have to be one of our poster women for 2007 in the area of giving when she donated almost half of her Tulsa winnings to the victims of the Kansas tornado.
Then there's the most recent trip to Rwanda. Betsy King and Juli and Reilley and several of the others, the mission trip, where they worked with hundreds of children who were orphaned from AIDS. They were there for a number of days.
And then of course there are the tournament sponsors and the organizers who raise millions for local charities every single week. We're proud of our members, we're proud of our tournaments and the dedication to giving back.
So 2007 has been a seminal year also for our 1,200 teaching and club professionals. We hired a dynamic executive director to work with the national president. Great progress has been made, including membership growth, new sponsors and new initiatives for this very important part of the LPGA, the women who teach literally thousands of golfers every day.
There's also been a year of exceptional achievement at the LPGA Foundation. Libba Galloway, the deputy commissioner of the LPGA, is going to share more of those developments with you in a few minutes. We were honored to have the Foundation be the recipient of a $1 million gift from Dolores Hope. It's the largest single gift ever bestowed on the LPGA Foundation, and we believe the beginning of many others.
It's been a truly remarkable year for the LPGA. It's been one in which the competitive landscape has continued to grow and has become more intense. Seven of our tournaments have been decided by playoffs. Tournament winners represent the international face of the LPGA. Lorena Ochoa from Mexico has won seven times. We had nine winners from the U.S., four from Asia, three from Europe, including five-time winner Suzann Pettersen.
There have been many terrific moments in time during the 2007 LPGA Tour, the kind of moments that send chills up your spine. As we finish up the 2007 season at the ADT, I won't be surprised if there are a few more exciting moments, and certainly there will be a million-dollar payoff.
In 2008 we expect another year of substantial progress, another year of growth, and another year of accomplishments. I owe you a report on the benefits for our members. Beginning in January of 2008, the LPGA players will have a world-class disability insurance that is available to them. This represents major progress in delivering on the fundamental benefits which should be a standard offering to our members.
Additionally, we have a finance committee meeting this afternoon and a board meeting tomorrow. We have committed to undertaking a complete review of the retirement system.
We continue to search for a solution in health care. The target date is 2009. The obstacle is that we're not going to offer our players a plan that doesn't suit our needs in providing coverage internationally among other things. So we've come a long way since last year, and we'll continue to forge ahead towards a bright future, led first and foremost by the simply amazing women of the LPGA.
Now, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Chris Higgs, the senior vice president and chief operations officer for the LPGA and the fellow who's going to take you through a lot of the staff work that we've done for the 2008 schedule. Chris?
CHRIS HIGGS: Thank you, Carolyn. In just a few moments I will provide you with the details that surround the 2008 Tour schedule, but before I do that, I'd like to provide you with some of the context in what goes into the schedule that you are now reviewing today. It really revolves around a changing business model. A lot of what Carolyn has done in the last two years is change the way the LPGA conducts its business, all of which are with an eye to doing things more professionally, more as a corporation and a business should run, and the schedule and the development of the schedule and the publishing of the schedule is part of that.
As you would imagine, it takes months and months of discussions and negotiations to enter into our contract phase with various tournaments and/or events before ultimately they get placed on the schedule. Therefore the events that are announced today are events that meet our new business criteria, criteria that we didn't honestly have to this extent before, which means that if they are on the schedule, it means the terms and contracts have been negotiated.
If an event or sponsor has been in business with us for fewer than three years, we now require from them financial guarantees that they must meet, either in the forms of letters of credit or deposits of funds. These have to be met prior to an event being announced.
If this criteria is not met, it won't be on the schedule, and this is our new business practice. We've also been doing some long-range planning as we look into 2008, '09, '10 and beyond. We've been working fairly hard on moving the schedule into what we would best call a more optimal geographic flow.
As an example of this, towards the end of the fall, we've had the opportunity to have three, four and sometimes five events in Asia. What we will be doing, you'll see as I go through, we will be separating Asia into a spring and a fall with a maximum of two or three events on either side of that.
We will group events in the southeast, both in the spring and in the fall, and we will continue to do, wherever possible, East Coast, West Coast Swings, that allow the players and the caravan that follows the LPGA to move geographically in a sound way.
As we look at the schedule that's in front of you, once again, the LPGA will start its season in South Africa with the Women's World Cup of golf. After going to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, we will then move further west for the first time to Singapore for the new HSBC Women's Champions at Tanah Merah Country Club in Singapore. Most of you will see the announcement of the HSBC Women's Champions that was released back in the end of August of this year, and we're looking forward to going into Tanah Merah, where we have played the Lexus Cup. This will be the first time we play an official tournament in Singapore with the LPGA.
We hope to return to Mexico City in March. Then we move on to Phoenix, Palm Springs for the Kraft Nabisco Championship, and for the first time in a long time, the LPGA will play the week of the Masters when we return to Morelia for the Corona Championship.
After returning to Orlando, we will then head to south Florida for a new event April 21 to 27, which will have a $2 million purse. There will be a full announcement of this new south Florida event at Thanksgiving.
Our season continues in its normal flow of the southeast, east and moving up into the north with the Michelob Ultra at Kingsmill, the SemGroup Championship in Tulsa, Sybase Classic, Corning Classic in New York, before we head back down to Charleston for the Ginn Tribute and have our second major of the year, the McDonald's LPGA Championship.
We will continue to take the week of the men's Open off before we head to Rochester for the Wegmans LPGA, over to Minnesota for the Women's Open, and then to Corning for the Jamie Farr Owens-Corning Classic.
Following Toledo for the first time will be the LPGA State Farm Classic, which is moving from its traditional spot at Labor Day into July and also with a $400,000 purse increase. The summer continues for us with our trips to Europe with France and England and then continuing back into Portland and Canada.
The Tour will then head back to the southeast in northwest Arkansas and Alabama. We will make our journey west for Samsung and Long's, and then on our way to Asia, we will join our new event in Maui at the Kapalua LPGA Classic.
After our trip to Korea and Japan, we will move for the first time to Guadalajara for the new Lorena Ochoa Invitational presented by Banamex and Corona, and then of course we will come to West Palm Beach for the ADT Championship at Trump International to close out the official season of the LPGA Tour in 2008.
If we compare 2007 to 2008, you will see that there are a couple of events not on the schedule, so I want to talk about those. Carolyn just mentioned the great excitement of the Solheim Cup that was recently held at Halmstad. We look forward to going back to Rich Harvest Farms in 2009, and as you all know, we don't play a Solheim Cup in even years.
We just concluded a great week at the Tournament of Champions where Paula Creamer had a fabulous eight-stroke victory.
We are in discussions with the appropriate parties to continue to bring the LPGA back to the RTJ Golf Trail in Mobile. So it would be premature to announce anything at this time.
We are just weeks away from going to Perth, Australia, for the Lexus Cup. We are in continued discussions and hope to be making an announcement about Lexus Cup following this year's Lexus Cup in Australia. As I said earlier, we continue to have discussions with the organizers and sponsors in Mexico City about returning there in March.
We've enjoyed two very successful events in Thailand, particularly this year, where we had a 70 percent increase in attendance, and while it is not on the 2008 schedule, that is actually a deliberate move as part of our geographic flow because it will come back into the schedule in the spring of 2009, where it will partner up with the HSBC Women's Champions in Singapore, which is only an hour and a half away.
This will be part of our two-week Asia Swing for 2009 to add to our two-week Asia Swing in the fall of 2009.
By the numbers, from a prize money standpoint, I'd like to draw your attention to a couple of purse increases that are quite outstanding. The 2008 Sybase Classic presented by Shoprite enjoys the largest purse increase of the new season for the LPGA with a $600,000 increase, now taking them to $2 million. The SemGroup Championship presented by John Q. Hammons in Tulsa increased their prize money by $400,000 to now $1.8 million. As I mentioned earlier, the LPGA State Farm classic in its move to July also increased its prize money $400,000 to $1.7 million. Not to be outdone, our friends in the New York area, the Corning Classic, increased their purse $200,000 to $1.5, and the Wegmans LPGA in Rochester increased their purse $200,000, as well, for a $2 million prize in 2008.
Just from the New York/New Jersey area alone, we garnered a million dollars in increased prize money.
In summary, what does this mean for our players in terms of economic opportunity? For 2008 we will have a minimum of 33 events, as published on the schedule today. The players will play for a minimum of $58.2 million, which is a record for the LPGA Tour. We now have 12 events with prize money that is $2 million and higher, up from 10 in 2007, and the average purse for official events is now $1.77 million, up from $1.61 million in 2007.
We've added four new events to the schedule with the HSBC Women's Champions in Singapore, the Kapalua Classic in Hawaii, the new event in south Florida that I'm being deliberately vague about for $2 million, and an event that we will talk more about this afternoon when Lorena joins us for her press conference, which is the Lorena Ochoa Invitational presented by Banamex and Corona.
We've enjoyed tremendous success in 2007. We continue to look forward to providing even greater economic opportunities to our players in 2008, and we look forward to seeing all of you there. Thank you very much.
CAROLYN BIVENS: We'll have plenty of time for Q and A. Before we do that, I said we have made tremendous strides at the LPGA Foundation and essentially relaunched it, and I'm going to ask Deputy Commissioner Libba Galloway to tell you more about that.
LIBBA GALLOWAY: Thank you, Carolyn. As with the LPGA, this has been a year of transformation and an exciting year of growth for the LPGA Foundation. Last year the LPGA determined that the time was right for making the LPGA Foundation a more dynamic force in the golf industry.
In addition to bringing on our first-ever executive director, Pat Browning, early this year the LPGA reconstituted the board of directors to include outside directors who are prominent members and leaders in the sports, business and charitable communities.
These include Lew Horne, who's partnered with Troutman Sanders in Atlanta and formerly head of the National Minority Golf Foundation, who has been elected chairman of the LPGA Foundation Board of Directors; Karen Furtado, who is incoming president of the Executive Women's Golf Association, who is Chairman of the Board; Kathy Milthorpe, Managing Director, Community and Governmental Affairs for International Speedway Corporation, who was Treasurer and formerly the CFO of the LPGA; Betsy King, Captain of the victorious 2007 U.S. Solheim Cup team, and also a member of the LPGA and World Golf Hall of Fame; Jim Eden, Chairman of the Eden Group, and Mareb Hoke, President of the Mareb Foundation.
These new directors join the current foundation board members Ray Evans, Chairman of the LPGA Board of Directors; our Commissioner, Carolyn; Patti Benson, National President of the LPGA Teaching and Club Professionals; and Hilary Lunke, President of the LPGA Tour Executive Committee, to create a dynamic board which has already enabled the foundation to achieve unprecedented growth.
One of the first accomplishments of this reconstituted board was the adoption of a new mission statement, which reads, "The LPGA Foundation, a 501(C)(3) organization, is committed to empowering and supporting the girls and women united by their passion for golf through educational, humanitarian and developmental initiatives."
As Carolyn mentioned, earlier this year the LPGA Foundation received its first-ever seven-figure donation, a $1 million gift from Dolores Hope, the wife of the late entertainer Bob Hope.
Because of our concern for the long-term financial well-being of early LPGA players, as well as others in the golf industry who experienced financial hardship, the LPGA's existing financial assistance fund was renamed the Dolores Hope LPGA Financial Assistance Initiative to recognize Dolores' extraordinary generosity.
We are extremely grateful to Dolores, as well as her friend and one of our founders, Louise Suggs, who encouraged Dolores to consider this gift. With her gift, Dolores hopes to inspire others to support this initiative.
As many of you know, one of the most visible programs of the LPGA Foundation and a program that is very important to the growth of the game of golf is LPGA-USGA Girls Golf. This partnership between the LPGA and the USGA provides the opportunity for girls to learn the game of golf in an environment that is fun, comfortable and supports success. LPGA-USGA Girls Golf operates at almost 200 sites across the country, and last year more than 5,700 girls participated in the Girls Golf program, which reflects close to a 10 percent increase over the previous year. This is a trend that we foresee continuing far into the future.
Whether a girl wants to play golf socially with her friends and family, utilize golf in her career, or go the competitive route, the Girls Golf program lays a solid foundation for every girl to learn the game. Perhaps more importantly, the Girls Golf program provides means to empower girls with the self-confidence needed to succeed in life.
And speaking of success, we are proud to have two alumni of the Girls Golf program playing in the ADT this week, Brittany Lincicome and Morgan Pressel. With the growth of the foundation, we expect to see many more Girls Golf members on the LPGA Tour in future years. Thank you.

Q. Chris, just to save us doing the math, 33 events, $58.2 million, what was this year's total?
CHRIS HIGGS: 35, and as I said, if you consider the Solheim Cup as one of those 35 and Thailand, we would be, as published, the same with increased prize money, and then there are two or three that are still to be announced.

Q. Chris, just wondering about your thoughts on playing the week of the Masters for the first time, and curious what happened to the Match Play, if there's any return for that in the future?
CHRIS HIGGS: Let me take the second question first. Match Play, I think there's still a continued interest, both on the LPGA's part and on the organizer IMG's part to continue match play format. HSBC's decision to move to Singapore had a lot to do with our significant prominence for them in Asia in a market that they wanted to exploit with us in Asia, and also the success that they've had with their HSBC Champions event on the European Tour.
So match play is something that will continue to be a focus of ours going forward as an event format, so it's not gone away. It's just that HSBC's choice was to move to the Asia region with more of a Champions-like format.
As to playing the week of the Masters with Morelia, it's a question of we have opportunities for sustainable events at a time of year when it's best to play in certain parts of the country. Together with the addition of the new south Florida event, the month of April and May gets very crowded for us, and the only opportunity for us to -- because we had the opportunity of giving Morelia a September-October date. Because of the rains in Mexico at that time of year, our friends from Mexico will tell you that they can be fairly heavy in September and October, we've opted to give them an -- they were okay with taking that date.

Q. And also, when is the last full-field event?
CHRIS HIGGS: The last full-field event will be the Kapalua LPGA classic in Maui.
CAROLYN BIVENS: Let me just expand for a second. It's not so much the situation with Morelia, but one of the things that you will see in years going forward with the LPGA is that we're not going to necessarily take men's major weeks off. We will take a second look at that, but depending on the timing, where they're playing and where we're talking about being and things like tape delays and time zone difference, there could be lead-ins and lead-outs that work for us, not, in fact, keep us from playing on those times. Weeks where there is greatly extended coverage and we're in the same time zone, that doesn't work. But there are lots of times when it would work.

Q. I'm just curious, are all the new events on the schedule limited-field events?
CHRIS HIGGS: Are all the events on the schedule limited-field events? The answer is no. In fact, the only new event on the schedule, the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, which we will give you more details about this afternoon when Lorena is here, that is the only field that is limited.

Q. Just eyeballing the list here, it looks like Singapore, possibly three in Mexico, France, Canada, Japan, all foreign stops. I wonder if you could address the increasing enter nationality of it, the positives of it, any negatives of it, I guess maybe time zone, broadcasting packages, those types of things, whether this is a wave of the future obviously with the roster you guys have now you've got players from pretty much everywhere but Antarctica it seems like?
CHRIS HIGGS: I think it's -- with the exception of the addition of a third Mexico event, with Thailand coming off, I think it's a neutral position. It's 11 events that are outside the United States in 2008, I believe.
True to your question is we've enjoyed immense diversity with our membership, and those in our membership who are playing extremely well. We have a strong position in Asia and will continue to capitalize on that interest. As Carolyn said in her speech, women's golf is more popular than men's golf is in Asia, and we are the leaders of women's golf. So I think you're just seeing market forces in play but balanced by us making sure that they have a strong presence in North America, as well.
CAROLYN BIVENS: The international composition of the LPGA looks much more like the population composition of the U.S. than any other organization in our sport. We're proud of that, and that offers us opportunities. We will take advantage of that.
What we're trying to do, as Chris said earlier in his remarks, we're trying to make the geographic flow work. It's not ideal for us in 2008 to have women go to Singapore for one week. That's a long way to travel to play once. But because Thailand was on the schedule for fall, there was no way they could turn it around for March for 2008. In 2009 they will team together. So there will be a two-week Asian Swing in the spring and a two- to three-week swing in the fall.
We are a U.S.-based Tour. The preponderance of our Tour stops will always be in the U.S, but at the same time you will continue to see us. I consider it frankly making sure that we shore up the beach head which is international for us. You watch as others in our sport are pushing very hard to add more international stops.

Q. Following up on that, the possibility of three tournaments in Mexico next year, I think we all know who's the motive force if it had to be narrowed down to one person on that front. Can you sort of talk about how Lorena has sort of opened up all of North America to you guys?
CAROLYN BIVENS: Again, our friends north of the border would want to make sure that we included Canada in North America, too. But absolutely. I mean, as we get strong players from various countries, Ai Miyazato is part of the reason for the popularity in Japan; Lorie Kane and Dawn Coe-Jones are the representatives that helped put the LPGA on the map in Canada; and certainly Lorena is opening things up for us in Mexico.
One of the things you have seen over the years evolve in women's golf is that women follow role models, girls follow role models, even more so than do boys and do guys. Annika talks about the fact that she watched Liselotte win the 1988 U.S. Women's Open and decided maybe she could make a living doing this. Ai is largely the product of Chako and Ayako, and we have a number of young girls that are now from Mexico that are in the pipeline and a couple of whom are coming to Q-school.
You can pretty much predict it as you see a woman from a country break through. Probably the most dynamic example is Se Ri, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame on Monday night, and the fact that she showed young girls that there was an option to a route that was planned for them.
LIBBA GALLOWAY: You asked about broadcast. United States broadcast will always be the core of our media strategy, but we can't ignore the influence that our international broadcasts have had on the LPGA, the popularity of the LPGA and where we're going. With our partners IMG Media we have exponentially increased our television distribution and our revenues from television distribution. We've done new deals in Hong Kong and China and Thailand, and as Carolyn mentioned, we renegotiated our Japanese rights for quite an increase. And I think that as we move into having tournaments in other countries, that's a nice complement to distribution of our U.S. tournaments overseas. But again, the United States telecasts will continue to be the core of our media strategy.

Q. For Chris or Carolyn, could you just talk about the importance of getting a tournament back in south Florida? It's been quite a few years since you've had one, and a lot of players live down here, just the value of getting one back?
CHRIS HIGGS: I think it's very important. The golfing public of North America always looks to Florida and to professional golf associations and says, you know, why is it you can't play more often in Florida, why don't you? So now we've answered the question. We can, we will, and it will be a great tournament when we reveal the details to you.

Q. What's holding it up?
CHRIS HIGGS: The simple answer to that question is the sponsor and the organizers want to have a well-coordinated, well-exploited opportunity to share everything with you about their tournament, their sponsor, their venue, the format, and they want to do that at a nice date for all of you, particularly those of you that live in south Florida.

Q. I think it's pretty obvious about the ownership of the event. What have you been able to do from an operational branding standpoint this week? Is this something we're going to see more of in the future?
CAROLYN BIVENS: The opportunity to selectively own and operate our events is extremely important to the LPGA. From a financial standpoint, you get the chance to roll the dice along with everybody else. There's certainly lot of upside.
But more than that, it's a branding opportunity, especially owning major tournaments, and this we consider -- while it's not a "golf major" for us, this is a very important tournament.
There are certain communities and certain events that are so intrinsically part of the local community, you really need a local operator. Internationally, the LPGA just doesn't have the breadth and depth, nor the experience, to be able to own or operate an event internationally. We might potentially be able to partner for ownership.
So the answer to the question is yes, we want to own more of our own events. You will never see the LPGA -- I'll be careful saying never. You will not in the near term see the LPGA owning the majority of their events. We will selectively -- as opportunities become available to us, you will see us own more of them.

Q. Carolyn, when do you expect to name the administrator for the drug testing program, and do you expect that person to be an independent administrator?
CAROLYN BIVENS: We have got an entire session on drugs to follow this one. If you don't mind I'd like to hold that. Jill Pilgrim is going to be here, and then we can take as long as you want. I think we have 30, 45 minutes slated to cover all aspects of the drug program.

Q. Any movement possibility in getting the Women's British Open slotted right behind the men? Have you thought about that or made any headway, or is it a lost cause?
CHRIS HIGGS: We've talked about it. I think there's no secret we either ourselves, the LGU and the organizers, IMG London, have talked about it.
The long-term planning and some of the existing television deals that the Open Championship has with the R & A for both the Open Championship and for the British Senior Open makes some of that more complex. So I think the answer is yes, it's something we will continue to discuss with them on an ongoing basis. But certainly for '08 and '09 because of existing television agreements that the R & A has with both BBC and NBC, you're not likely to see that in 2009, but it is something that is under discussion.

Q. Is it something you want?
CAROLYN BIVENS: Very much.
CHRIS HIGGS: I think so, yes, because we've heard predominantly from broadcasters and from the international media corps as well as the U.S. media, it would be great for us because we continue to cover now more the Open Championship and the Women's British Open and less so the Senior British Open. We would love to be able to cover both back-to-back. It would run better for us. So that's what we've heard from you guys.

Q. With the events in Mexico or HSBC be televised in the U.S.?
CHRIS HIGGS: Yes. The Lorena Ochoa Invitational will be televised in the United States, as will the HSBC Women's Champions.

Q. And the other two Mexico events?
CHRIS HIGGS: No.

Q. How many events of the 33 will be on network and how many will have no coverage at all?
LIBBA GALLOWAY: We have not announced our television schedule yet. We've still got some pieces of the puzzle that we're putting in place. But I can say with great relief that we are going to be closer this year than we ever have been to having a television schedule announced by the end of the year.
What I think you'll see is you'll see some of a similar complement to what you've seen in prior years. We're going to have pretty much a full slate of series on ESPN 2. We're going to have a full slate of series on The Golf Channel, and then some events on broadcast network. But exactly who is going to go where, we're still trying to put those pieces of the puzzle together.

Q. What is the possibility of having the entire schedule televised? What would you put those odds at?
CAROLYN BIVENS: For '08?
LIBBA GALLOWAY: It won't happen for '08. For one thing, the Corona Morelia Championship opposite the Masters, that's not necessarily an event we want to be on television in the United States. But again, when you talk about having every event on television, we do have every event on television, there are just a few of them that are not on television in the United States. I can't overemphasize how important our international television and distribution is to us. We're a global Tour. We've got over half of our Tour is international members. Let's not ignore the rest of the world when we talk about television.
CAROLYN BIVENS: Just as a reminder, the existing television contracts for the LPGA, five-year contracts with ESPN and with the Golf Channel, run through 2009. There's not a great deal of movement that can take place. We actually have spent an immense amount of time with our tournament owners, with sponsors and internally at the staff. We have something that's called Vision 2010. Vision 2010 is the first year that you would see a dramatic change or that we could have a major impact on the television or the media landscape. In the meantime, you will see us internationally and domestically experimenting with emerging media.
One of the other advantages that the LPGA has with so many young, dynamic stars, is they are pulling along a lot of young people who are into the instant messages and electronics and PDAs and mobile phones and all of the rest. We had 19 rookies this year writing a blog for the LPGA. Some of the most viewed pages on LPGA are things like the blogs. We have an advantage.
You will see us experiment with streaming video, highlight packages that will be web-only because we believe we have an audience and we believe that there is an appetite for doing that. So we're going to learn all that we can internationally and domestically in the emerging media area in the next couple of years.

Q. When was the ESPN 2 contract signed?
LIBBA GALLOWAY: It is a 2005-through-2009 agreement.

Q. Was there any concern when they bailed out of the PGA TOUR negotiations a couple years ago that come time for renewal that they won't be interested in golf at all?
LIBBA GALLOWAY: I see no indications of that concern. ESPN and ESPN 2 have been good partners of the LPGA, and they're a good media outlet for a number of our tournaments.
But again, we're looking to 2010. It could be a new year, and when all the contracts run out we're going to be looking at everything and finding the best place for the LPGA.

Q. And can you quantify what percentage of your TV revenues come from overseas, from foreign sources?
LIBBA GALLOWAY: I can't quantify an exact amount, but I can tell you in the environment we're in right now, we see rights fees internationally, and in the United States women's golf unfortunately is not in a rights fee environment. So I can tell you as far as overall television revenues, a pretty good percentage comes from overseas.

Q. I think, Carolyn, you said that the LPGA was producing the TV for this week. What exactly does that mean?
CAROLYN BIVENS: It means that we hired a production company, Castro Communications, somebody we've worked with before. We've worked with the Golf Channel, with ESPN to get our production crew, accepted as the ones who would be producing and calling the shots.
We've done profile pieces on just about every woman who's competing here. Those will run periodically during the telecast. We are doing the production of everything. That means we are covering the nine hours of this tournament.
We've worked in combination with the Golf Channel and with NBC, but for the first time the LPGA will be guiding what is seen on television.

End of FastScripts

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ADT CHAMPIONSHIP

November 14, 2007

Carolyn Bivens

Libba Galloway

Chris Higgs