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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 7, 2009Sang ChunTim FinchemGary PlanosPONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA LAURA HILL: Commissioner Finchem, thank you for joining us today. We'll turn the floor over to you to make a special announcement and then open up the floor for questions when you're ready. COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Thank you Laura. Thank you for being with us today. This is an important announcement for us. We don't do a lot of these announcements during THE PLAYERS, but we're particularly excited about this one. I'm pleased to announce today that the PGA TOUR has reached an agreement with SBS, our international television partner in Korea, for a ten-year commitment to take the position of title sponsor at our event in Kapalua, Hawaii, from 2010 to 2019. Additionally, we have reached an agreement whereby SBS has extended its existing broadcast agreement for an additional seven years to 2019 to make those two agreements coterminus. SBS has been our broadcast partner now for over 15 years, and we're delighted with this announcement. We'll have a quarter of a century, at least, behind us here by 2019. Today we are pleased to have with us Mr. Sang Chun, the president of SBS International, and Mr. Hong Seongwan, who's the president and CEO of SBS Media Net to help me make the announcement. And I'd like first of all -- we also have our good friend Gary Planos, who is a party in interest. And I'd like to turn it over to Sang. Welcome to the PGA TOUR team of title sponsors. Congratulations on your partnership with us and I'll ask you to make some remarks. SANG CHUN: Thank you very much. On behalf of Seoul Broadcasting System, we are very proud to announce our new ten-year agreement with the PGA TOUR. SBS is truly honored to become a title sponsor of the season-opening tournament at Kapalua. This event hosts an exclusive field of champions, and we look forward to continuing this prestigious tradition. Our international broadcast extension also reflects our long and very good relationship with PGA TOUR. Our 15-year partnership continues to grow, as does our commitment to the future of both our organizations. We look forward to bringing you SBS Championship, a new beginning to the PGA TOUR season. Thank you. COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Thank you, Sang. And in addition to that I'll also announce that we will be and are excited to be able to keep this event at Kapalua into the future. Kapalua and the people at Kapalua have been great partners to the PGA TOUR over the years. Over $3 million has been raised in charity in Kapalua, and I know most of you or all of you know the chairman of our tournament at Kapalua, Gary Planos, and he's come to give a few comments. GARY PLANOS: We are very excited to host the SBS, the PGA TOUR media, for an extended period from now on. We're very excited to continue starting off the PGA TOUR schedule at the beautiful island of Maui. And we welcome all of you to come join us in January. COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Thanks, Gary. And I'll just conclude, before taking a couple of questions, that this announcement extends further, I think, a series of announcements we began making back a couple of months ago at Travelers and then Accenture, Zurich, Liberty Mutual, we'll have more to come in spring. This is special for a couple of reasons; one, it underpins -- this announcement means there's underpinning for the start of the season event well into the future. We wish all of our commitments were ten years, but we've had a long history at Kapalua, we've had a long history at this tournament. The players in particular are excited about being able to continue at Kapalua. So it gives us overall momentum. But we're very pleased with the impact that it's going to have on all our partners going forward. In addition, I think to have a broadcast partner from Korea to make this kind of commitment is also a testimony to the quality of the PGA TOUR, the value that is recognized on a global basis, and we're pleased about that, as well. And with that, Laura, I'll be happy to field the questions or questions for us here. Q. Tim, if you could briefly discuss, you had a number of or a couple of extensions over the last month or so. Could you talk about the significance of actually having a new corporate sponsor in these times? COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: I'm sorry. We've had a few extensions -- Q. You've had Zurich and Accenture make contract extensions of current titles. I wonder if you can speak to the significance of in these times having a new sponsor step in. COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: It is significant in the sense that one of the things we are looking at now as we go out two years from now is the focus on perhaps spreading sponsorship over broader industry sectors, and not being so reliant as we have been in the past on the traditional industry sectors that have been supportive. So we've put energy into that. And this certainly is a step in that direction. I don't know how many steps there will be in that direction, but this is one. And we think it's very positive. Q. It seemed vague on how long you'll be at Kapalua. Could you speak to that first? And second, will there be any thought of format changes to the event going forward? COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Well, on the first question, we are currently contracted through 2010 at Kapalua, but we are well down the road in a lengthy extension of that commitment. And I don't anticipate at this point -- we'd be announcing it now, it's just not finished. We don't anticipate any issues in extending that significantly and probably for the entirety of this term. So our plan is to be at Kapalua well into the future, and all the parties involved want that to happen. On the second question, we don't have any format changes eminent at this point, and certainly not anything part of this announcement or this partnership, new partnership, but, having said that, as you know over the last number of years we've oftentimes looked at the format. We're open to changing the format if it's something that's consistent with the culture of the event and something that can help the event. But I wouldn't suggest that we would necessarily make any changes at this point. Q. Was there any discussion about having a broadcast partner also serve as a title sponsor of that? It seems like that's a line that hasn't been crossed before. COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Well, I don't know what line it is, but it doesn't trouble me (laughter). What we're hoping, Gary, is, that in the new future we'll be announcing sponsorships with CBS, NBC and Comcast (laughter). Nothing would delight me more about questions of conflict of interest. We're talking about covering a sporting event here. We think the quality of the telecast that's generated by multiple television partners will be consistent with what it's been in the past. Q. Having not been to Korea, I'm curious about programming. Do they cover all four rounds of the event? What time of the day is it shown? What kind of audience does it attract? SANG CHUN: We always carry PGA TOUR for the last 15 years through our cable golf channel. We are one of the partners of TGC in Korea. So we are carrying live, and later we have rerun for whole tournament. So actually coverage is from day first to after Sunday ceremony. COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: It's not dissimilar to our coverage in Japan where we have a live coverage and then a primetime replay. So it's excellent positioning on the air in Korea. Q. What kind of audience does it typically draw? SANG CHUN: We have actually four cable companies in our organization. One is a sport channel, another is a golf channel. We carry it on golf channel, and when we rerun, actually we put on that programming to the sport channel, which is coverage of golf channel is about seven and a half million household, which is a different tier. And rerun is we put in the sport channel is 14 and a half million household. Q. Question for Mr. Sang. You sponsored a LPGA event in Hawaii for a couple of years. How did that meet your needs as title sponsor and was it such that it was good for you to stay in Hawaii as a title sponsor of golf? SANG CHUN: Yes, we are actually media group and also with the last five years experience and the bottom line is we are trying to promote and also make a popular sport in the industry. And we have a track record for the last five years. When we first started 14 years ago there was one or two Korean players playing in the LPGA. And if I remember Oh-Kee Ku is the only person who appeared in the LPGA tournament. This year I believe it's more than 46 players that are playing in the LPGA tournament. I think SBS has done a good job. This is where we're trying to make a bigger pie for PGA TOUR in Korea. And it will open a lot of corporation and the sponsor will open the eyes for this event. It's much bigger than what the business point will be able to see. Q. Can you get Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the tournament? COMMISSIONER TIM FINCHEM: Thank you for that. LAURA HILL: Thank you for joining us. We do have press releases passed out as you exit the room. End of FastScripts |
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