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THE HONDA CLASSICFebruary 29, 2012Ken KennerlyEd McEnroePALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA GARY FERMAN: As you all know, American Honda has agreed with the PGA TOUR to extend sponsorship for four years through the 2016 event. We wanted to discuss that for a few minutes today. We welcome Ken Kennerly our executive director and Ed McEnroe, our tournament director, who will make a couple of opening statements about the extension and the advancement of The Honda Classic and then we'll open the floor to questions. KEN KENNERLY: Thank you, Gary. Thank you all so much. As Gary mentioned, we are thrilled to announce four more years of The Honda Classic. As you know, Honda is the oldest sponsor on the PGA TOUR, 31 years, and for us to have another four years for Ed and myself to continue to develop and grow this event and continue on our mission to make this certainly one of the best events on the PGA TOUR is just thrilling for us. I've got to recognize Steve Morikawa a from American Honda who is here with us today. Last night was pretty special, Mr. Iramura, president of American Honda came up on stage and announced to all of the dealers the extension, and as you can imagine, the applause from people was pretty special. You know, I think from our standpoint, Ed and I have worked so hard on bringing this event every year trying to enhance the event and getting it to new levels. It's just a testament I think to everything the community has done; certainly the support the players have given us and of course the support that you all, the media and the press have given us. I think it all leads to the wonderful news that American Honda gave us last night. ED McENROE: Yeah, I couldn't say it any better than Ken did. I think American Honda, 31 years, has been a wonderful go for us the last five years, going into our sixth, and every year we've been challenged to do better. This year you see a lot more involvement of other product divisions. Just a wonderful partnership and organization to work with; not just Ken and myself, but our entire team is ecstatic to be able to work for an additional four years at least. Q. Talk locally about what it means to the area. Obviously Tiger was a big impact when the news came out that he was coming, obviously is going to keep continuing with The Honda; can you talk about locally what it means for Palm Beach County and the Gardens area? KEN KENNERLY: You know, we have been fortunate. This event every year continues to grow. As Ed mentioned, the face of this event, and we'll talk a little bit about it later, more the Honda product, but the entire impact standpoint, last year our economic impact was measured a little over $33 million to our community. You know, this year, we hope to grow. We were 34percent ahead of ticket sales leading into the Tiger Woods announcement. Certainly since then, the number has grown significantly. We are projecting, you know, a 25 to 30percent increase in our total event. So it's been phenomenal and again, the contribution back to the community, year‑in and year‑out, has grown, and as we mentioned this year, it's going to be significant. We have heard from hoteliers as far north at St.Lucie County and as far south as southern Palm Beach County that they are really feeling the impact of this event. A lot of it has to do with the growth of the event over the years and certainly the impact of Tiger on the event, has taken us to a new level. ED McENROE: Just to add to that, I think the last five years since we've been involved, we have just seen a huge increase in the level of engagement across the board, from the CVB, from the residents here at PGA National, residents in Palm Beach County or even across South Florida. So this thing has really started to drive itself after‑‑ probably into our third year going into 2009. This really has taken off, and every year, even through the very difficult economy, I think we had about 20 percent increase in net charitable contributions. So it's been a nice, steady growth. KEN KENNERLY: I think just quickly if I may, just to add to that, our new mission, when we took over the vent, we had to create more than just a golf tournament. We had to create an event for the community. We had to create an event for golf fans, non‑golf fans, families, friends of folks, and I think you see that here. I mean, our attendance has grown. We said early on enthusiasm is contagious. The energy level has surpassed last year and of course that surpassed the year before. We are truly marketing more than just a golf tournament and The Honda Classic has really become a must‑attend event. And that was part of our mission way back when was to get the community to support us, and I think it's a testament to everything we've done that they are here and this is truly the community's event. Q. What do you attribute the long‑standing relationship to; sort of unusual for it to last that long. KEN KENNERLY: The long‑standing relationship with American Honda? Well, American Honda took over‑‑ remember, the old Jackie Gleason 31 years ago. I know that for many, many years, the folks have really enjoyed the event. The event has been a little nomadic in the past, but I think when they signed the new six‑year agreement six years ago, they really wanted to make sure that we took the event to new heights. I think that was part of the change. We found a new venue here at PGA National; it's a championship venue. Again, our communities support it, continues to support the event. The players really call this home. So I think from an American Honda standpoint, they are in it because they believe in it. They believe in the growth of the event. Obviously it's got to be a successful business and marketing venture for them, so I think, again, it's a testament to their belief in what this event does to help promote Honda, the "Power of Dreams." And again, this is not just about automobiles. It's American Honda products across the board. Q. Were you at all surprised with Honda's extension given the business climate and the effects on the economy from global weather that Honda has had to deal with in the last year? KEN KENNERLY: Certainly the tsunami shot down one of their factories, and the flood in Thailand affected them tremendously. I don't want to say I was surprised. The event itself has grown and, American Honda has been very supportive and very complimentary of where the event has been going and is heading. But frankly, there are bigger issues out there for them. You know, for us to‑‑ literally, the Tuesday of their final year, I do know that there was a lot of thought process, a lot of the decision makers or the decision making, they had some other, perhaps more significant, things to be concerned with. I think at the end of the day, when it came down to looking at the event itself, and what it has done, you know, as Ed McEnroe mentioned, the new direction of The Honda Classic, being the Honda products, the 'Power of Dreams' event, I think that had a lot to do with the decision. Q. Can you elaborate on that and describe what Honda has done to expand the presence of their brands? ED McENROE: As Ken mentioned, it's been something that we have been talking about for a few years. While we certainly didn't want to take anything from the automotive division, you'll still see a number of vehicle displays, we also wanted to incorporate the entire community of products. And not only that, there are environmental initiatives, and just bring true to this event more that Honda as an organization as a whole stands for. So as you walk through the product tent, you see a lot of their different products. It's engaging the consumers to their brand and the values that they have. You'll see generators weaved into the event operations, powering concessions and our merchandise tent and our outdoor video display board. You'll see a model of a jet in that product tent. And so you know, for us, it's been a great learning experience over the last few months. But you know, it really is the start of something I think much bigger and better, because we really only had a few months to really engage the different product divisions. I think that it's something that we'll continue to build upon; as soon as this event is over, we are going to start planning for much bigger and better things for 2013. Q. Can you tell us how long you were in negotiations with Honda on this? And secondly, if the deal was relatively close to what your last deal was with them? KEN KENNERLY: We've had discussions with American Honda for, I mean‑‑ you know, Alex, it's been one of those things. It's been in the works probably for about a year. But obviously some of the international situation, international events, have created a longer discussion, if you will. Our new relationship with Honda is phenomenal. One of the most important things I think that Honda is interested in is giving back to charity and having Jack and Barbara Nicklaus involved as our primary beneficiary is very important. And I know Honda is a very philanthropic company, so they wanted to make sure we were heading until the right direction from a charitable standpoint, as well. We were discussing it for a while. One good thing about having a contract, when a contract comes up, we have to make decisions and Honda was extremely supportive everything we were doing. I think they just had to get past some of their international issues. FastScripts by ASAP Sports ... FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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