Tournament Sponsorship

One big part of a sponsors engagement at a sports event surely is the visibility of the engagement in the media. I don’t mind that, without sponsors there would be a whole lot less events in sports, especially in golf. The non-happening of Bernhard Langers tournament last year was due to the lack of a sponsor in a year, where everybody concentrated on the soccer world cup.

I was just skipping through the recordings of this tournament and one thing that really bugged me was the tv commentator. On hole 16, a 178m par 3, the hole in one price was set up, an SUV from the main sponsor. The picture above shows the camera angle that was shown when the individual player was teeing up. You cannot overlook the hole-in-one price. You really cannot. But the commentator stressed on every possible occasion: “The player scoring a hole in one on this hole wins the prize of the tournament sponsor Mercedes-Benz, a brand new GL 420 CDI.” He didn’t say “… wins a car…” or “… wins the displayed car…”, he said “Mercedes-Benz GL 420 CDI” every single time as if he had the brochure for breakfast.

That was a little sponsorship overexposure for me. A question to the US readers: how is that with golf broadcasts over there in the states? Is it the same or worse? How much influence do sponsors have over the broadcasting of events?