The LPGA has just announced a new specialist. He set up 4 goals

The LPGA Tour announced a new commissioner on Thursday: Craig Kessler, current COO of the U.S. PGA. Kessler started his new position on July 15 but has actually started taking the position and held a virtual press conference with golf media members on Thursday afternoon.

Why does the LPGA hire a new specialist? What are you looking for this trip? What will Kessler bring when he takes the most powerful position in women’s golf? We were curious to hear all of this. What we receive is a little window into the future – even if there are still big problems.

Hire: Craig Kessler

The LPGA began its formal recruitment process in January as the term of outgoing commissioner Molly Marcoux Samaan ended. Marcoux Samaan held the position for about three and a half years before resigning unexpectedly in December, leaving two years of contract left.

As reported by Golf Weekly at the time, Marcoux Samaan was not highly rated among LPGA members, especially when the league lags behind other rapidly growing women’s sports worlds. After a four-month process to find its tenth commissioner, Craig Kessler, now stepping in.

Kessler grew up in Southern California, but for the past two years, he served as Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. PGA and is headquartered in Dallas. Previously, his other stop in the golf world was at Topgolf, and he was also COO. As he said, those important positions in previous golf positions allowed him to “meet almost every major stakeholder in the golf landscape and build real real relationships with many of these people.”

Kessler led the press conference with a unique mindset and said he wanted to take the tour to a place: “People are watching what’s going on on LPGA and they say to themselves: ‘Oh my god. There’s something incredible about LPGA’s going on, whether it’s our players, whether it’s existing sponsors or potential sponsors,”

How do you achieve this? Kessler outlines the four “pillars” he sees.

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Kessler’s four pillars

Kessler has four “buildings” that he believes lasting changes will affect the LPGA Tour and take it to new heights. Pillar 1 is trust. “Trust our players…trust our sponsors, trust our fans, and trust our team.”

This is a simple idea that affects everything. In recent years, this tour has sometimes struggled to live up to the end of its trust deal, ensuring sponsors get rid of all sponsorships, ensuring fans get everything from the tickets they buy, and so on.

Pillar 2 is visibility. For Kessler, that is, “Make sure the incredible stars that LPGA has left it in the course and can be seen weekly and weekly, it’s not just radio.”

But a large part of it also comes down to broadcasting. LPGAs are often left to pick up scraps from weekend tours on the golf channel, usually only when the PGA Tour and the Championship Tour clear the road. Another major key to visibility is to get the biggest women’s golf event on online TV. In recent years, NBC has given more online TV time to women’s professionals, especially the U.S. Women’s Open next week – but it still pales compared to the time that specializes in big men’s events.

The third pillar is to build mystery. Kessler pointed out many people watch LPGA, but he wants people root Applicable to members of LPGA. This is an important part of every league and even PGA Tour sports fans. Tracking a game is one thing, but Take root hard For specific players, based on their connections with players, the Tour executives want.

at last, The fourth pillar is the financial future. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the survival of LPGA, Kessler believes that one of his main tasks is to establish financial stability and platforms over the next 75 years. Coincidentally, one of the themes through women’s sports and professional golf is foreign investment, especially public investment funds from Saudi Arabia. Kessler was asked whether he would have a discussion with Saudi PIF, which has invested heavily in the European ladies tour, saying: “Any organization that wants to promote our athletes in the LPGA – I can’t wait to have a discussion with people willing to do so.”

Kessler plans to have a lot of such issues around the world over the next few months, which is “no matter where you work,” which means going on tours, sponsor negotiations, and at LPGA headquarters with his new team’s Daytona Beach.

In this early days, Kessler didn’t speak much of his particularity. Asked about how to measure “watching” interest vs. “rooting” interest, he said that it would require the team to work hard to figure out all the measurements that see these pillars as success. This is the case with new leaders of any governing body. Kessler will have more than one opportunity to dig ahead of time. The three female students will be held between Thursday and the first official day of the Commissioner’s Chairman. The U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills is only a few days away.