Pga Tour To Offer Opendorse To Brand Partners

The PGA Tour has announced an extension to its agreement with athlete marketing platform opendorse, which will see the service offered to the righstholder’s brand partners for the first time.

The move is designed to make it easier for sponsors to activate their relationships on social media by leveraging the global follower bases of the game’s top players.

It comes as the concept of ‘athlete media’ is continuing to grow in traction, with platforms such as unscriptd and The Player’s Tribune also among the leading players in the space.

Opendorse has been working with the PGA Tour since 2017, with its platform used to serve players with “high-quality” tour content.

The company now also offers content creation as part of its service to the Tour, providing custom assets to players to help drive their social media brands.

Commenting on the extended agreement, opendorse CEO Blake Lawrence said: “The PGA Tour has embraced the power of its players beyond the course. 

“This announcement marks the next step for player marketing in the game of golf. Now, players can use opendorse not only to build their brands, but to capitalise on their.value alongside the Tour’s premier partners.”

Brian Oliver, EVP corporate partnership at the PGA Tour, added “opendorse has been a tremendous asset in helping the Tour and the game’s top players work together on social. 

“We’re excited to expand our relationship with opendorse to add social media value for our marketing partners.”

Opendorse was founded by two former major college athletes, with the aim of making it easy for athletes and their partners to work together to engage their fans. 

The platform is currently used by 4,500 athletes with a combined social following of 900m. More than 1,500 brands and rightsholders currently work with the platform to send content to athletes to share with their audience bases.

PGA Tour brand partners who will gain access to the service include Avis, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Fedex, Mastercard and Microsoft.

The PGA Tour claims its opendorse relationship is part of an overall strategy to encourage players to bring fans – current and new – closer to the game of golf. 

Through its Live Under Par campaign, launched earlier this spring, the Tour is seeking to highlight “authentic, exciting interactions” between players, and between players and their fans, communities and charities. 

The Tour adds that its players saw 34 percent growth in followers and a 4.1 percent engagement rate over the past year.