That’s why the LPGA has partnered with a major professional sports ownership group

Outside of the TGL, it’s not often that you hear news about a professional athlete ownership group Acquisition of a stake in professional golf.

After all, golf is one of the last truly democratized professional sports. Players are their own owners and their jobs don’t depend on the kind of outside investment required in other major professional sports.

But on Tuesday morning, the LPGA announced just that — a unique agreement with not only A Sports ownership group, but maybe The best-known sports owner group in the professional landscape. According to a press release, the LPGA has partnered with Fenway Sports Group — owners of the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins and Liverpool FC, among others — to help “develop next-level touring partnerships.”

The agreement will create a “unique distribution alliance” between the Tour and FSG and free Fenway Sports Group to recruit new business partners for the Tour and its players on behalf of the LPGA. As part of the agreement, FSG will activate a “turnkey” sales team to help the LPGA – and its current approximately 10 sales and partnerships staff – attract new corporate partners. The partnership will serve to “strengthen” LPGA’s existing sales and partnerships team and “pave the way for increased revenue generation and enhanced presence on a global scale.”

According to the LPGA, the deal is structured as a profit-sharing scheme, meaning Fenway Sports Group has an opportunity to earn a portion of the profits generated by the new deal it is signing for the LPGA.

For the LPGA, the proposed benefits of the agreement are not difficult to understand. Fenway has an extensive corporate client base and one of the most influential names in sports business. If the sales team deployed by FSG signs even one additional sponsor for the LPGA, the deal will generate revenue that the league would not otherwise have generated. In the very likely event that the team signs more than one client, the deal is worth its weight in gold.

For FSG, the benefits are a bit more unclear. The ownership group, originally founded by Red Sox owner John Henry, has earned a reputation for the diversity of its sports business portfolio. In addition to controlling interests in sports franchises, FSG also owns and operates professional sports venues (including the eponymous Fenway Park), television network (NESN), and marketing and sponsorship teams for public figures.

On the one hand, the LPGA agreement opens up another revenue stream for the company and allows the Fenway Group to expand its operations throughout the sports world with relatively low risk. Second, the agreement fuels FSG’s expansion into the golf universe, with the LPGA being the latest move after Fenway was announced as the franchise owner for the upcoming TGL – a technology-driven golf league owned by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s holding company TMRW Sport.

James Colgan

Golf.com Editor

James Colgan is News and Features Editor at GOLF, writing stories for the website and magazine. He runs Hot Mic, GOLF’s media arm, leveraging his experience in front of the camera across all of the brand’s platforms. Before James joined GOLF, he graduated from Syracuse University. During that time he was a caddy grantee (and perceptive looper) on Long Island, where he’s from. He can be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.