Hank Haney was recently criticizing the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program — you know, the program that gives out millions of dollars to the guys who get the most internet attention.
Sure Haney’s got an axe to grind, his lawsuit against the Tour was dismissed a while back, the one he filed after he was dismissed from the Sirius radio show.
Haney wasn’t fond of the PIP and hammered it:
“If there’s a spare $50 million laying around, how about increasing the purses and golf courses on the Korn Ferry Tour? Let the future tour players actually have a chance to earn a living. Invest in your product.”
So said Hank, who also referred to the Tour as “out of touch.”
Phil Mickelso, who we know was probably second to Tiger Woods when that PIP cash was handed out, brought up the fact that the Tour makes a bundle off its top players and uses the media rights to guys like Phil and Tiger for its own U-Tube and social media outlets. The players have no right to use them.
Mickelson claimed the Tour is holding an estimated $10-$20 billion in digital highlights that the Tour’s top players like Woods and Mickelson have created.
The PGA Tour’s official YouTube account currently has just over 800,000 subscribers and has amassed a combined 825,205,062 views since the account was created in August of 2006.
As a member of the YouTube Partner Program, the Your is able to venture into a variety of money-making opportunities such as advertising and merchandising.
U-Tubers will tell you that a single view is worth between 10 and 30 cents in advertising value.
So Mickelson has a point and perhaps this PIP program is the Tour having an epiphany of sorts or maybe Mickelson has cracked one of the Tour’s hidden Da Vinci Codes.
