LPGA's South Korean broadcasting partner failed to pay for 2024 and 2025 seasons

USA Today

19-02-2025

LPGA's South Korean broadcasting partner failed to pay for 2024 and 2025 seasons
The LPGA's issues with its South Korean media rights partner didn't end with a lost event. In addition to the unpaid bills that canceled the upcoming Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, JTBC also failed to pay for broadcasting all LPGA events in 2024 and 2025. Golfweek obtained a memo sent out to LPGA players by interim commissioner Liz Moore that outlined further details, including that JTBC had not "engaged meaningfully or provided assurance of payment."
"To protect our interests, we are filing a complaint to enforce a guarantee agreement with a JTBC affiliate to recover the unpaid amounts," Moore wrote in a memo sent to players on Feb. 18.
"For now, we are not terminating our agreements and will continue honoring our obligations to avoid disruptions in tournament coverage in Korea. However, if JTBC fails to meet its broadcast commitments, we are prepared to implement alternative solutions."
With the LPGA's contract with JTBC expiring at year-end, the tour has already gone to market to explore new options.
In January, the tour canceled the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship, scheduled for March 20-23, in Palos Verdes Estates, California, after it said an unnamed underwriter failed to pay its bills for the 2024 and 2025 events. Golfweek later confirmed JTBC as the underwriter.
JTBC's media rights deal with the LPGA dates back to the Carolyn Bivens era as commissioner, which officially went into effect in 2010, when Mike Whan was in charge. The original deal, outlined in an LPGA press release in 2009, included JTBC underwriting an event on the LPGA in Southern California as well as title sponsoring the 2009 Phoenix LPGA International.
The JTBC media rights deal is unusual in that the LPGA gets a sum of money and a set number of events, and then in turn, JTBC can recoup some of that money by selling the benefits of the event to a third party at its discretion.
The JTBC name has been attached to a number of tournaments over the years, such as the Hugel-JTBC LA Open, which later became the Hugel-Air Premia LA Open. From 2014 to 2016, the tour held the JTBC Founders Cup in Phoenix. Sometimes JTBC would appear in the title, and sometimes, as in the case of Fir Hills, it wouldn't.
The LPGA would then use JTBC's media rights money for its general operating budget.
This year's Fir Hills event, won by No. 1 Nelly Korda in 2024, was scheduled to be held at Palos Verdes Golf Club and feature a $2 million purse. The total cost of title-sponsoring the event, however, would've exceeded the value of the purse, likely around $3 million.
South Korean media rights have long been essential to the tour's health, though with top players coming from a number of different countries, the tour's media rights portfolio is now more diverse.
Late last year, Golfweek reported that LPGA was slated to lose around $2 million in 2024. That number could rise considerably in 2025.