Keith Pelley
Keith Pelley has already made some significant changes since taking over at the helm of the European Tour last year. And, as he tells Nick Bonfield, there will be plenty more to come...
The man in charge of the European Tour reveals his plans
In August 2015, a Canadian by the name of Keith Pelley took over the reins as the new chief executive of the European Tour. An outsider with no previous experience in the golf industry, or at the helm of a members’ organisation, Pelley has already won many fans among players and analysts through a combination of new initiatives, positive rhetoric surrounding prize funds and sponsorship opportunities, expansion plans and talk of mixing up formats.
In Canada, Pelley served as the president of The Sports Network, the president and chief executive of Canadian football team the Toronto Argonauts and the president of Rogers Media. While there, he helped negotiate a $5billion-plus broadcasting package with the National Hockey League. His broad skill set – including experience in running sports-centric organisations, marketing,
media, communications and sponsorship – coupled with his positive, swashbuckling style, convinced the European Tour he was the right man to take over from George O’Grady, who had been in charge since 2005.
With a new media landscape, prize-fund discrepancy opening up between the European and PGA Tours and many of Europe’s top players plying their trade on the American circuit, Pelley’s appointment came at a crucial time for the tour. It’s become clear, nine months or so into his tenure, that he’s not prepared to take a laissez-faire approach to any issue.
It’s been a hectic first few months in the hot seat. He granted Rory McIlroy permission to compete in the climax of the Race to Dubai despite not fulfilling his membership quota, made changes to European Tour membership criteria, announced a new schedule and Finals Series, helped send the Ryder Cup to Italy in 2020 and implemented a new Monitoring Penalty in an effort to combat slow play and reduce round times by 15 minutes. Not what you would describe as a quiet start.
And he’s not planning on stopping there. He’s trying to instil a culture of flexibility, curiosity and change; an environment where every idea is considered. It’s certainly not an approach characterised by an aversion to risk. With Pelley in charge, the ensuing months and years promise to be intriguing indeed…
What persuaded you to leave your life in Canada?
A combination of working in golf, living in Europe and looking at the business and seeing that it had significant opportunity to grow. When you combine the three, it was a relatively easy decision. It really brought together all the skills that I have gained throughout my career. Working in sport, running a small organisation, running a large organisation, dealing with athletes for some 25 years, understanding media, understanding marketing, understanding communication, understanding partnerships. The skills I have gained over a number of different jobs have prepared me very well.
Do you think it was important for someone from a non-golfing background to come in?
Not necessarily. I can only comment that in any business, it’s certainly nice to have a fresh approach and to have somebody look at something from a completely different angle. That’s certainly something I did, and something I’m still doing. I’m still learning and I’m learning more and more every day. If you want somebody with a completely different perspective, if you want fresh ideas and you want change, it’s easier to bring someone in who hasn’t been in that exact business before. Although I’ve played around the circumference of the golfing world, I’ve never actually worked in it.
Few would dispute a gap has opened up between the PGA and European Tour in recent times. What do you attribute that to?
At the end of the day, our players love to play here. I believe their preference is to play in Europe. But there is significant disparity between the actual prize funds. If you have the chance to play for significantly more money, you are going to explore the opportunity. At the very least, you are going to think about it. Our goal is to provide the players who can qualify to play on the PGA Tour with a viable alternative by increasing our prize funds.
What’s important is that our prize funds increase, our playing opportunities increase across the board for all our players, we create golf experiences and play on worldclass golf courses in world-class cities. As a members’ organisation, though, it’s important for our 200th-ranked member to be as happy as our number-one ranked player.
How are you going about increasing these prize pools? Have sponsors been receptive to the idea?
Having been in the world of partnerships/sponsorships for the best part of the last 25 years, it’s about creating a relationship, a return on investment by understanding a partner’s business and providing a value proposition that meets their objectives. Prior to accepting the job, I asked to look at some of the sponsor contracts. I wanted to understand all facets of the business. I studied as much as I could and it became very clear to me that there was an opportunity to create significant value if we made a playersfirst, partners-first philosophy.
How are growth plans going thus far?
I think we’re in the midst of transitioning in 2016, and 2017 will be different from 2016, and 2018 will be different from 2017. We haven’t definitively announced any specific plans, but I’m pretty confident that we will have a stronger schedule, both from a playing-opportunities and prize-fund perspective, for our members in 2017. And that will then increase in 2018. There’s a lot of change underway.
Do go on…
For example, we’re exploring new formats. Although we are dedicated to maintaining the integrity, history and tradition of the game, we are going to try some new formats on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and maybe Saturdays and Sundays in 2017 and 2018, which I can’t get too deep into. I believe we are an entertainment content business, with golf as our platform and the players as our stars.
Is that what you were alluding to when you said announcements were coming that would see the tour go in a different direction?
Well, I think there will be a refinement, and I think there will be a structural change with how we look at some of our tournaments. Without getting into too much detail, as we continue to work and refine our current plan, things are happening fast and moving really quickly. It can be daunting, and you can’t be afraid to take some challenges, and we’re not.
The PGA Tour seems to have cordoned off late August and September with the FedExCup play-offs. Would you ever go up against those events?
The way that I look at our schedule is that we’re strong at the beginning of the year and incredibly strong at the end of the year with the Finals Series. There are some great opportunities in Europe in the spring and in the summer. Those will be our priorities right now.
One of the great successes last year was the British Masters. Are there any plans for more events in England?
There might be. The British Masters was certainly very successful, on the heels of the wonderful promotion and the excellent production of our partners at Sky. It shows what the power of broadcast promotion and great production can do, because ratings were very strong. What it also showed us was that the alignment with players and tournaments is important. It’s important to align our big players and big stars with tournaments – British Masters, Rory and the Irish Open, Sergio at the Spanish Open etc.
Has there been any interest?
We’ve had some discussions. The British Masters was something that was obviously very successful and well received. The BMW PGA Championship is again incredibly well received. Could we have a third event in England? Absolutely. But we’re having discussions with a number of different countries and partners.
How is reducing the number of events players have to play in to five going to encourage more top Europeans to play on the European Tour more often?
Firstly, we are a members’ organisation, so nothing is done unilaterally. We have a lot of debates, whether it be Pro-Am formats or exemption categories. When someone falls out of the world’s top 50 and isn’t able to play in the Majors and WGCs, they can still become a member by playing in five other events. We still want our high-profile players to be members.
Make no mistake about it, our goal isn’t for them to play in five, it’s for them to play in as many as they can. But it’s our job to provide that opportunity by giving them the best possible experiences on the best golf courses while playing for increased prize pools.
Down the line, would you ever consider different quotas for, say, Europeans and Americans, members and non-members?
I think our mandate here, and our culture here, is one of flexibility, is one of curiosity, is one of change. Every idea is worthy of merit. We are open to having conversations in terms of different formats, different categories, everything. The best thing is that we have a tournament committee led by Thomas Bjorn, and a very engaging tournament committee at that.
That provides us a great sounding board. There are a couple of different formats and a couple of other things that we’re in the midst of discussing with them. The first thing we do is go to the players. Some of them they’ve embraced, others they have not. That’s part of being a members’ organisation, and to be honest that’s the fun part about it – to have those conversations. Would we open and have discussions on different quotas? Yes. Our mandate is going to be flexible to entertain any type of change, but we won’t make any changes without forensically looking at them.
You said you felt that the DP World Tour Championship was the European Tour’s flagship event last year, not the BMW, contrary to recent rhetoric. Why was that?
What I believe is that we have many premium events and we have a lot of great golf tournaments. Dubai is the culmination of the Race to Dubai. The BMW PGA Championship is a fantastic event; it’s a premium event. But we have many premium events, and that is a key focus. We have to understand that Dubai is critical to us, Abu Dhabi is very important, and as we move forward, there will hopefully be more premium events like the BMW PGA Championship.
In terms of pace of play, how has the new Monitoring Penalty been received?
It’s been very well received. Again, everything we do, we spend a lot of time with our players reviewing and going through. It’s a great asset to have the tournament committee there, with so many intelligent players who have very strong opinions, but still want the best for the game. It’s been well received, and we’re looking at a couple of other things now and we are monitoring it closely. It’s certainly not a case of one initiative being the end of it. The Monitoring Penalty has shaved some time off rounds, but we’re not at our goal, which is to take 15 minutes off.