South Korea has risen to rival the United States as one of the world’s most golfing nations. Given that its people have a fixation with birdies and bogeymen, business, sponsorship and investment are also flourishing in this sport.
After winning the war with the North, South Korea has rapidly advanced from being a very impoverished nation to one of immense wealth and prosperity. With a GDP of $1.65 trillion in 2022, it ranked as the 13th largest economy in the world. A significant amount of cash has been allocated to the golf industry.
Korean investments in the sport
Some of the most significant corporate sponsors of the game are now South Korean corporations. The previous Los Angeles Open, a Tour fixture since 1926, and the Genesis Invitational, which is hosted by Tiger Woods, are two events supported by the upscale car company Genesis, a subsidiary of Hyundai based in Seoul.
Genesis claims that golf reflects its core principles of respect, integrity, and excellence. Furthermore, supporting tournaments has far wider benefits than only appealing to a particular group of people in many nations. It represents the nation’s corporate hospitality concept for distinguished visitors, known as Son-Nim, an honorific title for clients in Korea.
Moreover, the Byron Nelson Classic, another famous PGA Tour event, had a rebranding earlier this year to become the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. This move was made to highlight the Korean conglomerate CJ Group’s significant influence in the sport, which started in 2001. With this, Yong Han, in CJ’s sport marketing division, said: “We started with Se-Ri and that was the company’s first international or global marketing campaign.”
Han added: “We’re trying to connect the Korean lifestyle and food within the tournament… So we’re bringing our flavors to a sports platform by providing the best food they can have at the golf tournament. We brought 14 chefs to the tournament last year to do player dining.” For the companies, the tournament sponsorships are “there to amplify our marketing strategy but also to bring the lifestyle of fun, ease and an enjoyable atmosphere at the same time”.
It is natural that Korean businesses are seeing significant prospects on the greatest stages of the game, given golf’s ongoing popularity. Now, one of their goals is to gain a foothold in the more expansive markets of Europe and America.
Source: Golf.com