Buick ends sponsorship of main PGA Tour events
The PGA Tour has suffered a double blow after the troubled Detroit carmaker Buick announced it was withdrawing its sponsorship from two events – the Buick Invitational and Buick Open – from next year.
“As a result of the recent court-supervised restructuring of General Motors (GM) all agreements between Buick and the PGA Tour have been withdrawn,” read a joint statement on Tuesday. “This brings to an end the Buick Open at Warwick Hills and Buick’s sponsorship of the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines.
“While this is disappointing news, both the PGA Tour and Buick remain in discussions regarding future sponsorship possibilities.”
The PGA Tour said it would make an announcement tomorrow regarding a replacement event for the Buick Open, which is widely expected to be staged at The Greenbrier in West Virginia.
It added that alternative sponsorship would be sought for the Buick Invitational, where Tiger Woods has triumphed six times. The final Buick Open was held last week when Woods clinched the title for a third time.
In November GM’s Buick brand ended its endorsement deal with Woods, worth an estimated $8m annually, a year early in a move to cut costs. The following month GM and its fellow car-maker Chrysler were beneficiaries of a $17.4bn bail-out by the US government.
Six events on the 2009 PGA Tour have car-makers as title sponsors and, although the US circuit was fully sponsored for this season, uncertainty abounds for the future.
“It would be imprudent for us just to assume that everything is going to be fine and dandy in this environment,” said the Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem at the end of last year. “We have to assume that we are going to take some hits and that we’re going to have some turnover. In preparation for that possibility we have been talking to a range of companies in other industry sectors. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”
Source: Guardian
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