- All LPGA rounds and events next year to be broadcast live for the first time
- Nearly half of tour events increase purse for 2026 season
- Kessler says LPGA Tour is looking for “breakthrough moment” to capture public zeitgeist
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour will offer its players a total prize fund of just over US$128.5 million for the 2026 season.
The LPGA confirmed that 14 of the 31 LPGA Tour events played next year have raised their purses, with every single round from every event broadcast live for the first time ever from next season.
By increasing broadcast coverage for its events, the LPGA Tour hopes the improved television product will lead to a larger fanbase, which would then progress to increased commercial revenue and eventually a stronger cash flow that would be invested back into the circuit.
“We compete in the attention economy. It’s not just against other sports,” LPGA commissoner Craig Kessler said. “Anything that has the potential to caption a fan’s attention, we are competing against that. So it’s our job to be differentiated, to be interesting, and capture fans’ mind share in every way we possibly can.”
The 2026 calendar will feature the addition of the Aramco Championship, a tournament jointly commissioned with the Ladies European Tour (LET) and Golf Saudi, which will feature a US$4 million purse.
Kessler, who was appointed by the LPGA earlier this year, suggested that more events could be created from the Golf Saudi partnership. He also talked up the possibility of staging a major in Asia one day, with several players from the continent finding increasing success on the circuit this year.
While discussing the prospect of new events, Kessler made sure to stress the need to maintain its current partnerships, saying he hoped “the LPGA is quickly perceived as one of the best partners in all of sports”.
Achieving this goal will require getting buy-in from its players. Kessler noted that he had asked players at a recent meeting to be more willing to appear on camera, and noted the tour would invest most of its resources into its best, most marketable and most cooperative players.
He cited the buzz gathered around this month’s pro-am tournament The Annika, which featured basketball star Caitlin Clark and Kai Trump, the granddaughter of US president Donald Trump, as something the tour needed to capitalise on.
“Our job is to find the right holistic, balanced set of stories to tell so that our fans get excited week-to-week,” Kessler said. “If we are reliant on one person, whether it’s a star or a celebrity, to carry the weight of the Tour on their backs, I think we’ve missed the boat.
“What last week proved is that there’s so much magic happening on the LPGA and we have to bring all of it to life.”
With interest in women’s sports continuing to grow, Kessler believes the LPGA are taking key steps in a long journey to capturing attention in a similar way the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has done over recent years.
“We’re still – say it how you want, a growth stock or a discounted stock – if I were an investor thinking of coming in as a partner of the LPGA, now is the time to do it,” Kessler said.
“We haven’t yet had our breakthrough moment. And if I as a company looking to get behind an organisation as remarkable as this one had a chance to do it, now would be the time… Even when we get there we’ll never be totally satisfied because this is an organisation, as I mentioned, of continuous improvement and the line, the bar will always move.”
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