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Their pledges came as they announced the Verizon Heritage's title sponsor will not return in that capacity after its contract expires in 2010.
Heritage tournament director Steve Wilmot had "chill bumps" Tuesday as he made the announcement. He said he was disappointed but ready to move on.
"I wish I had better news," Wilmot said, moments after revealing Verizon's decision.
Contested since 1969 across Sea Pines Resort's Harbour Town Golf Links, the tournament attracts as many as 130,000 spectators, Wilmot said. It has an $84 million impact on the state economy, according to a 2006 study by Clemson University, and has distributed nearly $20 million since 1987 to charities in South Carolina and Georgia.
The tournament has been conducted under the banner of Verizon or one of its corporate predecessors -- MCI and WorldCom -- since 1987, the third-longest on-going relationship between a PGA Tour event and a title sponsor, according to Jon Podany, the tour's senior vice president of business development.
PGA Tour and tournament officials said the event's future on Hilton Head is tenuous without a title sponsor, but they are confident the tournament will find one.
"It's not the best time to be out there shopping and all, but we have a very special, unique product," Wilmot said. "We feel very strongly that a title sponsor will be in place."
Organizers have 18 months until the 2011 tournament to find Verizon's replacement. Even if a new title sponsor can't be found, the tournament could get by with a combination of lesser sponsorships, Wilmot said, though he doesn't think that will be necessary.
"We're going to have a title sponsor," Wilmot said. "It's my job."
Podany said the PGA Tour, which will assist the tournament in finding a new sponsor, has had "preliminary discussions" with several companies but would not name them.
The Heritage Classic Foundation has been contractually obligated to negotiate a title sponsorship only with Verizon, Wilmot said. However, that obligation ends today -- Verizon's deadline to tell tournament officials whether it intends to return beyond 2010.
A CHANGE IN STRATEGY
Verizon pays about $7 million per year to sponsor the Heritage under a five-year deal that began in 2006, and the tournament will seek a new deal of about $8 million per year, Wilmot said.
Verizon "seriously considered going forward" before opting not to renew, Podany said.
"We did what we could to get them to a positive decision," he said. "It just didn't fit with where they wanted to go."
MCI began its relationship with the tournament when it was seeking to establish its brand and build its domestic business, said Jack Hoey, Verizon Business's vice president of media relations.
Those are no longer the objectives of Verizon's business unit, which inherited the Heritage contract when the company acquired MCI in 2006. Verizon now wants to build awareness of its global communications network for businesses, Hoey said.
The company likely will continue to sponsor PGA Tour events, but will do so by dividing its money between more events, marketing vice president Becky Carr said in a news release. That could include a lesser sponsorship of the Heritage after 2010, Wilmot said.
For more than two decades, the tournament had negotiated with a cast of characters from MCI that changed little from year to year.
"We had never been through a renewal or negotiation with Verizon," said Simon Fraser, chairman of the Heritage Classic Foundation board, the charitable organization that conducts the tournament. "... We're further removed from the decision makers at Verizon than we were at MCI. We never knew exactly what they were thinking."
Wilmot said he sensed as early as July that this round talks was not going as smoothly as in years past.
COMMUNITY BACKING
Business and government leaders shared Wilmot's disappointment at Verizon's decision but also are confident the Heritage will find a new sponsor.
Beaufort County Council chairman Weston Newton said the tournament benefits the community, region and state in ways as large as providing exposure on national television and as small as providing college scholarships for area students.
He said he is eager to help preserve those benefits.
"It sounds like there are a lot of folks who are going to have to roll up their sleeves," Newton said. "It presents another hurdle we have to climb, but I'm convinced, with a lot of good folks working together, we can figure out how to solve this problem."
Podany says the Heritage has many attributes that make it attractive to potential sponsors: Hilton Head is an ideal destination that offers a plethora of outdoor activities. The tournament boasts a legacy of prominent champions. It is held the week after the Masters, when interest in golf is piqued by the season's first major championship. Harbour Town Golf Links is an iconic course well liked by players.
Bill Miles, president and CEO of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Heritage Classic Foundation board, said he is "fully confident" the tournament will lure a new sponsor, even though it is played in the smallest media market on the PGA Tour.
"If somebody wants a bigger media market, they're going to be paying a heck of a lot more," Miles said, citing many of the same attributes as Podany. "I think it's a wise, wise investment for what you receive."
Chad Prosser, director of the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism, said the Heritage is important to the entire state.
"The S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism will do everything within its power to assist the tournament trustees in securing a new title sponsor for this event, which is so important for tourism and business development in our state," he said in a prepared statement.
THE TASK AHEAD
Wilmot also is optimistic the tournament will find a sponsor in time for 2011, but he acknowledges it won't be an easy task. The economy is still in recession, and the golf industry fights the perception that hospitality tents are places where corporate bosses come to spend profligately.
Also, the Heritage is not the only PGA Tour event looking for backing.
Just last week, commissioner Tim Finchem discussed the potential loss of PGA Tour marketing partners and tournaments because of the economy. The PGA Tour has lost four title sponsors this season -- two events formerly sponsored by the car manufacturer Buick, U.S. Bank in Milwaukee and Stanford Financial in Memphis, where a PGA Tour was played in June without a sponsor.
The Heritage is one of at least 10 tournaments with title sponsorships that expire after 2010, although FBR, which sponsors the event in Phoenix, is the only other sponsor so far that has said it won't return for 2011.
The PGA Tour has had some recent success, extending contracts for tournaments sponsored by Zurich, Accenture and Travelers through 2014. It also found a new title sponsor for the season-opening event in Hawaii -- SBS has signed up through 2020.
"If you look at our track record of being able to fill holes when we have them, it's pretty good," Podany said.
Tour officials have tried to widen the pool of potential sponsors by pursuing candidates outside the automotive and financial sectors that long sustained many tournaments, Podany said. Tour officials have also worked with corporate executives in boardrooms and politicians in Washington to counter the perception that sponsoring a professional golf event is frivolous.
Fraser said friends on Wall Street tell him that perception is changing.
"The thing is, (sponsorship) is not very expensive," Fraser said."MCI, they would tell us it was unbelievable the amount of business they generated tied directly to the tournament. They always felt like it was money well spent."
A ROAD WELL-TRAVELED
Fraser said the Heritage is fortunate to have had such a long relationship with its title sponsor.
Nonetheless, this is hardly the tournament's first brush with financial hardship.
Ironically, the Heritage's association with its soon-to-depart title sponsor began before the 1987 tournament. MCI stepped in to keep the tournament afloat when the old Sea Pines Co., then the tournament's title sponsor, filed for bankruptcy and the PGA Tour threatened to move or close the island's marquee event.
The tournament bore MCI's name until 2000, when telecommunications company was purchased by WorldCom. Two years later, the Heritage Classic Foundation dropped WorldCom as its title sponsor, after it declared bankruptcy in the wake of an accounting scandal.
When the search for a new sponsor stalled, the Town of Hilton Head Island agreed to commit $1.8 million for the 2003 event, to be paid for with a yearlong increase from 1 percent to 2 percent in the town's hospitality tax on prepared food and beverages.
The town's support became unnecessary and the tax was repealed when, a little more than a month before the 2003 tournament, the Heritage Classic Foundation announced a four-year, $22 million deal with its former title sponsor, which reorganized under the MCI name.
The tournament name changed to the Verizon Heritage Classic in 2006, after MCI and Verizon merged.
"There's no doubt in my mind there will be a Heritage golf tournament here for the foreseeable future," Fraser said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
