The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has expanded the number of tournament-specific mobile properties it publishes, working with mobile platform company July Systems.
“Each tournament isn’t going to create their own app, because a lot of that information would overlap with us, such as scoring and information,” Brian Carroll, VP of television and emerging media for the LPGA, told AdExchanger.
The league was one of the first to test a new offering, July MX, that lets companies launch mobile-optimized sites and applications without coding experience. “July MX allows us to have complementary content, such as where to park or buy tickets, specific tournament schedules, discounts, and things happening on site, and keep it within our mobile experience.”
It has worked with July Systems since 2010 and was one of the first to test the pre-launch July MX, using it to create individual mobile microsites for several recent LPGA tournaments. With 28 tournaments in the US and abroad, Carroll estimates the LPGA will create around 20 mobile microsites for the various events.
Internally at LPGA, a digital media manager oversees the creation of these mobile microsites through July MX, which Carroll said is easy-to-use and required a half-day of training.
The LPGA is not yet offering outside advertising on its mobile sites and apps, focusing instead on title sponsors. The ability to package and sell digital sponsorships for numerous standalone mobile sites — versus its core site at LPGA.com — may lend additional momentum to the microsite strategy.
“Our general mobile strategy has been to create good content first, and then start trying to monetize,” Carroll said. “For us, we’re trying to make our sponsors happy, so it’s about value rather than re-selling. Eventually, we’ll put more ads on there, and the tournaments can decide to as well.”
