The Grant Thornton Invitational was a precedent-setting sports event that brought the PGA TOUR and LPGA together for equal prize and visibility. It also served as the first-ever co-sanctioned event between the two organizations. By hosting top male and female professional golfers together for the first time in 25 years for a mixed team competition, we shined a light on gender parity, united the professional golf world, and turned our brand into an unforgettable experience all while showcasing the game of golf as a vehicle for positive change and inclusivity through sport.

While the fight for pay equity has made headlines and shaped the future of several global sports in recent years, professional golf has lagged in closing the gap. Despite massive growth recently in LPGA purses, the average PGA TOUR purse in 2023 was 4.25x larger than the average LPGA purse. Coverage of women’s golf is significantly behind male coverage as well, with LPGA players typically getting 10% of golf TV airtime in comparison.  And it had been almost 25 years since a mixed-team event appeared on the Tour calendars. This was our opportunity. 

With the Grant Thornton Invitational, we aimed to tackle inequity in professional golf with an event that drives parity and unites the sport.  Through collaboration, we incorporated input from both leagues, listened to our Grant Thornton Ambassadors and industry partners and ultimately brought the collection of ideas to life.  

It was essential that our mixed team event, something the golf world was hungry for, addressed the current inequity in the golf world. We did this by delivering: 

-An equal purse distribution, the largest non-Major, non-Tour championship purse and the 7th largest purse on the LPGA. 

-Golf’s only TV broadcast with equal visibility for PGA TOUR and LPGA players. 

-A tournament format reflective of players’ voices that highlighted team chemistry, collaboration, and complementary skills to assure the parity was evident in competition. The format balanced credibility of the competition with broadcast entertainment value.  

-Equal buy-in as the first-ever co-sanctioned competition by both the PGA TOUR and LPGA 

While there’s been growing momentum around women’s sports and pay equity in recent years, shaping the future of several global sports, professional golf has lagged behind.

A mixed-team competition had not happened since 1999 and had never been co-sanctioned by both Tours. We created the Grant Thornton Invitational to challenge expectations, walk our talk on DEI and build a future for golf that is more equal, inclusive and representative.

The Grant Thornton Invitational was not about re-branding the tournament it replaced, but an opportunity to create a level playing field where female athletes earn equal visibility, reward, and esteem alongside their male counterparts; making real our brand’s commitment to driving inclusivity.

Our vision: Make the Grant Thornton Invitational synonymous with visible proof of progress and use it to build a future for golf that is representative of our commitment to parity and equality in the workplace and in sport.  

As a professional services firm, it’s table stakes to have DE&I goals and objectives for sports sponsorships, but we were determined to outdo the typical diversity-driven activations to achieve an outcome of tangible proof that actually changes the game. We carefully curated every aspect of the brand experience to prove our commitment to parity, including:

Harnessed the growing momentum around women’s sports. The highly vocal response from the golf community and media landscape in the lead-up months solidified our intuition: the sports world was eager for a mixed team event. 

Collaborated with players on format, ensuring parity and equality were ubiquitous.

Committed to a notable $4M purse split equally, the 7th highest payout on the LPGA.

Utilized our brand ambassadors representing diversity in age, gender and culture to tell the story of our brand’s commitments.

Crafted our visual brand to embody our mission and make our event approachable to all.

The Grant Thornton Invitational was not about revamping an existing tournament, but an opportunity to live our values and tell our brand story in a tangible, meaningful way to golf fans and players. We brought to life our brand’s commitment to championing equity in sport by:   

-Uniting the PGA TOUR and LPGA in a historic, mixed-team event featuring an equitable playing format that made real our vision for a more equitable future for golf.

-Prioritizing gender parity across the event’s coverage, promotion, marketing representation and payout structure to ensure our actions proved our firm’s stance on equity and inclusivity.

-Bringing to life our equality-focused message at scale and showing we’re growing the game alongside the biggest names in golf.

The event moved the needle for gender parity and representation for the game of golf at large, inspired and driven by Grant Thornton’s commitment to building inclusive

The Grant Thornton Invitational was our opportunity to challenge expectations and walk our talk on DEI in golf and, as a result, there was no aspect of our promotion that was not thoughtfully connected to our brand purpose, values and mission to grow the game.

-Tournament branding: Our visual identity was value-driven in every sense, embodying equality, openness and forward thinking. Our main logo utilized inviting font visually softened the exclusive nature of an invitational, and our secondary “Pair of tees” logo playing on the word “parity” displayed our commitment to progress and appeared across all tournament assets.

-Broadcast/digital: Focusing on equal coverage of PGA TOUR/LPGA golfers across all promotional assets, we put our brand values front and center.

-Collaboration: We incorporated input from both leagues, listened to our Grant Thornton Ambassadors and industry partners to bring the ideas to life and support our brand’s mission.

As the firm’s first major sports entitlement and the most public storytelling platform for Grant Thornton’s DEI commitments, the Grant Thornton Invitational delivered not only marketing objectives, KPIs—it made our brand mission real and created tangible progress.

Grant Thornton’s brand awareness skyrocketed through 3B media impressions, 3.95M social impressions, 1,271 tournament placements, 391% increase in Share of Voice in December, with 99% positive media coverage sentiment.

YOY metrics included the following INCREASES: 78% in attendance, 30% in broadcast viewership, 566% in media attending.

Search for Grant Thornton outpaced competitors during tournament week and exceeded RSM Classic search (a competitor’s PGA TOUR event) by nearly double, and our DEI-focused tournament landing page highlighted our firm’s commitments.

With $11.4M in wins plus an $80.5M+ pipeline, we’re forecasted to achieve 6:1 (vs. 4:1 ROMI goal).

Most importantly, the Grant Thornton Invitational set a new par for representation, parity, and inclusivity in golf.