Octagon Runs Rogers LPGA Tournament

STAFF PHOTO ANTHONY REYES Harry Hardy, left, tournament director, and Andy Bush, executive tournament director, talk Wednesday in club house seating at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers. The pair both work for Octagon that manages the LPGA event.
STAFF PHOTO ANTHONY REYES Harry Hardy, left, tournament director, and Andy Bush, executive tournament director, talk Wednesday in club house seating at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers. The pair both work for Octagon that manages the LPGA event.

ROGERS -- Planning an LPGA tournament for the world's best golfers is a full-time job.

Harry Hardy has been preparing for the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G for 51 weeks.

At A Glance (w/logo)

LPGA Tournament

The first round of tournament play at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G begins Friday with the final round Sunday. Daily tickets are $15. A weekly ticket is $25. Admission is free to children 17 and younger with a ticketed adult.

Source: www.nwachampionship…

The tournament runs Friday through Sunday at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers. Public events start Wednesday with a pro-am.

Hardy is the tournament director and an employee of Octagon, a global sports, entertainment, lifestyle marketing and talent representation agency.

The company holds more than 15,000 events annually, and owns and manages a wide variety of sporting events around the world, including the North Face 100, the largest endurance run in mainland China, and the Toyota Texas Bass Classic, the first bass fishing event to air on network television.

Octagon is the sports marketing arm of Interpublic Group, a worldwide advertising and marketing communication company with headquarters in New York.

The NWA Championship is Octagon's event, and it pays a fee to the LPGA to cover the cost of the television broadcast. The Golf Channel will cover this year's event.

"Octagon is one of the best in the business. They bring so much experience to the table," Ricki Lasky, LPGA's vice president of tournament business affairs, said in an email.

Octagon is also managing the inaugural Meijer LPGA Classic Aug. 7-10 in Grand Rapids, Mich. The LPGA hired the company to help with the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla. The tour championship is owned by the LPGA.

Lasky wrote that Octagon is helping the LPGA add events.

"As we look to grow our schedule, we are not looking to own and run any additional events," she wrote. "We really look to those management companies to help run the events as we continue to grow and develop as a tour."

The sports management company pays tournament costs mainly through sponsorships. Hardy said the NW Arkansas Championship has more than 50 sponsors. He would not say how much money the sponsors paid, but the tournament has a $2 million purse, with $300,000 going to the champion.

Octagon also collects proceeds from ticket sales, but Hardy said Walmart's sponsorship pushed him to keep ticket prices low and increase charity donations.

"It's not easy, and it's demanding in a good way," he said of working with Walmart.

Daily tickets cost $15; children 17 and younger are admitted free with a ticketed adult.

Charitable donations hit $135,000 from the 2013 tournament.

This is the tournament's eighth year.

Andy Bush, senior vice president of Octagon and executive tournament director of the local LPGA tournament, has been part of it since the beginning.

Octagon opened an office in Rogers in 2006 to begin preparing for the first tournament in 2007. The Rogers office has seven full-time employees. Bush said about 30 Octagon employees will be in town for the week to help run the tournament. Octagon employs more than 800 people worldwide.

Much of the tournament work throughout the year revolves around sponsorship development, but during the actual event, Hardy said it is all hands on deck.

"We will be doing a little bit of everything," he said. "We'll have staff assigned all over the course."

Octagon employees will hit the course at 4 a.m. and leave at 9 p.m., Hardy said.

Hardy jokes that his work on the tournament really only takes 51 weeks.

"The volunteers really run things during the event," he said. More than 700 people are volunteering through the week's events.

Bruce Dunn, owner and race director of All Sports Productions in Fayetteville, said event production companies rely on volunteers.

"About 97 percent of labor at events is volunteer. It's an amazing business model," he said. "We rely on people to give freely of their time to put on events that helps us stay in business."

Dunn's events include the Joe Martin Stage Race and the Ozark Valley Triathlon. He is in his 12th year in business and runs seven to nine events each year.

He said the sporting event management industry is only about 30 years old.

"It was all done by organization and committee before," he said.

Octagon has been in business 30 years.

Company officials may expand Northwest Arkansas event offerings outside the sports arena. Hardy said they are developing a food festival.

Nothing is set yet, but if the food festival does start, the first one would be held in 2015, he said.

"We would love to add a second event, and a food festival seems like it would fill a gap in the market," Hardy said.

NW News on 06/23/2014

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