Michelle Wie West: LPGA Earnings vs Endorsements ‘Leveling Out’

Michelle Wie West won five tournaments and made $6.82 million on the course during her career on the LPGA Tour, which currently puts her at No. 62 all-time. 

But she made tens of millions more dollars off the course, through various endorsement deals like her high-profile pacts with Nike and Sony, among others. 

Now retired and focused on investing, Wie West, 36, is pleased with the injection of cash the LPGA has seen in recent years. 

“Honestly, I think it’s kind of leveling out on our tour,” she told Front Office Sports on the latest episode of Portfolio Players.
”I think players are making multimillion dollars on the course every year. So, I think it’s leveling out in terms of endorsement deals.”

In 2014, when Wie West won the U.S. Women’s Open, she earned a career-high $1.9 million. That season, the LPGA awarded roughly $56 million in total prize money. This season, the LPGA will pay out more than $133 million.

“Players are making a lot more on the course, especially in golf,” Wie West said. “The purses have gone up every single year, which is amazing. But I think the players still need to work together.”

Wie West called the LPGA an “interesting workplace” due to its golfers’ independent contractor status, and the lack of a players’ union like in team sports. 

“Everyone has a common goal of wanting to increase purses,” she said. “What can we do to better our broadcasts? What can we do to better our product? I think you have to have a good collective, which I think is happening on the LPGA Tour. But yeah, it always makes for an interesting workplace when you have 150 independent contractors.”

Wie West, who has remained involved with the LPGA since retiring, said she’s a fan of new LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler, who took over the tour’s top job in May. “We talk a lot about the state of the tour, the future of the tour,” she said. “I think he is extremely bright, I think he has the right past job experiences to be the right person for the job.”

She’s an investor in L.A. Golf Club, one of six franchises in TGL, the tech-centric indoor golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy that launched last year. 

“I thought the new version of it, the technology aspect that TGL is bringing to the sport, is really fun,” she said. “It’s never going to take over green-grass golf. That’s always going to be the main thing. But I think there’s different versions of golf now.”

TGL has been exploring the idea of adding LPGA players to the league, either with existing teams or as part of a potential women’s division. Alexis Ohanian, majority owner of LAGC, is a big proponent of the move. 

Wie West has previously voiced her support for TGL adding women. Is it on the way soon? “I would love to,” she told FOS. “We’ll see what happens. I can’t say too much.”