TGL, the new technology-infused team golf competition established by TMRW Sports, has landed its first significant commercial partner, unveiling SoFi Technologies Inc, the digital personal finance company, as its inaugural presenting sponsor.
The multi-year agreement, announced today (Tuesday), also covers naming rights to the league’s purpose-built arena in Palm Beach on the campus of Palm Beach State College, Florida.
When it gets under way in January 2024, the competition will now be known as the ‘TGL presented by SoFi’ and be played at the 2,000-seat capacity SoFiCenter.
TGL chief executive Mike McCarley, who co-founded TMRW Sports alongside golf superstars Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, said: “As our first and largest commercial partner, we’re honoured to welcome SoFi as TGL’s presenting sponsor and our naming rights partner on SoFi Center. The team at SoFi is driving tremendous innovation in uniquely building lifetime relationships in financial services by leveraging technology to make a complete suite of products accessible to their members. In the same way, our vision for TGL is to create a new way for sports fans to experience golf by harnessing the power of technology to make sports more immersive, culturally relevant, and accessible for all.”
SoFi is best known in sport as the naming rights partner of SoFiStadium, home of the National Football League’s Los Angeles Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams.
Group chief executive Anthony Noto said the association with TGL will further “build brand awareness and trust with consumers to become a household name”.
He added: “Investing in sports has proven unequivocally valuable time and time again in helping us unlock this goal. From our very first conversation, there’s been a natural alignment between TGL’s tech-forward approach with SoFi’s approach as an unconventional financial services solution.”
There will be six teams in TGL featuring leading PGA Tour players in three-player, head-to-head match play. In the inaugural season there will be 15 regular-season matches, followed by the semi-finals and finals.
As well as Woods and McIlroy, the likes of Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose, Xander Schauffele, Max Homa and Rickie Fowler, all of whom featured at last weekend’s Ryder Cup, have committed to play in season one of TGL.
Other TGL partners announced to date are: official technology partner Full Swing; digital growth consultancy and technology services company Next League; and Infinite Athlete, which will provide its ‘FusionFeed’ technology.
Four of the six team ownership groups have been announced. They are: Atlanta (owned by AMB Sports and Entertainment, parent company of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and MLS’ Atlanta United); Boston (Fenway Sports Group); Los Angeles (led by Alexis Ohanian, Serena Williams and Venus Williams; as well as limited partners, the Antetokounmpo brothers); and New York (Steve Cohen, owner of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets).