ears ago, when Georgia-Pacific Corp. sponsored what is now the AT&T Classic, a G-P official made a sales call at the office of an Asian paper company executive whose walls were covered with photos of him playing golf.
"We have our own tournament," the G-P representative offered. "Why don't you come play?"
He did, and after a little golf, a bit of wining and dining and the requisite autograph-snagging, the paper executive said, "You know, we should do more business with you. We didn't realize how important you were."
The end result, recalled Steve Jackson, who also worked for G-P at the time, was tens of millions of dollars in new pulp sales.
"There are," Jackson notes, "those kinds of stories."
Jackson, who's now on the search committee looking for a new title sponsor for the tournament, hopes corporate America takes the point: Being title sponsor of a PGA Tour event like the one in Atlanta can pay off in many ways.
Now, if only someone would seize the opportunity to spend about $7 million a year for five years, plus related marketing costs, to put their name on the event.
The tournament's effort to land a title sponsor has been hampered by the downturn in the economy and by the reversal of fortunes of many companies that might otherwise jump at the chance to put their name on the event.
"We are the victim of the timing of business economics," Jackson said. "People are saying, we're not going to increase our spending this year."
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