NAPLES, Fla. – One year after the CEO of CME Group called into question the LPGA’s leadership, the company is renewing its commitment to the oldest organization in women’s sports.
The LPGA announced Wednesday morning that CME Group was extending its title sponsorship of the Tour Championship through 2025. In addition to the extension, the total purse for will increase from $7 million this year to $11 million for both ’24 and ’25. It matches the largest purse in women’s golf (U.S. Women’s Open). The winner’s check will double from $2 million this year to $4 million, the single largest payday in women’s sports. The runner-up will receive $1 million and everyone in the 60-player field will earn at least $55,000.
“As a long-standing supporter of women in business and sports, CME Group is pleased to continue our partnership with the LPGA to further elevate women’s golf,” CEO Terry Duffy said in a release. “Beginning next year, the CME Group Tour Championship’s $11 million purse will be the highest on the LPGA Tour, and the $4 million first-place prize will be the largest single prize in women’s sports. Both of these developments will make our event even more exciting for the players and spectators, while bringing more parity to the game.”
Duffy’s CME Group has been a frontrunner in pushing purses higher on the LPGA Tour since becoming title sponsor of the Tour Championship in 2011. That year the purse was $1.5 million with $500,000 going to the winner. In 2014, the tournament introduced the season-long Race to the CME Globe which featured a $1-million bonus to the winner. In 2019, the tournament changed to a winner-take-all format in which the champion’s check and the season-long bonus were combined into a single payday.
In 2022, the purse was elevated to $7 million with a record $2 million payday. That same year, Golfweek reported that Duffy had called into question the leadership at the LPGA after tour players failed to attend one of CME Group’s conference events held during the week of the tournament. Duffy was quoted as saying he was “exceptionally disappointed” and “concerned about the future of the tour” in the wake of the incident. LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan took responsibility for what she referred to as a “disconnect” for the lack of player turnout.
“This partnership extension with CME Group is extremely important and underscores the growth and strength of the LPGA,” Marcoux Samaan said in the release. “CME Group has been pushing the LPGA forward at every step of our evolution since 2011 and with this extension they are once again helping take the LPGA, women’s golf and women’s sports to unprecedented heights.”
