I was initially skeptical when I read that the PIF Saudi Ladies International, with its largest prize fund outside the Majors and a star-studded international field, will kick off the 2026 Ladies European Tour (LET) season in style at Riyadh Golf Club from February 11-14.
Intrigued by the potential of this event, I set out to uncover the truth behind these claims. Here is what I discovered:
| Major Tournament | ~2020/2021 Purse | ~2024/2025 Purse | Relative Growth |
| U.S. Women’s Open | ~$5.5M | ∼$12M | ~2× |
| Women’s PGA Championship (KPMG) | ~$4.5M | ∼$12M | ~2.6× |
| AIG Women’s Open | ~$4.5M | ~9.75M | ~2.1× |
| Chevron Championship | ~$3.1M | ~8M | ~2.6× |
| Amundi Evian Championship | ~$4.5M | ~8M | ~1.8× |
The PIF Saudi Ladies International, the season opener backed by Golf Saudi and the first of 5 prominent PIF Global Series events on the LET’s international schedule, has drawn a large lineup including Major champions and 11 Golf Saudi Ambassadors.
It also marks Singapore’s Shannon Tan, the 2025 LET Order of Merit leader, making her return to competition in 2026.
More than just a golf event, it aims to celebrate the sport as a whole. A key part of this is Go Golf, Golf Saudi’s all-encompassing development program that aims to make the game accessible to everyone.
By offering interactive clinics and “have-a-go” sessions, the program will help hundreds of newcomers learn the fundamentals of swing in an engaging and pressure-free setting.
Women’s sports are experiencing a measurable commercial inflection point characterized by
- accelerated revenue growth,
- heightened sponsor interest, and
- a shift toward gender-equity-aligned brand positioning.
Multiple independent analyses reinforce this trajectory: a McKinsey assessment shows that from 2022 to 2024, revenue tied to women’s sports expanded at a rate 4.5x that of men’s sports, while Deloitte forecasts that global revenues in women’s elite sports will reach $2.35 B in 2025, up from $1.88 B in 2024.
Concurrently, a World Economic Forum study reports that sponsorship activity in women’s sport is scaling faster than in major men’s leagues and that 86% of sponsors say their investment meets or exceeds expectations—indicating a robust return profile that strengthens the business case for continued spend.
This environment is driven by 2 reinforcing mechanisms:
- brands seeking exposure to growing women’s sports audiences and aligning their messaging with values such as inclusion and gender equity, and
- rising engagement metrics that translate into measurable commercial returns.
Empirical evidence shows that fans of women’s sports are more responsive to sponsor messaging and more likely to engage or convert.
These dynamics influence allocation decisions across categories.
Women’s golf offers a microcosm of the broader trend. The LPGA provides demonstrable ROI—with some sponsors achieving up to 400% media-value returns—illustrating that even if absolute sponsorship volumes are lower than in football/soccer or tennis, efficiency and engagement can be significantly higher.
Between 2019 and 2023, the LPGA doubled the number of active brands on its sponsorship roster, surpassing 1,000 sponsors for the first time in June 2023.
Increased sponsor willingness to invest has supported prize-money growth and elevated commercial visibility.
In aggregate, women’s golf reflects the larger ecosystem:
- accelerating investment,
- intensifying media and commercial attention, and
- expanding brand participation.
However, the sponsorship market is heterogeneous—different women’s sports command distinct scales, inventory types, and audience profiles—which implies segmentation rather than uniformity in market outcomes.