“Beyond that, to have a system in which
we’re all aligned, unified and have a
common purpose and direction that we’ve
jointly identified, it will give us a better
result for more people in the sport.
“So not only will we have more money
to invest into the game, we’ll also have a
better system to invest into.
“Currently we have duplication with staff
around the country and we realise we have
gaps in certain areas – areas that we’d
like to have more of a focus on such as
female participation, facilities planning and
helping clubs face their daily challenges.
“So effectively we can have the same
number of staff, but we’d have them better
focused on more appropriate areas where
they can have the greatest impact. We’d
expect a better outcome from that facet
alone.”
Pitt is adamant that the time for action is
upon the sport.
“I feel the industry is looking for leadership
and change in this area, from both GA
and state bodies,” he said.“We’ve put
a lot of work into this and had a lot of
external support to ensure we have the
best possible model for us to achieve the
sport’s goals while alienating as few people
as possible along the way.
“When you look at the Australian sporting
landscape, at the very top end of the tree
we’re working in the same space as sports
that get a massive head start in terms of
broadcast rights deals, sports such as the
AFL, NRL, cricket and tennis.
“The revenues their broadcast deals
generate are huge and our challenge is to
make sure we use the money we do have
available as well as possible so that we can
compete.
“We need to increase revenues wherever
we can and then unify and become
efficient in how we deliver services to have
any chance of competing against those
better-resourced sports.
“Golf sits at or near the top of all the
`second-tier’ sports that don’t have the
massive broadcast revenues, so we need
to be more efficient in terms of how we
spend our funding – that’s a key driver
behind OneGolf.
“It’s an exciting time for golf and a lot of
people are committed to seeing through
the change.”
Pitt said there was no firm timeline for all
states in agreement to align with OneGolf,
but that he hoped most would be close by
early in 2018.
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