I’m not so sure I’m in disagreement with this new 2009 policy on all golfers requiring to speak English at all. Apparently there are many foreign players in the LPGA; it just happens that forty five of those are from South Korea.
Seon Hwa Lee was one of them, and there’s a great story in the article on how she drove back 300 miles from her home after finding out that her tournament was not a 54-hole tournament but rather a 72-hole tournament due to a language barrier issue. She is now working with an English tutor so that this doesn’t happen again. But it’s definitely an interesting story.
Here’s the thing: while sports is more about the talent of playing the sport than speaking the language, it is also a business. And unless you happen to have a PR person that can do translations and such, I don’t believe that people can get away without knowing English, especially a more public figure. We are, after all, in a country that speaks English. And it just won’t do if someone sponsors your players but need to create a commercial. In a language that players can’t speak.
Maybe it’s just me, but it’s definitely worthwhile to see if this is the beginning of the tide turning on the United States having an official national language or if professional sports will also adopt this policy.
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John wrote:
Personally, I think this is a ridiculous policy. The only reason why the LPGA came up with this policy is to restrict non-U.S. players. If the NBA had this rule, Yao Ming wouldn’t have been drafted at all and the NBA wouldn’t have been as popular as it is today.
With less Koreans playing in the LPGA, there is less of an incentive for Koreans to watch their favorite players on TV, thus reducing the market opportunity for the LPGA.
Posted on 27-Aug-08 at 10:10 am | Permalink
Jeff C. wrote:
> The only reason why the LPGA came up with this policy is to restrict non-U.S. players.
Actually, it’s more economically-based than you think. Unlike basketball, where players are drafted in multi-million contracts, players in golf are individually sponsored. In fact, the entire sport is heavily dependent on sponsors (along with the US Women’s Open, the other three LPGA tournaments are the “Kraft Nabisco Championship”, the “McDonald’s LPGA Championship presented by Coca-Cola”, and the “Ricoh Women’s British Open”).
It makes sense that the LPGA has to look out for itself and become more “sponsor-friendly”, the very start of which is to be able to have its players communicate with the sponsors.
And it’s not like the LPGA is going to say “you can’t speak English… go home.” They’ve stated that the tour will provide tutors and language-learning software, and that they’ll work with those who initially fail the oral exam.
While it may LOOK like it’s targeting the influx of Koreans that are qualifying, perhaps it’s more like that the sudden increase of non-English speaking players acted as a catalyst for this rule to be necessary.
I for one don’t see anything wrong (or racist for that matter) with this rule. Being able to interface with people is an important aspect for any business. My corporation specifically has a policy stating that English is the “working language,” though that doesn’t stop many of my colleagues from working together in smaller teams entirely in Mandarin.
Posted on 27-Aug-08 at 2:47 pm | Permalink
jun wrote:
Jeff C is right.
The purse that the winner gets in a golf tournament is mostly sponsors money.
Unlike other sports where fan attendance generates a major portion of revenue, that is not the case in golf. Golf relies so heavily on star power that the major stars such as Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson get paid just to show up by the sponsors in the PGA and the LPGA is headed in that direction as well.
and BECAUSE golf relies on star power and sponsors this is a no-brainer for the LPGA.
And this is actually a positive for many of the Korean golfers AND the sponsors.
because female Koreans litter the top ranks the sponsors want marketable stars and the fact is, that marketable stars speak must speak english. Also many Korean female golfers may get more recognition and well deserved coverage in the states as well, with this new forced regulation put on them.
And if anyone knows anything about Korean society then you know about the crazed english learning fetish that is stuck in the Korean higher learning psychology anyway…
it wont have any effect on their play…
Posted on 27-Aug-08 at 7:26 pm | Permalink
Amyable wrote:
I disagree wholeheartedly with the last two comments.
Angel Cabrera won the US Open last year. He is an Argentine and needed an interpreter to interview after the trophy presentation. He’s trying to learn but he admits it’s slow. I also believe some people have a gift in foreign language while others struggle enormously. A limited English speaking players hurt themselves more than the tour, other players, etc.
And, what’s to say that the sponsors will always be English speaking companies? What if a large Asian company sponsored? Toyota, Samsung? It’s a global economy more than ever folks.
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 8:35 pm | Permalink
Jeff C. wrote:
Amyable:
I believe you just PROVED our point. I have no doubt that Angel Cabrera is talented. I also have no doubt that if you say his name, most people would go “Who?”. Even though he bested Tiger Woods, Tiger is still a household name… not because of golf, but because of Gatorade, Nike, and even Electronic Arts (as an aside, check out this awesome clip of Tiger responding to a Youtube user exploiting a “bug” in the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ1st1Vw2kY … such great advertising!!)
If Angel spoke better English, I have no doubt he’d be even more popular, bringing more fans to the sport of golf, and most importantly, more sponsors.
As for “English speaking companies”, we’re specifically talking about the rule that the LPGA is instituting for their tour, or in other words, the American-based tour that plays almost entirely within the United States… Their target audience would be Americans, and the language Americans primarily speak is English
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 9:50 pm | Permalink
Amyable wrote:
The below links to some mainstream media outlets are also feeling as uncomfortable with this LPGA announcement as I.
http://www.boston.com/sports/golf/articles/2008/08/28/lpga_way_out_of_bounds/
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=05f84062-cb38-4769-94a8-3ce5b56f9454
http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/columns/story?columnist=harig_bob&id=3554052
http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sports/ny-ligolf285819379aug28,0,346140.story
Posted on 29-Aug-08 at 5:55 pm | Permalink
Richard wrote:
Economic considerations shouldn’t justify unfair and racist policies. There was a strong economic rationale for maintaining slavery but nobody would find that persuasive today.
The LPGA shows tremendous amount of cultural and racial insensitivity in implementing this policy. First, they obviously don’t realize how difficult it is for foreigners, particularly Koreans, to learn the English language. The reason the South Korean players aren’t speaking English isn’t because they’re lazy or uncooperative. It’s because it’s just really difficult for them to do so. Playing golf is tough enough. It’s not fair to add this kind of unnecessary requirement on them.
The LPGA also shows a real dearth of creativity in marketing their players. I’m sure there are other ways of getting past the language barrier- e.g., finding new audiences, getting translators, etc that could work just as well. The English lg requirement is a knee jerk response to economic circumstances that reflect underlying nativist and American-centric thinking. Hopefully, if an Asian person were at the head of the LPGA, they wouldn’t have come up with such an insensitive, wrongheaded policy.
Hopefully soon, there will be so many more Asian company sponsors and more Asian fans that the LPGA wouldn’t even think about implementing such a racist policy.
Posted on 01-Sep-08 at 2:33 pm | Permalink
darkmoon wrote:
lol. English is difficult? No less so for an American to learn Korean. I find that to be pretty inexcusable when it comes to language barriers.
I don’t find it far fetched to say that if you live in the country, learn to speak the language. On top of that, it’s sort of difficult to run more interactive advertisements (such as television and radio) from a sponsors’ perspective if your target audience does speak English.
LPGA itself is as other commenters have pointed out, a predominantly US based tour. Thus, I don’t find it far fetched to see that play out at all. No less than when Ichiro got recruited by the Mariners and he’s got more sponsorships now than he has when he first joined with MLB. It pays off when you can actually do interviews just like Kobe did with the Italian networks at the Olympics.
Posted on 01-Sep-08 at 7:59 pm | Permalink
Richard wrote:
But no one doesn’t want to learn the English here. And no one isn’t saying it doesn’t make sense to do so. There are obviously a lot of good reasons for the LPGA to encourage it.
But to SUSPEND players for not meeting a vague standard of English competency is overly punitive, especially when you ultimately don’t even need to talk to play really good golf. What if a golf player was completely mute? Should she be banned from playing at all for something she has no control over?
Granted, one’s English language ability is not an immutable characteristic like muteness but contrary to your statement that learning English is not difficult, it is very conceivable that a person could spend years trying to learn English and still not get that good at it, even with diligent effort. At least that’s what I’ve noticed with the many Koreans that I’ve known.
Also, it seems that the LPGA, while a predominantly US-based tour plays in many international venues.
Posted on 01-Sep-08 at 9:21 pm | Permalink
Richard wrote:
Oops- I meant to say, “But no one doesn’t want to learn English here” not “the English”. lol.
Posted on 01-Sep-08 at 9:25 pm | Permalink