Masters organizers expect to rake in $70M in merch sales at the gift shop during tournament week… with even the players and their families dropping thousands on Augusta-branded gifts
While The Masters will pay out a total purse of $18million this year to its competitors, the tournament will rake in nearly four times that from merchandise.
The tournament will do roughly $70million in sales this year at Augusta’s gift shop, according to Joe Pompliano’s Huddle Up newsletter, and hordes of people line up to purchase items like foot-high Garden Gnomes.
While there is an ‘imagery shop’ and ‘publications shop’ on the tournament’s website, the rest of The Masters’ merchandise is only available in-person.
That’s led to a massive demand for official gear, and some of the sales numbers are staggering.
As Pompliano noted, ‘if the store is open 10 hours a day, that means Augusta National is selling $10 million of merchandise a day, $1 million of merchandise an hour, $16,000 worth of merchandise every minute, and $277 worth of merchandise every second.’
Fans line up by the hundreds to get their hands on official Masters merchandise
Customers carry a Masters gnome outside the golf shop during a practice round this year
Customers spend money on things like $50 gnomes that stand a foot tall
Furthermore, one customer is rumored to have spent $36,000 during a single visit last year, Gold Digest said.
The demand led the course to build a new gift shop in 2018 – at double the size of the previous one.
And it’s not just fans who are shelling out money on merchandise.
Jordan Spieth, tied for 24th at the time of publishing at -1, admitted to Golfweek that’s he’s spent big at the gift shop.
‘Oh, man. I’ve probably spent $5,000 there at a time,’ he said last year.
Jordan Spieth admitted last year that he’s had some big spending days at the gift shop
‘Between clothes, hats, glasses. I go to the gift shot if I’m there before Christmas to get my dad a nice jacket. And I go in there with that in mind and I still walk out with three, four gift bags of stuff.’
Meanwhile, Kevin Na estimated he spends a whopping ‘$8,000 to $10,000 a year’ on gifts for family, friends and sponsors, and the legendary Jack Nicklaus said his wife Barbara has spent a lot too.
‘I don’t know what the most expensive item would be, and I don’t think I want to know,’ he said.
The tournament, which may not conclude until Monday due to the suspension of play on Saturday, is set to rake in around $150million in total revenue.