How Arnold Palmer Revolutionized the Business of Sports

            Arnold Palmer is one of the best golfers of all time. He began his professional career back in 1953 and had such a successful career. The famous Arizona Half and Half drink that is half lemonade, half tea was Arnold Palmer’s idea. Many young people may not know very much of Palmer but that drink may be well known to many people. Palmer recently passed away but his legacy was definitely left behind with the world.

            Back in 1961, Palmer was not happy with his equipment manager because of the contract that they had with Wilson. Palmer had signed a deal with Wilson back in 1954 when started his professional golf career. Palmer had grown to be one of the best golfers of the time over that span of 7 years and demanded more from Wilson because of his popularity. Palmer wanted more money from the balls and clubs that sold because of his name associated with the company. The truth is that Palmer just wanted a life insurance policy from the company incase anything happened to him during all of his travels playing golf.

            Wilson chose not to give Palmer what he desired from the company. This was arguably the biggest mistake the company made because Palmer is now considered in the top five golfers of all time. Palmer went on to launch his own company and named it The Arnold Palmer Golf Company. He became the first professional athlete to open up his own company and have such great success. Hardly any athletes at that time made any big time money and he took a risk in opening his own company but it paid off to be one of the best decisions he ever made.

            Palmer's decision started a trend with athletes to go out and market themselves to get their money. Most athletes sign with big companies to make money but they truly do not make all the money that the company makes. Palmer encouraged athletes with his decision to start his own company to get athletes to be entrepreneurs and make the money they truly deserve to make. It is not all about the money but most importantly respect. Athletes now desire so much more when they sign with companies to get what they deserve. Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan signed with Nike but have their own brands within the company.