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Charlotte GibsonESPN
Impressed by the WNBA’s #OrangeHoodie marketing campaign and the eye that it introduced the league, Michelle Wie West has labored with the LPGA to design the #HoodieForGolf marketing campaign to unfold extra consciousness for girls’s golf and amplify girls’s sports activities.
“We needed to create this hoodie to assist elevate the visibility of girls’s sports activities,” Wie West mentioned in an official assertion. “Extra importantly, this is a chance to lift cash for 2 charities which can be working to alter the face of golf and improve participation and illustration of ladies of colour.”
The cotton-candy pink and magnetic blue tie-dye hoodie with LPGA branding and emblem had been anticipated to be launched Monday, however that was moved up after Golden State Warriors gamers Damion Lee and Kent Bazemore had been seen carrying them on April 14. Wie West’s husband, Jonnie West, is director of basketball operations for the Warriors.
? @warriors | @Dami0nLee pic.twitter.com/gqxETZg9IR
— LPGA (@LPGA) April 14, 2021
Inside three hours of the images being shared on social media, the primary batch of hoodies offered out. Since final week, the hoodies have offered out twice and can proceed to be restocked.
All LPGA proceeds from gross sales of the restricted version hoodie will collectively profit the LPGA Renee Powell Fund and the Clearview Legacy Basis.
The LPGA Renee Powell Fund offers needs-based grants to LPGA/USGA Ladies Golf packages to extend participation by ladies in Black communities by way of entry, instruction, tools and extra assets to introduce ladies to golf and maintain them within the recreation.
Renee Powell, the pinnacle golf skilled at her family-owned Clearview Golf Membership, was the second Black girl to play on the LPGA Tour. After returning residence from World Battle II, Powell’s father, Invoice, encountered racial discrimination on the golf course and determined to construct his personal course. In 1946, Invoice grew to become the primary Black particular person to start out a golf membership when he based Clearview in East Canton, Ohio. In honor of its 75th anniversary, the Clearview Legacy Basis began a marketing campaign to endow Clearview and protect its essential function in historical past.
“To me, it’s so essential to mix historical past with future and that’s precisely what the hoodie undertaking does,” Powell, an LPGA member since 1967, mentioned in an official LPGA assertion. “I’m not solely honored however greater than that proud to be a change consider what this recreation appears like. Solely when little ladies see somebody that appears like them will they really feel assured and cozy to leap in and check out one thing totally different.”
Final 12 months, the WNBA’s #OrangeHoodie marketing campaign gained 16.4K mentions on Twitter with greater than 623 million potential impressions. LeBron James, Trae Young and Naomi Osaka had been amongst these sporting the hoodies, and the WNBA continued to realize recognition and tv viewership rose regularly afterward.
Wie West mentioned that throughout the coming weeks, athletes, celebrities and influencers can be seen sporting the hoodies together with PGA Tour, MLB, NFL and WNBA gamers. Above something, Wie West expressed how impressed she is to listen to from varied individuals on her social media accounts who need to be like Bazemore and Lee and sport the hoodies to assist girls’s golf.
“My DMs have been flooding in with mothers wanting to purchase it for his or her youngsters and simply individuals which can be so excited to assist our tour. It feels so nice, and that is what’s so nice about this hoodie,” Wie West mentioned. “Once I discuss to my associates on the PGA Tour, once I discuss to simply individuals on the road, they love our tour. They’re so supportive of our tour. They’re so impressed by how we play. So hopefully this hoodie is a simple tangible approach for individuals to point out their assist.”