I'm here in Augusta, Georgia for the Masters and for those of you who haven't been here, I still think the most amazing thing--besides the course--is that Augusta National is probably the most valuable business in America that tries this hard not to make money.
It's just a guess, but I'd say that if Augusta National sold everything it could--allowing more television coverage time with more commercials, maxing out all the sponsorships, selling badges to the public, upping the concession prices--I bet the club could have made at least $100 million more over the last decade. And that's got to be conservative.
The biggest joke is at the merchandise stand, where the choice of options is purposely ridiculous. There's pretty much only one logo: the one that's been around for years and there's almost no variation and nothing new every year, other than perhaps the date.
Outside of the Masters property, I've yet to ever see anyone under 50 wearing one of those hats. Of course, the rarest of the hats seems to best the coolest. It's a mesh trucker hat with the Augusta logo on it. Want one? It just sold on eBay for more than $90.
There's a reason for this too. You can only get Masters merchandise through Augusta National and they only sell it for a week.
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