There is a quandary at the high-goal level of competition, both here in the United States and elsewhere in the polo world. The numbers of team sponsors and polo club venues exhibiting long-term, high-goal commitment have decreased significantly over the past decade or two.

Seeking solutions to this dilemma begins with a few key questions: what are the reasons for the drop-off in the number of team sponsors and clubs; what is the significance of high-goal polo within the context of world-wide polo; and what are a few things that can be considered to create opportunities to sustain high-goal polo? Before these questions can be addressed, let us review some highlights of high-goal history in the United States.

Becoming a team owner in any sport can be an expensive proposition. Spending a vast fortune will not always insure a winning, or even competitive, team because someone might spend even more to buy a better team with much better mounts. High-goal polo is usually defined as polo events with an upper aggregate handicap level of 20 goals or higher. Fielding a high-goal team is usually done for the prizes that include a challenge, a desire to beat your peers and great memories of an exciting game played at the higher levels of competition.

High-goal team sponsors soon discover that short term, elevated spending levels are just the beginning to a long-term commitment to win and keep winning on a consistent basis. Because there is no true rate of return for the investment required to field a high-goal team, the payoff is measured in access to the trophy table and all the acclaim and memories that come with winning it all. Getting to the trophy table may take years because it takes time and thoughtful planning to develop the requisite pony and player talent required to win games at the 20- goal or greater tournament level.

Presently, there are only three clubs in the entire United States that offer consistent competition at the 20-goal or higher level: International Polo Club Palm Beach, Greenwich Polo Club and Grand Champions Polo Club.

Just 15 years ago, there were two clubs in South Florida alone, Palm Beach Polo and Royal Palm Polo, that played league polo at the 22-goal level drawing large numbers of teams. Royal Palm Polo was sold to developers and Palm Beach Polo is no longer active. During their heyday, both of those clubs had the privilege of hosting officially sanctioned and club 26- goal events, as well as 30-goal World Cups (Palm Beach) and a historic 40-goal match game to benefit Rob Walton (Royal Palm).

For many seasons, Santa Barbara Polo Club hosted a complete 20-goal season including four events. However, the club made the decision a few years ago to lower their events to the 16-goal level. The USPA Silver Cup was to remain at 20 goals, but too has dropped to 16 goals now. The main reason for the decrease in the aggregate handicap level was the scarcity of team sponsors at the 20-goal level. Around the turn of the 21st century, a number of 20-goal events were hosted by a handful of “other than Florida” clubs including Houston (Silver Cup), Myopia (East Coast Open), Saratoga (Monty Waterbury) and Calgary (Canadian Open). While all of these clubs continue to be in existence, they no longer offer competition at the 20-goal level or above—evidence that there is indeed a dilemma related to sustainability of highgoal polo throughout the United States.

It is interesting to review the number of high-goal team entries over the past 20 or 30 years of polo. Always a major consideration before hosting a high-goal league or event is the availability of superior polo fields, adequate stabling and willing team sponsors.

At its peak, Palm Beach Polo had double-digit numbers of team in its events, particularly at the 20- to 22-goal level. In the 26-goal level, the USPA entries hovered around four to six teams until 1994 when the U.S. Open was moved from California to New York and 13 teams entered. In 1995, 11 teams filled the rosters. In 1996, the USPA decided to move its high-goal events to Florida where all the major considerations could be met, including reliable polo-playing weather.

The U.S. Open team-participation hit a crescendo in 2003 with a still-unmatched record of 15 teams at Royal Palm Polo Club. In 2004, the event drew 11 teams. In the 1990s, the USPA Gold Cup hosted by Royal Palm had a least eight teams competing. When the “big three” 26-goal events (C.V. Whitney, Gold Cup and U.S. Open) moved to IPC in 2004, at least 10 teams participated in all three events. This year, entries to the “big three” decreased to seven teams.

If this trend continues, it does not bode well for the sport.

The cost of hosting high-goal, highprofile events falls squarely on the polo venue owners. The average high-goal entry fee paid by teams to the club has risen significantly over the past 10 years, which is but a fraction of the cost of providing first-class fields and professional tournament management. Major league professional sports rely on income derived from corporate sponsorships, capitalizing on intellectual rights, television and other media revenues to offset most of the costs of team and venue ownership.

Procuring corporate sponsorship in polo, particularly in the U.S., has been difficult. A limited number of high-profile professionals, such as Polo Ralph Lauren model Nacho Figueras, Nic Roldan and Facundo and Gonzalo Pieres have picked up endorsement deals with such luxury brands as Royal Salute, Veuve Clicquot, Piaget, Rolex and Hublot, but tournament and club sponsorship continues to be difficult to come by.

Unfortunately for polo, high-goal polo is a personal, pre-tax luxury afforded by too few—and getting fewer—individuals who aspire to play in or host high-goal polo. For sponsors who can afford to spend a few million to actually play with three professionals, the high cost may be written off as an acceptable expense for an enjoyable recreational activity. Rarely is that cost written off for IRS purposes.

The ever-increasing cost of playing highgoal polo is not solely borne by the team and club owners. Playing professional polo is also an enormous personal expense for a majority of its professional players. Many professional players are required to bear the expense of their own high-priced overhead—failure to maintain a high goal string will doom even the most talented player. High-goal professionals mounted on their own ponies can command high salaries for a limited amount of “work.” That is the good news, especially if there are sponsors willing to pay for the privilege of playing. The downside of the professional’s net income is the cost of getting to the field with enough ponies to play six chukkers competitively, several times a week throughout the season.

How many top ponies does it take to be well mounted enough to maintain a handicap? A well-trained high-goal horse can start at $100,000 or more. In high-goal polo, there is a need for quite a few special, six-figure mounts and the few major, wellfunded polo teams buy up most of the best mounts. Players used to play four to six top ponies in a game. Today, if you do not arrive with close to a dozen you are all but counted out.

As a result of the high prices, the mercenary-type polo player cannot hope to be mounted on the same quality horseflesh as that owned by the major team owners. Even after buying and maintaining a minimal supply of top ponies, truck and trailer expenses, salaries to retain the better grooms, and at least 50 mallets along with the many other polo necessities, there may not be enough to feed the professional player’s family, let alone a dozen or so expensive horses. Yet, the average professional polo player on any high-goal team is paid peanuts compared to the elephantine salaries paid to professionals in other sports.

Baseball, football and basketball players are demanding and getting amazing amounts of money to play a game. Even though not all team owners are willing to get into spending wars over high-priced professionals, most owners will concede that without big-name, high-priced talent, it is difficult to field a competitive team. Non-competitive teams are not fun to watch, so no one wants to pay the price of admission to see poorly-played games.

Some sports have salary caps to equalize the playing field in terms of buying talent; however, that is not seen in polo. Even 10-goal Facundo Pieres has been very vocal in suggesting a cap on the amount spent per team, similar to other sports, even though he readily admits he has benefited from the high salaries some patrons are willing to play.

The top-spending two or three teams are usually the ones that make it to the finals year after year. The teams at the lower end of spending generally do not make it to the finals until they commit to spending a whole lot more money on better horses and better players. Pieres and others believe this could be forcing patrons who have no hope of beating the top teams to lose interest and leave the sport.

Another element players have suggested might help is to limit the handicap total of the two highest players competing on 22- goal teams to 18 or even 16 goals. This eliminates two 10 goalers or a 10 and a 9 competing on the same team. Players say this would allow for more teams, thus playing opportunities for more pros.

Unlike high-goal polo sponsors, major sports team owners can pass along the ever-increasing payroll costs to the consumer. The majority of sport fans in most markets are finding it prohibitive to regularly give large portions of their paychecks to frequent the local stadium. Yet, vast pools of public moneys are paying for new stadiums, with expensive corporate names affixed to them. New stadiums attract more spectators and that it is hoped will attract more television, radio and endorsement rights worth billions of dollars. Major sports team owners, balancing the logic of supply and demand, are businessmen trying to earn a profit even though the logistical numbers seem ludicrous.

Polo is different. High-goal polo is really different. Team owners are playing for the sheer fun of it. Earning a profit by owning a polo team or a venue is virtually impossible. Earning and spending pre-tax dollars is what it takes to play a sport with the professionals, who, for the most part, must invest inordinately large sums to play and be competitive. High-stakes, high-goal polo was big before World War II, but it was also largely subsidized by some of the wealthiest families in America.

High-goal polo had a major resurgence in the 1980s, fueled by an economy and stock market supercharged by avarice and smoke and mirrors. The most exclusive high-goal polo venues have evaporated into a few precarious locales. Even the highstakes, high-goal sponsors are beginning to wonder how much true enjoyment they are getting from their multimillion-dollar polo organizations. There are three key questions to be addressed by high-goal participants if high-goal polo is to be sustained into the future.

1) What are some of the major reasons for the drop-off in the number of team sponsors and clubs?

The costs of fielding a high-goal team in terms of horses, players and related team infrastructure has skyrocketed to an unsustainable level over the past 20 years. Team sponsor introduction to the sport is more about getting that sponsor to finance an entire team (and entourage) as soon as possible. Few take the necessary time and make the proper effort to provide would-be sponsors with the proper training and understanding of the game.

Teams employing the best players mounted on the best horses win consistently more games and tournaments, discouraging team sponsors, over time, due to the ongoing futility of trying to overcome the disparities in player and horse quality.

There are fewer high-goal venues operating across the country that are equipped to introduce (and welcome) new team sponsors.

Owning and operating high-goal clubs located in preferred areas of the country require a large, long-term commitment to funding financial deficits related largely to the high cost of polo field maintenance and repair; providing social amenities and professional management; and accepting that rate of return on investment in the requisite, underlying real estate will be delayed until the venue is sold.

Years ago, many of the team sponsors were second and even third generation players. However, with just a few exceptions, the children of today’s sponsors do not play. And some of today’s high-goal sponsors are getting older.

2) What is the significance of highgoal polo within the context of worldwide polo?

High-goal polo is an aspirational endeavor few people in the world will ever experience. Yet, high-goal polo has a history of being the preferred level of competition for marketing and promoting the sport, particularly for televising the sport to a wider audience.

Five years ago, Maurico Fernández Funez, then executive director of the Argentine Polo Association, told the Financial Times the association was changing rules to make polo faster, reverting to a more classic style, as well as democratizing the sport to open it up to a wider audience. “We think we can multiply audiences by the thousands,” he said. Five years on, there has been no visible increase in audiences, even in a country where polo is considered a national sport and is regularly televised in prime-time.

As for high goal’s significance within the USPA, those competing on high-goal teams pay the same membership fee as those playing backyard polo. The number of members competing in high-goal polo is less than five percent, yet considerable resources are spent in such things as maintaining a core of professional umpires, keeping up with rule changes, testing horses for illegal drugs and televising games, all specifically for highgoal polo. A limited amount of lower goal polo also enjoys some of these services but it is negligible in comparison.

Still, high-goal teams and high-goal venues provide employment for any number of players, horse trainers, grooms, coaches, managers, turf maintenance staff, professional venue managers, marketing and promotions staff, not to mention the equine businesses such as veterinarians, hay and feed companies, blacksmiths, stabling operators and tack and equipment suppliers, to name a few.

3) What are a few things that can be considered to create opportunities to sustain high-goal polo?

Identify ways to control the high-goal team expenses, such as a collective team owners’ group that could review major league sports’ salary/expense caps. That may address the issues of disparity in team competitiveness.

Consider if there are specific issues with Argentina being nearly a monopoly in supplying the polo world with horses, players, grooms and team managers. If so, consider ways to address the issues.

Consider a dedicated and focused, forprofit, high-goal polo association (either a national or international organization) to address the specific, for-profit needs of high-goal team owners, professional players and venues.

Review ways for the limited number of high-goal team owners (worldwide) to support the even more limited number of international high-goal club venues.

Downsize the high end of event handicap levels. Consider a short-term tactic of lowering the aggregate event handicap levels of high-goal events to promote greater participation (for instance, from 20 to 16 and from 26 to 24 or 22, whichever promotes greater numbers of teams).

Upsize the low end of player handicaps. Leave event aggregate handicap levels the same (or create even higher handicapped events) and inflate handicaps at the upper levels to create a wider and higher range of player handicaps. High-goal polo may even consider a new concept of high-goal handicaps that apply to only high-goal polo events, similar to what is done with women’s handicaps.

What it all comes down to is this: time is of the essence for high-goal participants—team owners, professional players and venue owners and operators—to come up with specific ways to make high-goal polo welcoming, competitive and sustainable over the long term. Ways to solicit new and retain current participants must be considered, focused and implemented consistently.

A good example of focusing on the specific needs of high-goal polo was the recent creation of a set of international high-goal rules that seems to have been widely accepted around the world. Old ways of governing the sport, or major aspects of the sport, need to be reviewed and modified to address real-world and here-and-now challenges. Institutions and organizational structures with outdated mission statements need thoughtful, critical review, then immediate action. Gwen Rizzo contributed to this report.

By Peter Rizzo. Gwen Rizzo contributed to this report.