LTS LeaderBoard experiences growth in several locations

Gerry Lev, president and CEO of LTS LeaderBoard, was president of Subway Developments of British Columbia, where he sold 236 franchises in the Canadian province over 11 years. Because of this, he played in and sponsored a variety of corporate and charity tournaments, but usually left with the same opinion of most of them.

“Being a fairly-high handicapper and a non-drinker, I’d be forced to wait forever to find out whether my team had won an umbrella or a trip to Spain because it took so long to complete the scoring. It was very frustrating,” Lev recalls. “And in most cases I got nothing for my money as a sponsor. I got a piece of cardboard as a hole sponsor, but I could never prove that anybody ever bought a sandwich at Subway because I sponsored a golf tournament.”

But the mundane suddenly turned interesting for Lev when he was invited to play in a customer appreciation tournament in Vancouver. As he walked into the clubhouse that morning he saw his name, tee time and hole assignment on a big-screen video display. When his round was complete, Lev’s score and those of other players were compiled in just minutes and displayed live on the screens.

“I thought it was a pretty cool idea. I had never seen anything like it before,” Lev says. “I walked behind one of the screens and there were the two founders.”

It wasn’t much later that Lev’s curiosity and interest resulted in him becoming president and CEO of Coquitlam, B.C.-based LTS LeaderBoard. And now in the eight years since that fateful meeting, Lev has leveraged LTS LeaderBoard’s “scannable” scorecard technology and cutting-edge proprietary software to forge a company that is transforming the way charity, corporate and pro-am golf tournaments are scored and managed.

LTS LeaderBoard provides an automated PGA-style scoring system that is billed as lightning-fast, 100 percent accurate and displays tournament results along with sponsor logos and promotional messages via entertaining multimedia presentations on big-screen displays or linked clubhouse television monitors. LTS LeaderBoard has scored more than 4.2 million holes of golf since 1995.

LTS LeaderBoard launched a franchising program in 2001 under Lev’s direction and now has 24 franchises in 15 states, with additional offices in Vancouver – also the site of its corporate headquarters – Mexico City; Madrid, Spain; and Melbourne, Australia. LTS LeaderBoard expects to award more than 75 franchises by the end of 2007. The U.S. market has the potential to support 330 franchises along with 17 in Canada, while international markets offer myriad opportunities due to the explosive popularity of golf throughout the world.

“A lot of people are passionate about golf and even more passionate about a business that maximizes fundraising opportunities for charities,” Lev says. “There is not another opportunity like LTS LeaderBoard in the sports and recreation category of franchising, where the majority of concepts are retail-based.”

Don Adamson, a teaching golf professional for 22 years, first began developing the scannable scorecard in 1989, utilizing existing DOS-based scoring software. Adamson had simply grown tired of the hours he would spend scoring tournaments. Software improvements over the next decade significantly upgraded the company’s services, but it was Lev - who sold his Subway enterprise and became president and CEO of LTS LeaderBoard in 1999 – who saw an opportunity to put his franchising and marketing experience to work in positioning a future for the company beyond scoring golf tournaments.

“I knew we had to change what the company did, but not necessarily how they did it,” Lev says of LTS LeaderBoard, which is currently seeking to become a publicly traded company on the OTCBB.

Today when tournament organizers utilize LTS LeaderBoard, players, sponsors and advertisers still see individual scores constantly rolling across the big screen along with digital photos of the event taken throughout the day. But what’s equally visible and prominent on the multimedia presentations are sponsor logos and advertiser messages that magnify and multiply the exposure and presence of those sponsors and advertisers with every glance from a tournament guest.

A study by the National Golf Foundation reported that charity golf raises $2.9 billion each year, with the majority of the revenue derived from tournament sponsors. LTS LeaderBoard clients have reported revenue increases of as much as 15 to 35 percent as a result of using its services.

“At the end of the day we measure ourselves in terms of how much additional revenue we have raised for an event,” Lev says. “Charitable event organizers maximize fundraising by utilizing LTS LeaderBoard to provide their sponsors with professional multimedia exposure through the entire event. Sponsors gain outstanding exposure for their hard-earned money. We make the organizer look good, we entertain the golfers and sponsors get recognition and financial return they can readily measure. It’s a win-win-win situation.”

Lev’s foresight has also led to LTS LeaderBoard’s expansion into non-golf events, where it provides expert consultation and multimedia services to event organizers of all kinds. Its entertaining big-screen presentations are designed to command maximum attention at events such as live auctions, weddings, seminars, corporate functions, black-tie dinners, trade shows and more. Auctioneers have said the increased visual appeal that LTS LeaderBoard adds to auctions increases bid amounts for some items as much as 25 percent.

With a franchise fee ranging from $18,000 to $71,100 based upon population base and golf course density, plus an additional $27,000 for equipment and supplies, LTS LeaderBoard offers a turnkey, home-based franchise opportunity with no known competition and year-round business opportunities.

More than 60 percent of LTS LeaderBoard’s U.S. franchise owners are husband-wife teams or parent-grown child partnerships. Among its franchisees are a former corporate personnel executive, a consulting partner with finance world giant KPMG and a former assistant pro at Augusta National Golf Club, who once shot a 65 on the hallowed course that hosts the Masters each spring.