MSHOF makes good on reimbursement debt from 2024 PCCC

As the Price Cutter Charity Championship golf tournament is set to tee off next week, officials behind it are finally wrapping up debts owed to charity partners from last year’s event.

Rob Marsh, Missouri Sports Hall of Fame executive director and CEO, announced at a news conference this afternoon at Highland Springs Country Club that the organization is set to pay over $150,000 in the next couple of weeks to charities that were owed payment from the 2024 PCCC. According to a news release from the MSHOF distributed following the press conference, 24 charities were made whole following today’s announcement.

Marsh previously told Springfield Business Journal on June 16 the amount owed was down to around $125,000. He said this afternoon around 90% of the money owed was to be paid to around 10 of the charities.

“This was a promise I made to many of the charities when I took on this role seven months ago, and there has not been one day since that I have stopped working on keeping that promise,” Marsh said this afternoon. “Today is an incredible day for those charities, our sponsors and the giving community.”

Marsh told SBJ last month that he and the five-person staff at the MSHOF have been working diligently in recent months to address its finances and repay debts to charity partners and vendors amid waning attendance and participation at the 2024 PCCC tourney.

“This is a very good day to be able to pay every one of the charities for all of their incredible hard work and what was such an unknown seven months ago,” Marsh said. “We have made incredible, incredible strides and I could not be any happier than the situation and the status that we’re sitting here today going into next week's tournament.”

Marsh started Jan. 6 in his new leadership role after a 27-year career with Pyramid Foods, which operates the Price Cutter supermarket chain. He exited as its chief operating officer and was announced in December to lead the MSHOF, replacing former executive director and CEO Byron Shive, who resigned late last year.

At a Dec. 17 news conference, former MSHOF and PCCC leader Jerald Andrews, who came on board as an interim director following the departure of Shive – his son-in-law – said charities should be receiving over $740,000 from the 2024 golf tournament.

Along with Marsh’s introduction at the December news conference, reimbursement checks were disbursed at the event to 42 nonprofit beneficiaries totaling $325,107, according to past SBJ reporting. Charities were awarded more than $1 million in 2023. The nonprofits are typically awarded funds near the end of the year at the PCCC Celebration of Sharing event, which was canceled abruptly last year due to lack of funds.

Most charities pay to participate in the tournament, with entry starting at $5,000, officials say. MSHOF Chair Dan Nelson said about 10 charities participate for free as some of the original partners in the event, according to past reporting.

The MSHOF manages the PCCC tournament, and both are 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, according to the release.

Marsh said this afternoon the charities will “have the money within no more than 14 days from now,” adding some of that delay is due to staff being deeply involved currently in organization efforts for this year’s tournament, which runs July 17-20.

The tournament distributed $1.025 million to 53 charities in 2023, according to the MSHOF. The total included reimbursement of the charities’ buy-in amounts. The previous year, the tournament grossed around $2.5 million and spent roughly $1.3 million on expenses, distributing about $1.1 million to charities.

But last year, the tournament grossed about $1.8 million and spent around $1.7 million, Andrews said in December, netting less than $100,000.

Marsh said he was able to “dramatically reduce” expenses for this year’s tournament through negotiations with vendors.

“That was one of my strengths was contract negotiations and cost control,” Marsh said of his time at Pyramid Foods.

Marsh said he doesn’t expect this year’s tournament revenue to reach as high as the $1.8 million produced last year.

“Revenue’s not going to be quite that strong, but my expenses are that much down,” Marsh said. “I also took it as a challenge that if I lost a $5,000 sponsor, I went out and reduced expenses somehow another $5,000. That’s how I view things. That’s how I was taught with profit and loss in all my last 30 years. In the grocery business, you learn to watch the tickets. So, if I lost a sponsor, I knew that I had to make it up somewhere or another. In business, you have a bottom line to hit. If you know your revenue’s going to be here, there’s only one other thing you can cut to still hit that bottom line. And that’s the expense line.”

Legal Services of Southern Missouri is among the nonprofits still owed money from the 2024 tournament. Sharon Alexander, chief operating officer for the organization, was among a handful of people in attendance at the news conference. She’s also the volunteer chair for the PCCC and was surprised to learn LSSM was among those going to soon be paid in full.

“I was here at the [MSHOF] getting everything ready for next week,” Alexander said, adding staff asked if she wanted to attend the news conference. “I had no idea but it’s great news.”

She said the organization was owed roughly $12,000 and had been paid back around $40,000 to date.

Charity participation in this year’s tournament is down from the 42 on board last year, as MSHOF officials say around 30 nonprofit beneficiaries are in place for this month’s tournament. Marsh said while he understood the decision the nonprofits that chose not to participate this year, he added he still was “extremely disappointed.”

“On the business side, I totally understood,” Marsh said. “On a personal side, I took it personal because you are not giving me a shot. I didn’t cause this, but I promised them I’d be the one that fixes it.”

Marsh previously told SBJ charity partners in the tournament, which began in 1990 and for which Price Cutter has served as title sponsor since its inception, have generally ranged 30-50. The tournament has gifted more than $20 million to charities over its history.