The most valuable space in sports merchandising is the 30,000-square-foot store at Augusta National Golf Club, where Masters patrons reportedly spend $1 million an hour buying up anything with the tournament's name or logo on it.
The reason? Buy it now or never get it.
Unlike every other item in sports retail, there are no online sales.
So, when the Masters stopped phone orders in 2003, the two partners of MMO Golf sought to exploit the gap.
The idea: Get a team of people to descend on Augusta, buy the merchandise and then resell it online.
This year, like always, an undisclosed number of MMO Golf’s temporary employees went to the Masters. They buy an untold amount of gear and ship it back to a central location, where it has been selling on two sites — MMOGolf.com and GolfShopPlus.com.
The items come at a hefty premium.
A gnome you can get for $65 at Augusta costs $650 on MMOGolf.com.
“And at that, we can’t buy enough to keep it in stock,” said one of the company partners, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
A $43 Caddie shirt also is getting ordered nonstop at MMO’s price of $109.
“We have people calling us up all the time saying we are gouging. They often don’t understand the costs we incur,” the partner said. “We buy badges at full price, we pay people to do this, and we have housing for all of the employees.”
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Augusta National has gotten tougher on MMO Golf.
The club has reached out to MMO Golf multiple times, which has resulted in changes to the company’s websites. MMO Golf says it offers “authentic Masters merchandise,” but at the bottom notes the sites are unaffiliated with Augusta.
Buying has become more complicated as well.
ANGC is wary of anyone doing business like this, so, in recent years, the club has started to question anyone who could be seen as a buyer with the intent to resell.
Spending more than $5,000 will draw a red flag, as will buying a lot of one item, such as 25 Masters green polos.
There are other fascinating complexities to the business.
“We take preorders, as some people want the same thing every year with the new year on it,” one of the partners said. “We aren’t in direct contact with Augusta, so we didn’t know, for example, this year that they wouldn’t have the black hats or a certain color of the champions shirt.”
Then there’s the hot item or the item that stops being hot.
The women’s “Magnolia” hat is on fire this year, but on the flip side, Masters watches will have to go on sale after the tournament. The vendor went from a Swiss company to a Chinese manufaturer, and the marketplace noticed.
MMO Golf’s business relies on fans wanting the Real McCoy.
Fake Masters merchandise is plentiful on Amazon and on Temu. A 2025 fake Masters hat is $24, which is cheaper than the price in the tent at Augusta.
With Rory McIlroy winning his first Masters, business should boom even more because the golfer who wears the Green Jacket is important.
“The more popular the winner is, the more we will sell,” the partner says. “When Tiger won in 2019, we sold all our remaining inventory with ‘2019 Masters’ on it in 20 minutes. But on the other hand, when Charl Schwartzel won it in 2011, we couldn’t give anything away. We still have 2011 pin flags.”
With no guarantees on the future of the business, the partners admit they never have security.
Said one of the partners: “It’s a great business, but we do worry every year about what will challenge us next.”
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.