United Airlines' 2022 'Golf is Ours' campaign, created by 72andSunny, awarded more than $500,000 in travel grants to 51 HBCU golf programs across the United
How United Airlines Used Golf to Champion HBCU Athletes in 2022
United Airlines' 'Golf is Ours' campaign is a 2022 integrated film and media initiative created by 72andSunny that pairs the airline's PGA Tour partnership with more than $500,000 in travel grants for 51 Historically Black Colleges and Universities golf programs across the United States, using documentary-style film to amplify the voices of young Black student-athletes.
United Airlines and the PGA Tour announced the HBCU grant program on February 7, 2022, according to United Mediaroom. The campaign film itself published on June 17, 2022, per shortyawards.com, before the:30 hero spot made its television debut during the 2022 U.S. Open, as reported by marketingpartnerships.com. The initiative sits within United's broader 'Good Leads The Way' platform, which launched in May 2022 as the airline's first fully integrated national brand campaign in approximately nine years, according to united.mediaroom.com.
In the United States, the structural barrier addressed by the campaign is straightforward: funding for air travel has long prevented HBCU golf programs from competing at tournament sites that wealthier, better-resourced programs reach without difficulty. United's response was concrete. Each of the 51 participating HBCU programs received $10,000 in travel credits, supporting more than 250 student-athletes, coaches, and their equipment traveling to tournaments and recruiting events, per pgatour.com. The campaign does not simply narrate this grant; it uses the grant as a creative foundation, letting young golfers speak directly about belonging, pride, and power on the course. A series of athletes declare: 'Golf is Black. Golf is mine. Golf is ours. Golf is for all of us.' The result is a campaign that earns its message through action rather than assertion, registering a Clapboard Score of 67 out of 100.
United Airlines entered the 2022 sports marketing landscape with a sponsorship model built around access rather than visibility alone. The 'Golf is Ours' campaign operationalises this distinction by converting PGA Tour association into direct material support for HBCU golf programs, a move that separates it from conventional airline sports sponsorship.
The strategic rationale connects to a wider recovery moment for the US aviation sector. According to iata.org, global airline revenue in 2022 rebounded substantially as passenger volumes approached approximately 83 percent of 2019 levels. In the United States specifically, carriers including American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were competing aggressively to rebuild brand relevance with leisure and purpose-driven travellers as pandemic-era restrictions lifted. United chose to anchor its brand differentiation to a cultural conversation — the underrepresentation of Black athletes in professional golf — rather than to price or route messaging alone.
Golf's demographic challenge in the United States is well documented. The sport has historically struggled to reflect the diversity of the country, and HBCU programs have faced structural funding gaps that limit their competitive reach. By channelling the PGA Tour partnership toward 51 HBCU programs rather than toward logo placement alone, United identified a consumer insight that rivals competing on fare or frequency cannot easily replicate. The 'Good Leads The Way' platform, as reported by brandinginasia.com, was explicitly built to demonstrate United's values through behaviour rather than claim, and 'Golf is Ours' is the clearest expression of that positioning in the campaign's first year. The travel grant mechanism gives the brand a verifiable, reportable commitment that anchors every creative and media decision that follows.
Director Lauren Crew made deliberate choices about whose hands held the camera as much as whose faces appeared in front of it. The production of 'Golf is Ours' engaged a majority-Black crew from production through post-production, a decision documented by tahirahwrites.com that shaped the visual and emotional register of the finished work in ways that casting alone could not achieve.
Creative Director Tahirah Edwards Byfield, whose work is documented at tahirahwrites.com, led the creative development with access and intentionality as central organising principles. The film was shot on location at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore's home golf course, grounding the narrative in an actual HBCU athletic environment rather than a generalised or aspirational setting, per shortyawards.com. Student golfers were interviewed as genuine participants rather than performers, giving the film the texture of documentary without sacrificing the emotional clarity of advertising.
Crew extended the project beyond its broadcast and digital formats by producing a Director's Cut featuring extended interviews with the golfers, as noted by tahirahwrites.com. This material deepens the archive of the work and signals the production's commitment to these athletes as subjects worth sustained attention. The:30 campaign film anchored the television buy during the 2022 U.S. Open, while cutdowns ran primarily in digital placements, according to marketingpartnerships.com. Among all campaign assets, the:15 version generated the highest engagement with the target audience, per marketingpartnerships.com, demonstrating that compression did not diminish the campaign's core emotional proposition. The integrated structure — film, digital, and the grant program itself — means the creative and the product are inseparable.
United Airlines' 'Golf is Ours' campaign produced measurable outcomes across both media performance and programme delivery. The campaign outperformed earlier United brand films in United and PGA campaign inventory, according to marketingpartnerships.com. The:15 cutdown generated the highest engagement among all campaign assets with the target audience, also per marketingpartnerships.com, indicating that the condensed version carried the campaign's emotional charge effectively across digital placements.
At the programme level, the results are concrete and independently verifiable. United Airlines and the PGA Tour distributed more than $500,000 in travel grants across 51 HBCU golf programs, with each school receiving $10,000 in travel credits, according to pgatour.com and united.mediaroom.com. More than 250 student-athletes, coaches, and equipment benefited from the grants, per pgatour.com. These are not projected figures — they represent funds transferred to institutions and athletes who used them to reach tournament sites that had previously been financially out of reach.
The campaign received recognition from the Shorty Awards, as documented at shortyawards.com, and was submitted in the sports and travel and tourism categories, per clapboard.com. The 'Good Leads The Way' platform within which 'Golf is Ours' sits comprised more than 150 pieces of video, digital, social, and out-of-home content, according to united.mediaroom.com, demonstrating the scale of the ecosystem the campaign operated within. For a brand campaign, the rarest outcome is a verifiable change in circumstance for the people it depicts. 'Golf is Ours' achieves that, which is the foundation of its structural effectiveness regardless of media metrics.
'Golf is Ours' is a 2022 integrated film and media campaign created by 72andSunny for United Airlines. It pairs the airline's PGA Tour partnership with more than $500,000 in travel grants for 51 HBCU golf programs in the United States, using documentary-style film to amplify the voices of young Black student-athletes competing in college golf.
United Airlines awarded more than $500,000 in travel grants to 51 HBCU golf programs, according to pgatour.com and united.mediaroom.com. Each program received $10,000 in travel credits. The grants supported more than 250 student-athletes and coaches traveling to tournament sites and recruiting events that had previously been financially out of reach.
Director Lauren Crew directed the film, and Creative Director Tahirah Edwards Byfield led creative development, as documented at tahirahwrites.com. Agency 72andSunny produced the campaign. A majority-Black crew was engaged from production through post-production, and Crew also produced an extended Director's Cut featuring full interviews with the HBCU student golfers featured in the work.
The campaign film published on June 17, 2022, per shortyawards.com. The:30 hero spot aired on television during the 2022 U.S. Open, with cutdowns running in digital placements, according to marketingpartnerships.com. The HBCU grant program itself was announced on February 7, 2022, per united.mediaroom.com, ahead of the creative campaign launch.
'Golf is Ours' is the latest phase of United's 'Good Leads The Way' platform, which launched in May 2022 as the airline's first fully integrated national brand campaign in approximately nine years, according to united.mediaroom.com. The broader platform included more than 150 pieces of content and used real United employees, with 'Golf is Ours' extending that values-driven positioning into sports marketing.
The campaign outperformed earlier United brand films in United and PGA Tour campaign inventory, according to marketingpartnerships.com. The:15 cutdown generated the highest engagement among all campaign assets with the target audience, per marketingpartnerships.com. The campaign received recognition from the Shorty Awards, as documented at shortyawards.com, and earned a Clapboard Score of 67 out of 100.
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