Jani-King cleaning up with its support of the PGA Tour and its caddies

The WM Phoenix Open is famously known as the “Greenest Show on Grass,” a claim it can make in part because of the tournament’s partnership with Jani-King International, a leading global commercial cleaning services franchise company responsible for cleaning up after the roughly 800,000 fans who visit TPC Scottsdale during tournament week.

Julie Robinson, Jani-King’s regional franchisor in Arizona, is proud of her company’s long-time involvement in her hometown tournament. But for Robinson, “green” doesn’t just mean clean. It’s also a great opportunity to bring in more dollars and business to her franchisees year-round by demonstrating how Jani-King can handle such an enormous challenge.

“In Phoenix, the Open is where business gets done during tournament week. Basically, everybody is out there,” Robinson said. “If we’re trying to get hold of a decisionmaker to secure a cleaning contract, they’re at the Open, either entertaining their clients or being entertained by other folks. So for us, it’s a benefit to be able to say we’re a partner in trying to make this an amazing experience for the fans. We’re proud of the two local franchisees covering the Open with their team of 90 providing exceptional service at the largest event on the PGA Tour.”

At the WM Open, Jani-King plans to take its Tour relationship to the next level with its Spring Clean Challenge. During Wednesday’s pro-am at TPC Scottsdale’s raucous par-3 16^th, caddies of participating players will pull out specially made green Jani-King golf towels to indicate they’re competing in the Challenge.

Credit: Jani-King

The competition will take place over nine events, starting April 4 at the Valero Texas Open and ending in mid-May at the PGA Championship. The tournaments correspond with what Mike Biggs, Jani-King’s senior vice president of sports partnerships, calls a “fault line” of regional franchisors who are avid supporters of the company’s PGA Tour sponsorship. Those territory owners will promote the Challenge via local public relations efforts and use of a participating player that week for customer and prospect engagement. The Challenge’s main purpose, as Biggs describes it, “is to tell the story of the company behind the towel.”

“The people at Jani-King have been awesome,” said Ryan Palmer, who has endorsed the company for the past decade. “It’s been a great relationship for me because I respect their dedication to the game of…