Golf.com

'The Skins Game' is coming back to TV in 2025 in deal with Pro Shop

James Colgan — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 21:16:38 +0000

Once upon a time, golf owned a small but notable slice of the holiday season sports calendar with a series called The Skins Game.

The idea was not particularly novel — a made-for-TV skins game competed between some of the top stars on the PGA Tour — but it was valuable. At a time of the year when people were gathered together and off from work, the original Skins Game had a Black Friday broadcast that became habitual viewing for golf fans, which made it a low-risk way for the Tour to add a few more shekels to the media rights deals that make up the majority of its annual revenue.

The Skins Game was formally canceled in 2008 after LG dropped out as a title sponsor. At the time, PGA Tour officials credited the failure with sagging ratings. A decade later, Hollywood producer and longtime Phil Mickelson co-conspirator Bryan Zuriff resuscitated the idea, pitting Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson against one another for an obscene sum of cash in an event he called The Match. The idea wasn’t particularly well-liked by the Tour, which didn’t possess the broadcast rights to the event and by extension lost out on the event’s revenue potential, but the Tour granted its players a waiver to compete in the events (which have continued each year since) with the understanding the event wouldn’t compete directly with PGA Tour broadcasts.

Now, though, the PGA Tour is stepping back into the driver’s seat. On Thursday morning, the PGA Tour and the golf media startup Pro Shop announced plans to revive The Skins Game with a match on Black Friday 2025. The Tour, a minority owner in Pro Shop, will own the rights to the event, but hand over distribution to Pro Shop, which will work with another media boutique, Propagate Media, to deliver the made-for-TV event to audiences.

“Reimagining an iconic event like The Skins Game in a retro-modern way that engages today’s sports fans is exactly why the PGA Tour has partnered with Pro Shop,” said Chris Wandell, an executive at the Tour and board member of Pro Shop, in a release. “We look forward to seeing how the newest iteration of The Skins Game unfolds as Pro Shop and Propagate identify cast, format and creative approach.”

Principally, the news marks the latest effort from the Tour to revitalize its media footprint in the LIV era, a strategic shift leading to Tour investments like Pro Shop, a Tour-affiliated media outlet; the Creator Classic, a made-for-TV influencer event; and the new PGA Tour studios, a multimillion-dollar twin for the Tour’s hulking global headquarters. At the center of much of that shift is the idea of control; the Tour believes its media business is best served by maintaining ownership from concept to distribution. The return of The Skins Game in particular marks a notable punch back for the Tour at a rare corner of golf television without the Tour’s corporate footprint.

The timing of Thursday’s announcement is conspicuous at best, arriving just days before another made-for-TV golf match the PGA Tour doesn’t own, the Crypto.com Showdown. The Showdown, which will pit two PGA Tour players (Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy) against two LIV players (Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka), appears to be the first in a new iteration of events aimed at reconvening players from golf’s warring tours. Like other events of the Match series, it is owned by Zuriff and Warner Bros. Discovery, which pays a “rights release” fee (reportedly around $1 million) to the Tour and an appearance fee to each of the players involved.

The Tour’s minority ownership of Pro Shop, which was co-founded by Chad Mumm, the producer behind the popular Netflix Full Swing series, gives both parties the freedom to dream up a vision for The Skins Game distinct from the rest of its TV offerings. Propagate has worked extensively with streamers like AppleTV, Netflix and Max, and is currently handling studio work for a forthcoming AppleTV golf comedy show featuring Owen Wilson.

The post ‘The Skins Game’ is coming back to TV in 2025 in deal with Pro Shop appeared first on Golf.

TGL announces ESPN broadcast team led by Scott Van Pelt

James Colgan — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 16:41:20 +0000

Golf’s techiest new league is slowly coming online.

The TGL, a simulator golf league led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, announced its first broadcast team on Thursday morning, spotlighting the group of TV and digital media pros who will face the challenge of bringing the first-of-its-kind league to life on ESPN in January.

Beloved golf TV voice Scott Van Pelt will lead off the proceedings for the TGL, serving as the broadcast’s “host.” Van Pelt will add the TGL to his current ESPN golf portfolio, which includes the Masters and PGA Championship, though his role for the TGL will resemble his role for ESPN’s Monday Night Football coverage. Van Pelt will host pregame and intermission coverage from his SportsCenter studio in Washington, D.C., a role that will also include some player interviews.

Once the action begins, Van Pelt will hand over broadcasting duties to a pair of fellow Masters and PGA Championship TV voices, Matt Barrie and Marty Smith, who will serve as ESPN’s play-by-play and sideline reporters, respectively. The league has said its broadcasts will aim to provide unprecedented access to the league’s players, including an open line of microphones between those broadcasting the action and those competing within it. That means interesting things for both Barrie and Smith, who will speak to the teams in real time as the action is unfolding.

On the digital side, my GOLF.com colleague Claire Rogers will join NESN Red Sox sideline reporter Jahmai Webster as hosts of the TGL’s second-screen efforts on ESPN+, taking viewers behind the scenes of life on the TGL. Roger Steele, another popular golf creator, will handle emcee duties.

The announcement marks the latest major step toward bringing the TGL to life after its inaugural season was postponed by a generator failure last December. The league, which includes six franchises and 24 PGA Tour players, will bring golf to primetime audiences on Monday and Tuesday nights in the winter months. A custom-built facility named the SoFi Center in Palm Beach, Fla. will house each of the TGL’s competitions, featuring players competing on a giant simulator screen on virtual golf courses designed exclusively for the league. (If you have more questions about the competitive design of the league, you can check out the video explainers on the TGL YouTube page.)

Of course, the broader push of the TGL is to deliver a television product that golf fans will want to watch each week, allowing the league to make money from selling its TV rights. The league has no shortage of institutional support, counting the PGA Tour, the billionaire sports magnates behind the Strategic Sports Group, and corporate partners like Genesis and SoFi among its partners, in addition to Woods and McIlroy. The hope is that the new league will appeal to younger golf fans, including those in cities with increased exposure to simulator golf, giving Woods a platform to play competitively as his PGA Tour career moves increasingly part-time.

Play in the TGL will begin with the league’s first two-hour match on Tuesday, January 7, and will continue on Mondays and Tuesdays through March 25, 2025.

The post TGL announces ESPN broadcast team led by Scott Van Pelt appeared first on Golf.

Behind the scenes of NBC Sports' Kevin Kisner hire

James Colgan — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 17:47:01 +0000

The courtship between NBC Sports and the network’s newest lead golf analyst, Kevin Kisner, started in December 2023, but it took more than nine months before anyone dared to define the relationship.

Now in late September, it was time, at long last, for a hometown visit. As golf season bled into football, a convoy of NBC Sports brass including golf head honcho Sam Flood, president Rick Cordella and executive producer Tommy Roy made plans to visit Kisner at his permanent home in Aiken, S.C. The goal? To pitch Kisner on taking his broadcasting talents full-time. After nine months of tiptoeing around their interest — Kisner insisted on playing out the remainder of his pro career before leaving for TV, while NBC dished lead analyst duties at the U.S. Open and Open Championship to Brandel Chamblee and Luke Donald — NBC was ready to go all-in.

A full-time commitment wasn’t on anyone’s mind for too long in the months preceding September. Not after NBC announced Kisner as temporary lead analyst for a handful of big-time PGA Tour events (The Sentry, WM Phoenix Open, and Players) filling in for Paul Azinger. Not after Kisner impressed NBC Sports brass with his performance, balancing his knowledge of the pro game with his rib-cutting sense of humor. And not even after Kisner enjoyed the experience enough to sign on for NBC’s coverage of the season-ending FedEx Cup Playoff events, a three-week trial run that would closely mirror life in the full-time gig.

The truth is that neither party was ready for the next step. Kisner’s two years of remaining PGA Tour eligibility meant he wasn’t in the place to take the NBC job for most of 2024, and NBC was weary of the risks posed by hiring a TV neophyte while its broadcast underwent a broader editorial reimagining under Flood. It would have been convenient for Kisner to fill Azinger’s vacated lead analyst seat immediately, avoiding staffing headaches with the U.S. Open and Open Championship broadcasts and confusion from the golf world. NBC preferred this path enough to explore adding a full-time analyst in early ’24, but the job’s prestige and multimillion-dollar investment demanded a home-run swing. The network, perhaps scarred from the end of Azinger’s tenure, decided it was best to wait for the right pitch.

Flood, Cordella and Roy arrived in Aiken in the fall to find Kisner feeling open-minded. The clock was ticking on the 40-year-old pro, who now had just one year remaining of PGA Tour eligibility courtesy of a lifetime top-50 earners exemption. He would get into a dozen or so Tour events in 2025, but would be mostly relegated to weaker-field events. If his play improved — unlikely for a player of Kisner’s age (40) and length (181st on Tour in 2024) — his playing schedule might fill, but that was uncertain. On the other hand, if his play kept with its recent trajectory, he would be available for most weeks of NBC’s PGA Tour coverage in 2025, and his playing career would be over in 2026.

In other words, if NBC was willing to work with him on the details, Kisner was open to taking the gig.

“I have a great relationship with Sam Flood. I like the way he talks about things. He’s very straight up, and that’s the way I am,” Kisner said. “My wife and I sat down with [Flood, Cordella and Roy] for three-and-a-half hours and just discussed life. We talked about the future — what we felt like was good, bad, how to make golf better, how they thought I could fit into their team.”

At the end of the conversation, the decision was made. Kisner would take on 10 events in 2025 and the permanent title of NBC Golf lead analyst while maintaining part-time PGA Tour playing privileges. If his playing career got in the way of the arrangement, NBC would be flexible, and if not, NBC would be the beneficiary.

“They’ll work with me in 2025,” Kisner said. “If something happens where I win and play great, they said, ‘that’s great.’ And I’ll play more golf. And if not, then I told them they have my full commitment in 2026.”

For NBC, Kisner was worth the gymnastics. Of all the analysts tested in ’24, Kisner had been the network’s top performer. He was the first outside selection for what became a rotating tryout in the lead chair throughout 2024, and the candidate whose performances in the booth drew the most buzz. On the weeks he joined the NBC team, Kisner enjoyed a lively rapport with play-by-play man (and buddy) Dan Hicks, made headlines for his colorful critiques, and seemed to grasp the finer points of analysis — amplify, clarify, explain — quickly.

“With all Tour players, I’m paying attention to how they handle press conferences and interviews, how they react with their caddies on the air,” Roy said. “I’m always trying to get a feeling about whether they’re a good communicator.”

“With Kevin, I started making attempts to talk to him on the range years ago. I would tell him, Hey, when the day comes that you’re ready to call it a wrap playing golf, I really think you have a chance to be in our business here, and successful at it.”

Even with Roy’s endorsement, Kisner’s entrance into the lead chair qualifies as an upset. The 40-year-old pro gives NBC something it hasn’t had in more than 30 years: a lead analyst who isn’t a major championship winner. That bucks decades of tradition in golf TV, where the prevailing sentiment has long been that lead analyst jobs are restricted only to those with major championship pedigree and a firsthand knowledge of history-altering moments.

There is a reasonable argument that the practice is outdated. Some of the biggest success stories in recent sports TV history have been players with less-than-historic statlines (Pat McAfee), while FOX’s $100 million contract with Tom Brady has shown that even all-time great players can struggle in the booth. Said differently, an analyst’s background means nothing if their insight isn’t interesting or informative.

“I want the 12-handicap at the club or on his couch to go, yeah, he was right about that, I’m going to try that, or, that’s exactly what happened,” said Kisner, who is expected to call the U.S. Open, Open Championship and Ryder Cup for NBC in 2025. “And then I want Scottie Scheffler or Max Homa or Brian Harman to go, Yeah, I did pull the heck out of that putt. Or, yeah, I made a terrible swing in that position. I want everybody to say, that’s exactly what happened. That’s why I’m sitting in that seat.”

Criticism is an art form in the lead analyst’s chair, where the subjects of criticism often watch closely. It helped NBC’s confidence to know Kisner had a net in the biggest moments. By the time Kisner signed his contract, the network had already decided to bring back a big broadcast experiment from 2024, the “odd-even” format, splitting play-by-play and analyst duties between teams designated to odd and even-numbered holes. The goal of the strategy, Flood and Roy said, is to facilitate a conversation between broadcasters that fans can “eavesdrop” in on, rather than having broadcasters speak to the audience at home. NBC hopes the shift to “odd-even” will make life easier for Kisner as he switches to golf TV. It will simplify preparation, for example, and create fewer, more targeted speaking opportunities.

But Kisner isn’t worried about flying off the handle. Quite the opposite. The biggest problem facing the networks is making something entertaining, he says, and his biggest advantage is understanding how to bridge the divide between players leery of the media business and a sports economy that is an extension of it.

“I think there’s always been a narrative that there were two sides, right? The media and then the golfers. It was always like the golfers didn’t want to divulge too much, because they didn’t want the media to mess up or picture them in a bad light,” Kisner says. “The more I’ve been on both sides, the more I realize the partnership should never be greater than now. The media is the biggest immediate deal. The media rights deal for the PGA Tour is the biggest moneymaker they have, and the players need to understand that the better they make the product on TV, the more money they can play for, and the more money they can make.”

These are the cold realities of the sports business, and in the scores-obsessed world of the PGA Tour, Kisner’s grasp of the media’s importance has long made him an outlier. Good golfers earn paychecks, he recognizes, but wealthy golfers earn eyeballs. That understanding is what pushed him into YouTube and podcasting well before NBC came along, and it’s what will give him a second life in the second-biggest golf TV job in the world.

In Kisner’s telling, the simplest version of his new role at NBC is to serve as an emissary between golf’s two at-times conflicting camps: the players and the people. Many broadcasters have tried their hand at helping the people understand the players, but Kisner says he feels he could help the relationship work the other way, too.

“Hopefully these top players understand that I’m their buddy first. I’m never going to do anything to make them feel disrespected or hurt their brand. I’m there to tell the truth,” Kisner says. “I’m going to tell it just like I did when they’re sitting there with me in the locker room, and I’m also going to go play with them the next week, so I’m never going to make a controversial statement just to get clicks. I tell it like it is, man, and that’s what I’ve done my whole career. Ask any player, they know where they stand with me at all times, and that’s what I plan to do in the booth.”

Of course, the truth has many shades, but Kisner seems uniquely adept at managing discomfort surely heading his way. He’s funny in a way that hasn’t graced golf televisions since David Feherty, and he’s already dreaming up ways to turn the audience quickly into his corner, even if it means running afoul of the FCC.

“I’m trying to see if Tommy will let me do my on-camera with my shirt off,” Kisner says, referencing his now-infamous Presidents Cup bet with Max Homa. “Dan and I will go down to our skivvies, and introduce me to the world.”

He pauses just after he delivers the punchline, as if to hold for laughter.

It’s a showman’s touch, and that’s exactly the point.

You can reach the author at james.colgan@golf.com. To subscribe to GOLF’s media newsletter, click the link here.

The post Behind the scenes of NBC Sports’ Kevin Kisner hire appeared first on Golf.

The PGA Tour's newest business partners? Influencers

James Colgan — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 15:32:16 +0000

The PGA Tour can feel your eyes rolling.

For all its (sometimes) stodgy corporate might, the Tour doesn’t need new chief marketing officer Andy Weitz to know that Friday morning’s news — announcing the creation of the all-new “Creator Council” — will go over with a healthy dose of snark.

If a business’s most holy responsibility is to understand the consumer, then the PGA Tour knows this one isn’t for everyone. In fact, it knows a crossover episode between the Tour and golf’s most prominent influencers lands with a certain subsection of the core demographic like a 6-iron to the skull.

But critically, the Tour also grasps the crisis facing professional golf. The symptoms of this disease are many — the explosion of LIV, the intrusion of rogue billions into golf, the slow decline of the golf TV product, the genericization of the playing class and the loss of Tiger Woods — but the result is singular: After five decades of precipitous growth, pro golf is seizing, and its audience is shrinking.

That’s why the Tour is okay with a few eye rolls on Friday morning, the same day it announced a partnership with seven golf social media brands to form the all-new “Creator Council,” in which influencers will trade strategy and insight with the Tour in exchange for enhanced access to events and content creation opportunities. The group is expected to meet regularly with PGA Tour executive leadership including Weitz to discuss fan engagement opportunities, content strategy and broadcast enhancements, among other topics.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up for the Hot Mic Newsletter here.

The agreement is an old-fashioned quid pro quo — no money is involved, and it isn’t needed. For the Tour, the benefits of pairing near-limitless scale with the institutional content knowledge of the creator community are obvious. For those who love golf enough to land the job title of “content creator,” the benefits of working with the Tour are even better: exclusive content access from the long heavily regulated fairways of PGA Tour events, and a taste of the oodles of viral-ready content that come with it.

That might not sound like much, but it was enough to get partners totaling more than 15 million followers to sign up, including Bryan Bros Golf, Erik Anders Lang, Foreplay/Barstool Sports, No Laying Up, Paige Spiranac, Roger Steele and Tisha Alyn.

“We want to learn from creators,” Weitz told GOLF.com. “First, we want to give them access [to us], because we acknowledge there are some places where we can do better with our own voice. Second, there are opportunities where we can co-create, and give the fan even more of what they want. And then third, there might be situations where the creators should lead, and we need to give them access to our platform to do that.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by GOLF.com // GOLF Magazine (@golf_com)

The program marks the continuation of the PGA Tour’s recent lurch toward new media, where content creators have found scores of young fans eager to watch golf content, defying the sport’s reputation as an old man’s game. Introducing some of that digital audience to the Tour represents a massive opportunity for the Tour business, which collects the vast majority of its annual revenue from media rights agreements tied to the size of its TV audiences. At the simplest level, more followers and subscribers means more fans, and fans are good for business.

The opportunity helps to explain recent Tour trial balloons like the Creator Classic, a televised influencer outing that drew several million views, and Skratch, a digital media brand whose resuscitation under Full Swing EP Chad Mumm received millions in seed funding from the Tour. It also explains some of the core pieces of the Creator Council, which include expanding the Creator Classic to additional Tour events and working to loosen media regulations.

Notably, many of the Creator Council’s initial invitees come from the booming world of YouTube golf. In a chief piece of irony, the PGA Tour’s official YouTube handles (1.5 million) have fewer followers than former PGA Tour member Bryson DeChambeau (1.63 million), who departed the Tour for LIV in part to cultivate his own media presence. DeChambeau may be an outlier among his pro golfer counterparts for his showmanship, and the YouTube algorithm might boost individual creators, but there is little debate from either side that the combined might of the Tour presents an opportunity for a YouTube audience several times larger than any individual player.

There are still questions about the ultimate value of a large YouTube audience — many creators say the most profitable pieces of their business are merchandise sales and direct sponsorships, not YouTube ad dollars — but there is little doubt that every eyeball has meaning to the PGA Tour in these days of sagging ratings and tour wars.

“This idea didn’t start with the business case. This idea started with an opportunity to better understand what our fans want from the PGA Tour,” Weitz said. “If we get it right with fans, if we understand how they’re consuming content and how they’re engaging with other aspects of the golf landscape, we can ultimately serve them better. And yes, that will be better for our business. But this is about changing the way we think about engaging with our fan base.”

Engagement has been a popular word at Tour HQ this fall, particularly as Weitz and Co. work through the results of the first-ever Fan Forward survey — a pilot program designed to get fan feedback on PGA Tour broadcasts. In that sense, the Creator Council represents an extension of the efforts, this time aimed at sourcing feedback from some of the Tour’s most valuable outsiders.

Of course, there is a competitive advantage to the Council. LIV’s YouTube inroads are not small, and the league’s players have taken advantage of partnerships with some of YouTube golf’s biggest names already. (Last week, Phil Mickelson announced a two-on-two content series alongside uber-popular YouTuber Grant Horvat.) By securing a group working with the Tour, the Tour isn’t just gaining strategic insights, it’s also protecting its own rear end. But it also isn’t as simple as currying favor — some of the Tour’s inaugural councilmen and women have also been some of its most vocal critics over the last several years.

“Ultimately, this is about the forum,” Weitz said. “This is about creating a place where creators can come together with the Tour, we can learn from each other, and we can do better on behalf of fans.”

The Council might not ultimately yield much in the way of progress. Some issues inherent to the PGA Tour media business, like commercials, are responsible for the vast sums of money the Tour generates. Other issues, like managing the haves and have-nots of PGA Tour media regulations, could prove a considerable headache for Tour brass. But if nothing else, Friday’s announcement points to tangible evidence the Tour is acting to address the most flagrant issues plaguing its existence in the LIV era.

That might not be everything you’re looking for, but it’s something — and right now something is good.

Even if it makes your eyes roll.

If you liked what you read, sign up for the Hot Mic Newsletter here. You can reach the author at james.colgan@golf.com.

The post The PGA Tour’s newest business partners? Influencers appeared first on Golf.

Kevin Kisner named NBC Sports lead analyst after yearlong search

James Colgan — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 17:19:45 +0000

NBC Sports has a new lead voice, and his name is Kevin Kisner.

After a yearlong search, NBC announced Wednesday that Kisner will become the new lead analyst of its golf coverage, ending the revolving door in the lead booth following Paul Azinger’s departure in December 2023.

Kisner, an 18-year PGA Tour pro, will keep limited PGA Tour playing privileges as part of the agreement, allowing him the freedom to play out the remainder of his Tour eligibility while still completing a full-time broadcast schedule. According to an NBC press release, the agreement will see Kisner in the booth for NBC Sports’ coverage of the U.S. Open, Open Championship and Ryder Cup in 2025.

Kisner appeared to be NBC’s preferred choice for the lead role since at least February, when he stepped into the booth for a handful of well-received stints in the lead chair at the Sentry, WM Phoenix Open and Players Championship. The question, it seemed, centered around if Kisner wanted to hand over the final days of his professional playing career to take the job.

The longtime pro told The Hot Mic in January that he had “no plans” to retire for a golf TV job, but acknowledged that the realities of pro golf might eventually push him in that direction. In April, he told The Loop podcast that after further reflection, he’d decided he wasn’t ready to leave pro golf.

“I haven’t played well in two years, and I don’t really want to go out like that, to be honest with you,” Kisner said. “I feel like I can still compete with the guys if I’m playing well, which I haven’t played what I consider well yet. So it’s kind of a test to myself to see, how hard can you work to figure it out?”

Kisner’s indecision appeared to put NBC in a bind. The network parted ways with Azinger acrimoniously just months earlier after five up-and-down years, and (perhaps smartly) wanted to avoid rushing to name a replacement. As such, NBC waited until May to announce Brandel Chamblee as lead analyst for its biggest broadcast of 2024, the U.S. Open, and Luke Donald for its second-biggest broadcast, the Open Championship. As part of those announcements, NBC said it would spend the remainder of 2024 experimenting with a series of lead voices under a new “odd-even” telecast structure. Based on the hole number, the new structure would alternate broadcasting duties between two sets of analysts and play-by-play broadcasters.

NBC Sports executive producer and head of golf production Sam Flood said then that the network could — and likely would — wait until the offseason to hire a full-time voice.

“I think if we find the right person [we’ll hire someone full-time],” Flood said. “But right now, we think for the audience, they’re benefiting by hearing all this different perspective. And it’s kind of fun every week to figure out who’s going to be on and how it all meshes together. For the rest of this year, we’ve got this going on — but who knows what’s going to happen next year?”

With Wednesday’s announcement, Kisner becomes just the third full-time lead analyst for NBC since the Clinton Administration, stepping into a role long dominated by major championship winners (which Kisner is not). Rather, the 40-year-old pro and four-time PGA Tour winner will look to define the next generation of golf broadcasters, leaning on his well-regarded sense of humor, relationships with pro golfers and familiarity with social media to ingratiate himself to a new generation of golf fans.

By keeping his PGA Tour privileges, Kisner could theoretically change his broadcasting schedule considerably with a victory. But playing in events could also allow Kisner to serve a role similar to longtime CBS Sports analyst Gary McCord, who spent the formative years of his broadcast career pitching into CBS telecasts on weekends following missed cuts.

“If I won next week, I’d probably be like, ‘alright, I might be done.’” Kisner said in April. “I just want to prove to myself that I’m not going out like this.”

According to the press release, Kisner will slide next to longtime NBC Sports play-by-play voice Dan Hicks in the lead chair in 2025. Over the summer, Flood expressed his desire to bring back Hicks, who was on an expiring contract in 2024. Now, it seems, Hicks is back in the play-by-play chair, and with a new partner to boot.

The post Kevin Kisner named NBC Sports lead analyst after yearlong search appeared first on Golf.

Lexi Thompson's NBC complaints raise bigger LPGA TV questions

James Colgan — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 18:27:16 +0000

Welcome back to another extended edition of the Hot Mic Newsletter, GOLF’s weekly send covering all things golf media from me, James Colgan. Subscribe here to get stories like this sent directly to your inbox.

The Bitter End rarely looks pretty in golf. But at least for most, The Bitter End looks the same: A walk up the 18th fairway at the season-ending tournament, a chance to wave the fans off one last time, a final putt and a last-ever ovation.

On Sunday at the CME Group Tour Championship, this was the cause of frustration for retiring star Lexi Thompson. In what may very well be her final LPGA event — at least her last as a full-time player — she wanted the chance to send her career off in the traditional way, to see the 18th hole the way she had likely spent the better part of the last several months envisioning. But when she left the course on Saturday evening and received the following day’s tee times, she confronted an odd bit of news. In order to fit the LPGA’s broadcast window with NBC, the tour decided to split the weekend tee boxes, sending half of Sunday’s 60 players off on the first tee box, and half off on the 10th.

Given that Thompson found herself in the bottom half of Sunday’s field, the news meant her professional career would end in a harumph. The ninth green, not the 18th, would welcome her last-ever ovation, and fewer fans would be there to witness it all.

PRETTY SAD

“Pretty sad when you’re at -4 in the season-ending event, which could easily be the last CME of your career and you won’t even finish on #18 because they decide to double tee on the final day due to TV coverage window,” Lexi posted in an IG story on Saturday evening, voicing her displeasure. “Bummed I won’t be able to embrace all the incredible fans on 18 tomorrow as I finish. Hopeful some will be out there on #9. But just know I’m grateful for you all.”

SOP

The post raised eyebrows almost immediately in the LPGA world, but not for the reasons one might have thought. For one thing, the LPGA has long maintained the practice of splitting tees on tournament Saturday and Sundays in the fall — a function partially driven by glacial pace of play, dwindling daylight hours, and broadcast windows that the LPGA would do well to complete its events within. For another, Thompson’s finish on the ninth green at the CME Group Tour Championship would happen only about 30 yards from the 18th green amphitheater, giving fans ample access to move from one site to the other to send Thompson off properly. And for a third thing, Thompson only finished on the ninth because her 54-hole score of 4 under was more than 10 shots off the lead.

In other words, Thompson’s complaints might have been substantiated (split Sunday tees are still unusual on the PGA Tour), and she might have been rightfully emotional about the end of her professional career, but her complaint was leaving out a lot of relevant context.

OTHER ANGER

The CME Group Tour Championship’s Saturday broadcast also came under fire last week from within the LPGA tent, when CME Group CEO Terry Duffy voiced his displeasure with Golf Channel’s decision to broadcast the tournament’s third round on tape delay.

“That’s bulls**t, isn’t it?” he said in a meeting with reporters before the start of the tournament, adding he hoped LPGA commissioner Molly Marcoux Samaan would “make that not be the case.”

Duffy is no stranger to criticizing the LPGA. His company is one of the tour’s biggest benefactors, but that didn’t stop him from calling out a lackluster showing from LPGA stars at last year’s CME Group Tour Championship dinner. This year, the topic was TV rights, an area Duffy hoped — as many golf fans do — that common sense would eventually prevail.

“I would hope that people would recognize that if you’re going to continue to build women’s sports, you have to give them the same billing as men,” he said. “Stop — stop — the nonsense of saying that, well, we have to show a men’s tournament because they’re the men.”

REWIND

A quick refresher: Networks and golf tours set broadcast schedules, or windows, together. It benefits all parties when the most dramatic moments at tournaments are televised, so networks will often work to make sure events are completed within the broadcast window.

Sunday at the CME Group Tour Championship had added broadcast significance to both parties. NBC was airing the action, a national network with viewership often 10x that of the Golf Channel, and the LPGA had an out-time in the early evening, with an all-important Sunday Night Football broadcast set to begin as the NFL’s 4 p.m. games concluded.

These things together contributed to NBC setting a 4 p.m. end time to the CME Tour Championship telecast, which contributed to the LPGA’s decision to split the Saturday and Sunday tee boxes, which contributed to Thompson’s frustration.

WHY

The bigger question facing the LPGA/NBC debate, though, is why? Pace of play and TV exposure have ballooned into growing issues on the LPGA, and Thompson’s frustration underlined the ways the two problems often dovetail.

On one hand, the tee time decision showed the LPGA operating in favor of TV exposure, working to ensure a compelling broadcast filled the airwaves during one of the rare moments of nationwide exposure. On the other, though, it showed the extent pace of play issues affect the week-to-week product of the LPGA, in this instance casting doubt that 20 threesomes of professional golfers could complete their rounds between sunrise and 4 p.m.

DOES IT *REALLY* MATTER

In most instances, no: The LPGA won’t run into many issues operating in the best interests of TV partners. But at the same time, failure to address the underlying issues facing the tour’s telecasts almost certainly undermines the LPGA product. Just last week, Charley Hull outlined her “ruthless” slow-play solution to cheers from some within the women’s game — “If you get three bad timings, it’s a tee shot penalty. If you have three [penalties], you lose your Tour card.”

Is such a dramatic step necessary to rectify the problem of six-hour rounds on the LPGA? Perhaps not. But operating from the current position to appease the playing class has kept purses growing at the cost of discontent among nearly everybody else. A growing women’s game seems to be the goal of broadcasters, sponsors and players alike, but too often those parties have failed to meet even some of the lower thresholds for boosting entertainment value and viewer interest.

It seems it’s past time for somebody to outline a solution.

The post Lexi Thompson’s NBC complaints raise bigger LPGA TV questions appeared first on Golf.

NBC owners to spin off Golf Channel. What's next for the network?

James Colgan — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 18:53:20 +0000

Welcome back to another extended edition of the Hot Mic Newsletter, GOLF’s weekly send covering all things golf media from me, James Colgan.

THE BIG NEWS

Comcast officially announced plans Wednesday to spin off Golf Channel, the latest move in a broader effort to clear the decks of its properties in the ailing cable television business.

The owners of NBC’s suite of media and sports properties made Golf Channel part of a half-dozen cable networks that will be divested in the next 12 months and formed into a new publicly traded company, for now called “SpinCo” until it decides on a name. Those networks, which include MSNBC, CNBC and USA Network, have generated more than $7 billion in revenue for Comcast in the last 12 months.

Critically, Comcast will keep NBC and Peacock, which hold rights to the PGA Tour and USGA events, under the company umbrella. Under the new corporate structure, NBC Universal’s media portfolio will include the broadcast network NBC, its NBC Sports and NBC News divisions, and Peacock. Bravo, a critical piece of Peacock’s streaming business, is the only cable network kept in-house under the new structure.

Comcast will send two of its most trusted executives — Mark Lazarus, the current chairman of NBC Sports and the head of several key NBC media initiatives, and Anand Kini, current EVP of corporate strategy for Comcast and CFO for NBC — to lead the new company. Comcast will retain ownership of the new company at first, and Comcast chairman Brian Roberts will wield a one-third voting share in the new endeavor.

HOW WE GOT HERE

The news arrives as a reminder of a fundamentally concerning truth for the TV business: As audiences have fled en masse for streaming services, profits have tumbled for cable networks.

For years, executives at major media companies have wrestled with how to position these once-tremendously profitable cable networks in the streaming world. Some, like ESPN, made plans for life without the so-called “linear TV” business, building out streaming-exclusive platforms that could be offered direct-to-consumer. Others doubled down on it, building up a bulwark of sports TV rights and prestige shows to feed traditional cable channels and support burgeoning streaming platforms — the idea being that “lost” profits on the cable TV side would be made up on the streaming side. But that strategy belied a concerning truth: if cable TV kept declining, even those committed to cable would eventually reach an inflection point where their streamers were more valuable.

Comcast appears to be preempting that inflection point with Wednesday’s announcement, wiping its hands clean of the cable TV business while leaving the hard part of charting the future to the new leaders at SpinCo.

Big news: Golf Channel is officially being spun off from Comcast/NBC into a new company led by current NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus. https://t.co/q8Ez3dJbHh
— James Colgan (@jamescolgan26) November 19, 2024

OH SH*T METER

On its face, the picture isn’t rosy for the networks included in Wednesday’s announcement. The divestiture marks a major blow to the slowly eroding cable TV business, and suggests ominously that even some of cable’s biggest legacy players feel their business is better off without cable in the picture.

Still, the decision doesn’t necessarily spell doom for SpinCo, either. Industry insiders are keen to point out that while the cable business is declining, it is still profitable, and divestiture gives Lazarus and Kini the flexibility to explore a broad range of strategic options. SpinCo could perhaps look to sell off some of its less-profitable cable networks, but it could also purchase more cable networks to create a larger “bundle” option, or reposition the existing portfolio to better succeed in the streaming world.

These strategic options were longshots under the profit-obsessed eye of Comcast ownership, but with SpinCo free to seek outside investment, they might not be now. If nothing else, the volume of high-profile talent leaving Comcast for the new company indicates selling off the entire portfolio for spare parts is unlikely.

ON GOLF CHANNEL

If the news was a groundswell moment in the media business, it was a thunderclap in the golf media business — where the vast majority of the sport’s U.S. market share falls under two networks, NBC and CBS. Golf Channel, operating under the NBC flag, has existed for years as a crucial (if not wildly profitable) component of the PGA Tour and LPGA media business, providing tournament coverage, visibility and access 52 weeks out of the year.

In the near term, the spinoff raises questions about the shape of the PGA Tour’s existing media contract with NBC. How do Golf Channel and NBC, which have overlapping production and editorial operations, handle personnel in the split? How much of NBC’s $400ish million annual rights fee to the PGA Tour falls onto Golf Channel’s shoulders under the new corporate structure? If none or only some of it, does that make Golf Channel free to negotiate weekend broadcast agreements with other leagues, like, for example, LIV?

NEW DIGS

One easy answer involves the PGA Tour buying out partial or even whole ownership of the Golf Channel from SpinCo, an outcome that has been the subject of rumors dating as far back as 2020. Such a solution could provide Golf Channel with a new corporate home, allow it to continue the same approach to live golf coverage, and salvage Golf Channel’s outstanding PGA Tour and LPGA rights from potential headaches associated with SpinCo’s operations. It would also give the PGA Tour a tenant for its sparkling new, $50+ million production facility in Ponte Vedra Beach, just across the street from Tour HQ. That building was built to house the future of golf’s TV operations, including PGA Tour Live, with space to become a home of remote productions for sports worldwide. The idea behind the production facility is big and bold, but right now it’s lacking tangible business; shifting Golf Channel’s operations could change that.

(Whether the PGA Tour would want to purchase a cable network to operate its own media rights, when it can merely wait out the end of its current rights agreement in ’29 and do it for free, availing itself of any potential cataclysmic business risks in the meantime, remains a separate and valid question.)

CUTTING BACK

While Wednesday’s news raised an eyebrow, it was hardly a surprise to those who have been around Golf Channel for the last several years. The reality, several people told GOLF.com, was that Golf Channel’s resources have changed in the years following the pandemic. Budgets have been allocated differently, on-air talent has not been retained, and certain productions have been moved off-site. Those developments have coincided with a philosophical shift pushing resources toward the network’s premiere golf events, and away from day-to-day coverage, as NBC Sports golf chief Sam Flood told GOLF.com in the spring.

“We looked at the entire portfolio, and we decided to lean in where the audience is going to be bigger,” Flood said then. “We use our resources smartly at the other events.”

Flood insisted then that investment in NBC’s golf product was as flush as it had ever been, and perhaps that is true, but what he said next eerily foreshadowed Wednesday’s announcement.

“You have to look at things through the lens that NBC tournament golf, Golf Channel tournament golf and the Golf Channel studios are one big bucket,” he said. “You look at the whole bucket and you take advantage of the moment you can grow the game, engage the audience and give the biggest audience the best possible experience.”

Comcast, it seems, decided it could make do with a smaller bucket.

DOWNSTREAM

NBC has more than just its PGA Tour rights to worry about in golf. Months after inking a $27 billion TV deal with the NBA, the network is also on the precipice of entering negotiations with the USGA for the next round of the governing body’s TV rights. The U.S. Open headlines those rights, but the USGA has traditionally only sold its TV rights to networks willing to broadcast at least nine of its championships annually.

The divestment announcement could complicate these negotiations for NBC by giving them only one over-the-air network to broadcast the USGA. Of course, NBC could offer the USGA wall-to-wall coverage for its smaller championships on Peacock. The streaming service has successfully handled exclusive broadcasts for the NFL and Olympics in recent months, and could position NBC as a “best of both worlds” offer combining on-air and streaming options. The question, as ever, involves price. Now that NBC has more than $4 billion invested annually in the NFL and NBA, the network might not be willing to beat some of the sports world’s big-money streamers, or sports-starved other networks like TNT, for the high offer.

WHAT IT TELLS US

That Comcast would keep NBC and the vast majority of its sports portfolio speaks to the fact that sports TV — and more specifically, golf TV — remains a valuable piece of business. That it would split up NBC and its golf TV rights from those of Golf Channel speaks to a different, and slightly more troubling, development.

For years, the prevailing sentiment within the sports TV world was that NBC and Golf Channel were inseparable. Golf Channel provided NBC with valuable scale and an army of talented employees in Stamford, while NBC provided Golf Channel with a slew of live tournaments and the financial might to keep things running. The PGA Tour — a media company at heart like all pro sports leagues — eagerly welcomed the opportunity to expand the scope of its conversation and tournament coverage.

The unraveling of the pact and the separation of the two networks tells us the inseparable relationship has broken, and pro golf’s once-stable TV footing is shifting again.

The post NBC owners to spin off Golf Channel. What’s next for the network? appeared first on Golf.

Paul Azinger announces surprise return to golf broadcasting

James Colgan — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 18:07:49 +0000

Guess who’s back? Back again?

Zinger’s back, tell a friend.

Pardon the dreadful pun, but the news is true: longtime NBC lead analyst Paul Azinger is returning to golf broadcasting in 2025, taking over at least analyst for the PGA Tour Champions in place of the since-departed Lanny Wadkins. Golfweek’s Adam Schupak was first on the news.

WELCOME BACK?

While Azinger remains well-regarded in the industry, his return to a PGA Tour arrives as a bit of a surprise. He has been out of television since leaving NBC in a blaze of glory last December after the network elected not to renew his contract. Zinger was not a particularly popular voice among viewing audiences in his final years in the lead chair due to an overreliance on folksiness and his repeated derision of golf media (of which he was a key appointee), but his new role with the PGA Tour Champions should place him in the good graces of a generation of Tour stars he knows well, which should help to enhance some of the analytical breakdowns of recent years.

WELL THAT’S AWKWARD

We should not forget the events that most recently brought Azinger into the golf spotlight. A few weeks after his departure was finalized, Azinger torched his bridges at NBC, unloading on his former employer’s “cost-cutting” ways, calling NBC Sports head of production Sam Flood a “real a-hole” and asserting his opinion that the PGA Tour had become a “qualifier” for LIV Golf.

One imagines that Azinger addressed these allegations with the PGA Tour Champions before accepting the new lead job, and perhaps apologized for his characterizations of the network he will now occasionally broadcast for (Golf Channel) and the golf tour that signs his paychecks.

HOME COOKIN’

Azinger’s return to the booth comes as the PGA Tour Champions begins its broadcast transition to a mostly remote setup out of the PGA Tour’s brand-new production studios in Jacksonville, Fla.

Remote broadcasts, or “remies” as they’re often referred to in the industry, are new terrain for sports TV. Proponents of the strategy say the business model brings down costs for sports leagues and broadcast networks while limiting the risk of technical failures, while opponents say that it undermines the journalistic integrity of broadcasts by removing access from players and competitive tours.

LANNY’S SWAN SONG

Azinger will replace Lanny Wadkins, also a former major network lead analyst (CBS) and also lead analyst of the PGA Tour Champions. Wadkins said the shift to remote broadcasts was part of his decision to step away from the game

“I think that telecast is going to be losing something for all the positives that they can come up with,” Wadkins told Golfweek. “I think the personal interaction with the players is one of the best things you can do. I know, for example, when I call the tournament in Hawaii, I have breakfast every morning with various players and you get them in a surrounding like that you’re able to get more info from them on what’s going on with their games, who they’re working with, how they’re hitting it, and what they’re trying to achieve, everything else.”

BROADCAST MOVES

December is the time of year when broadcast moves are announced in the golf world. Mum is the word on significant shakeups to the TV product as of now, but it’s worth noting that NBC Sports play-by-play man Dan Hicks’ contract is set to expire at the end of the year. Flood, the head of NBC’s production, has stated his desire to keep Hicks on the NBC Sports roster headed into the future. Hicks is the voice of a host of big properties for NBC, including golf, Olympic swimming, Notre Dame football and tennis.

The post Paul Azinger announces surprise return to golf broadcasting appeared first on Golf.

LPGA shifts broadcast plans for Caitlin Clark pro-am appearance

James Colgan — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 20:22:57 +0000

It hasn’t taken the LPGA and Golf Channel very long to learn the new rule of sports television.

In fact, it’s taken no time at all.

The rule? If Caitlin Clark is in front of the cameras, start rolling.

Clark, the 22-year-old WNBA superstar, has ignited a rare kind of celebrity in the sports world. Audiences flock and attention follows her everywhere. And, with the WNBA in its offseason, that means audiences and attention are flowing to some of Clark’s less professional pursuits, like her appearance in the pro-am at next week’s LPGA event, The Annika.

According to SBJ’s Josh Carpenter, Golf Channel will be extending its coverage from Pelican Golf Club for the WNBA star’s Pro-Am round, going on air some 90 minutes early, at 11 a.m., to show live look-ins and highlights, which will be split between nine holes with Nelly Korda and nine holes with Sorenstam. In addition to Golf Channel’s coverage, the LPGA will also bolster its social coverage to provide live updates from Clark’s range time and round throughout the morning.

Why are the LPGA and Golf Channel switching their broadcast plans in order to give more airtime to Caitlin Clark’s pro-am appearance? Well, if you haven’t seen some of Clark’s exploits over the last several years between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Indiana Fever, we’ll let Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley fill in some of the blanks on your behalf.

“I think that every once in a while somebody comes along that just captures the imagination of the sporting world. And I say ‘sporting world’ because it really goes beyond basketball,” Ridley said in his annual state-of-the-state press conference at Augusta National last April. “I mean, the way Caitlin plays the game, her passion, her energy, it really just captures the imagination of the fans.”

Surely the LPGA hopes that aligning Clark with its brand will help raise the tides for both parties, but Clark’s success will shine the spotlight particularly bright on her front-nine partner. Nelly Korda ripped off one of the hottest streaks the sport has ever seen in the winter and spring of 2024, notching five straight victories including a major championship, but she has been the subject of a broader conversation surrounding marketing efforts and “superstar behavior” in the months that have followed.

For her part, Korda has upped her stardom’s ante in a big way in ’24 both on the course and off. She has become a more frequent contributor in press settings, attending the Met Gala, and most recently, posing for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

It might not be enough to reach the level of stupefying ability once captured by Tiger Woods, and now by Clark, but as Ridley pointed out in April, there’s more to the story than ability.

“We have to keep trying. There’s more things we need to do. We’re going to continue to think about that, to explore ways,” Ridley said. “But I just think it’s sort of a kind of a unicorn, really, we need more unicorns in that regard.”

The post LPGA shifts broadcast plans for Caitlin Clark pro-am appearance appeared first on Golf.

6 key lessons from Good Good Golf's YouTube success

James Colgan — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 17:48:39 +0000

Welcome back to another extended edition of the Hot Mic Newsletter, GOLF’s weekly send covering all things golf media from me, James Colgan. The topic of this week’s newsletter is an enlightening interview between three members of Good Good Golf and the two hosts of the Colin and Samir Show. As always, if you’d like to be the first to receive exclusive insights like these directly from me, click the link here to subscribe to our free newsletter send.

BLOVIATION STATION
I’ve recently developed an obsession with the dudes over at Good Good Golf. The group of golfer-influencers is probably the fastest-growing media entity in the sport over the last five years — a success story that speaks to the proliferation of (and money within) the YouTube creator economy right now.

“Real media” folks love to dismiss Good Good’s success as one-trick-pony algorithm-chasing, but the money they’ve made is very real. (Real enough that Callaway signed Good Good to a seven-figure endorsement deal that includes a line of the group’s exclusive gear, and significant enough that 24-year-old group leader Garrett Clark drives a $160,000 car.)

Last week, the obsession led me to an hour-long interview between a few members of Good Good and The Colin and Samir Show, a YouTube channel run by the founders of The Lacrosse Network. The interview touches on all topics Good Good — and I recommend you watch it below — but I’ll summarize some of my most interesting learnings here.

KEY FIGURES
Good Good is principally the brainchild of CEO Matt Kendrick, an entrepreneur and digital media whiz based in Texas. Good Good is Kendrick’s second foray into building YouTube creator/influencer collectives, following his work with a fishing channel named the Googan Squad.

Beyond Kendrick, the content creation is left to a team of roughly 10 producer/editors, and 10 additional on-camera voices.

The group is tight-lipped about the financial arrangement binding them all to Good Good, particularly the ownership structure and profit-sharing model. But to date, business has been good … and growing.

BUSINESS STRATEGY
Kendrick manages the business side of the group’s operations, structuring each of Good Good’s three “pillars” (content, merchandise, and partnerships), while creative vision is left to the voices at the center of the brand.

Principally, Clark says, the group operates as a merchandise company, which I find surprising. The decision to hone in on apparel over advertising speaks to the plight of making money in digital media even for uber-popular creators, and the fickle nature of advertiser dollars, which tend to be extra sensitive to market pressures. As with most media businesses, content is still the fuel for the Good Good machine, but even with a wildly successful channel, content isn’t stable enough on its own to build a business around.

“Our goal has always been to create a big golf brand around content, hopefully one day it can be a competitor to household names, like Titleist,” Clark said. “If you look at TaylorMade and Titleist, nobody thinks now ‘who created them?’”

CREATIVE FREEDOM
At first, Clark admits, Good Good’s creators viewed the brand as supplemental to their individual channels, but soon it became clear that the relationship should work in reverse. Today, Good Good acts as unifier and amplifier for its creator voices not unlike how media startups like Puck have sought to coalesce the power of several independent, high-ranking journalists.

Each of Good Good’s individual voices maintains an unusual amount of personal freedom (encouraged to operate their individual social media and YouTube channels). Creator contracts stipulate only exclusive apparel rights — “because that’s the entire brand,” Clark says — but the rest of a creator’s involvement remains largely up to them.

It’s a tricky needle to thread — and one that has led to high-profile intergroup departures, like with fellow influencer Grant Horvat — but it’s a necessary business structure in the individualized realm of YouTube.

LESSONS
What does Good Good’s growth in the space mean for the golf content space writ large? Here are a few of my topline takeaways:

– The media business can be a very lucrative place for winners on major platforms like YouTube. Good Good has made a killing here by understanding the YouTube algorithm and dialing its content to maximize growth, which has led to bigger sponsors and bigger merch sales.

– The proliferation of major platforms like YouTube will continue to fragment media’s moneymaking pursuits. If the biggest winners on the platform are unwilling to structure a business based around the success of their content, then larger brands should be viewing YouTube’s massive resources the same way.

– And finally, it’s best to have a business that isn’t solely reliant on advertising. Brand loyalty is crucial, but it’s not enough to stave off the industry’s worst instincts.

Maybe not earth-shattering stuff, but bigger media entities would be wise to pay attention to the success — and shape — of life at Good Good.

You can check out the rest of the interview with the Colin and Samir Show below.

The post 6 key lessons from Good Good Golf’s YouTube success appeared first on Golf.