ESPN will broadcast the PGA Tour for the first time in two decades – here’s why
PGA Tour golf returns to the world leader’s main channel.
On Monday morning, the PGA Tour announced that broadcasts of the first and second rounds from this week’s Farmers Insurance Open will air on the linear ESPN cable network in addition to the Tour’s regular broadcasts on ESPN+, Golf Channel and CBS.
The announcement makes the Farmers Insurance Open the first golf tournament to air on ESPN in nearly two decades and opens the door for the Tour to expand its television hours on one of America’s largest and most powerful cable networks. It also entertains the audience and leads to the PGA Tour’s most anticipated appearance in a long time: the return of five-time major champion Brooks Koepka after nearly four seasons with LIV Golf.
According to a person with knowledge of the Tour/ESPN deal, the “expansion” of broadcasts on ESPN’s cable channels is not a new deal between the two sides, and will not earn the Tour additional rights money. Instead, the move is a one-week “trial” in addition to ESPN+’s prominent travel deal. The ESPN broadcast will be a simulcast on the ESPN+ feed, will air before the start of the Golf Channel broadcast each evening, and is currently only scheduled to cover this week’s Farmers Insurance Open, although the two sides can work to find a way to make the relationship a permanent arrangement, should all go according to plan.
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By:
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In other words, the money will stay the same, but the audience reach will increase significantly for the Tour – a strategy that fits with Tour CEO Brian Rolapp’s positive view of live sports. In his previous job at the NFL, Rolapp led the NFL’s media strategy that focused on reach and results, sometimes at the expense of money – an approach based on the idea that a large, captive audience was the key to world domination.
Historically, the Tour has taken a more restrictive view of its media rights, favoring the greatest possible value for every second of marketed live action. ESPN’s tryout flies in the face of that belief, even if it reveals the Tour’s winning result. again ESPN: The tour could claim better ratings and a bigger share of viewership during the early-week window when it wouldn’t be on TV; and ESPN would want some free programming to fill its airwaves … with the added benefit of showing Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour exclusively.
Officially, the event is the first on Tour on ESPN since the network ended its relationship with the Tour after the WGC-Barbados World Cup in 2006. The Golf Channel has covered much of the PGA Tour’s early-week coverage in recent years, though ESPN also tapped into the tour’s pool of broadcast partners earlier in the decade when it signed a daytime broadcast deal with ESP+N to continue.
The Tour’s current round of TV rights deals runs through the end of the decade, and its partners at CBS, ESPN and NBC pay the tour an estimated $750 million a year. ESPN pays the Tour about $100 million a year for the right to broadcast the PGA Tour Live on ESPN+, but also holds broadcast deals earlier in the week for coverage of the Masters and PGA Championship, and is the exclusive broadcaster for TGL.
