Who Knows What 2021 Will Bring?

While I'm happy the PGA Tour will be on television for the foreseeable future--and more importantly, network television--I'm having a hard time getting past the notion that the new PGA Tour television contract runs through 2021.

Consider that we'll have three U.S. presidential elections between now and then.

Two World Cups.

And there will be three Summer Olympics in that time, with the location for the third set of games just narrowed down to six bids this week (and only two of those are golf friendly...or at least I don't think they have much great golf in Azerbaijan).

I point this out because it seems fair to question why either the tour or networks would want to be locked into that agreement so far in advance. Especially in light of our "flat," rapidly changing world.

Consider this wisdom from someone who many consider to be very smart about business, politics and what the digital future holds:

Who knows where -- I'll just go off a little bit here, but Tom Friedman has a book coming out this week, and in that book he cites when he wrote "The World is Flat," and he thought that was a cutting-edge book. But he says in this book, if you go back and look at that book, and it's only five years ago, you can't find Skype, you can't find Twitter, and he lists about eight different things. That's pretty amazing. That's five years ago. None of that stuff was even there.

Those comments were from Commissioner Tim Finchem while announcing the 9-year deal.

Tip For Dealing With Sunday's CBS/PGA Telecast

I thought I was prepared for CBS and the PGA of America's idea of a proper sporting event presentation after sitting through last year's promo and commercial-laden mess, but for some reason Saturday's boondoggle seemed far worse. At least I had Twitter to converse with like-minded folks who found the seemingly unending commercial and promo reel offensive.

I can't imagine what Golfweek's Martin Kaufman thought, since he blamed lackluster early round coverage on TNT, and absolved CBS of blame for the relentlessness of the breaks. (Of further note is the scaled back production for all rounds that includes no quality blimp camera coverage and a noticeable cutback in spotters to provide yardages.)

The real problem here is the PGA of America, which allows their championship to be ruined by an unwatchable live telecast and despite complaints the last few years, appears to have done nothing to re-work its deal with CBS. Throw in their circa-2000 website and for fans not in attendance, it looks like they could care less about what any fan thinks of them. I can't even imagine what a casual fan thinks of the game if they tried to watch any of this.

Sadly, the PGA ratings will tumble Sunday and it'll be blamed on unknown leaders, not on the product put out (sparingly) on the airwaves. Thankfully, there is the DVR.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I will be fast-forwarding through this one entirely on "tape."  Sorry sponsors, but the PGA of America gives me (and many others) no choice but to fast forward. Consider it the television version of Tee it Forward.

DVR Alert, I Guess: CBS Presents "Next On The Tee: The Future Of Golf"

Well at least there's Gentle Ben to listen to...

CBS SPORTS SPECTACULAR PRESENTS “NEXT ON THE TEE: THE FUTURE OF GOLF”

CBS SPORTS SPECTACULAR gives an inside look at the present and future of golf with the one-hour special, NEXT ON THE TEE: THE FUTURE OF GOLF presented by AT&T on Saturday, July 30 (2:00-3:00 PM, ET).  Featured in the special is eight-time major winner, Tom Watson, assessing his career and where he sees the game going. Also featured is two-time All America golfer from Georgia, Russell Henley, as he looks to his future as a professional. Turner Sports’ Craig Sager examines the technology of the game from the hickory shafted clubs to the models of today.  Two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw will examine the state of where course design is going in the coming years.  And a CBS Sports panel of golf experts including Ian Baker-Finch, Peter Kostis and Peter Oosterhuis hold a discussion on the state of today’s game today, where it is going, the young players ready to win in the future and golf technology.  CBS Sports’ Deb Boulac serves as coordinating producer.

The "Special Announcement" Dissected

Spare me comments about the importance of the Open, the debt ceiling or the home run derby over this "Special Announcement" nonsense regarding Tiger Woods, Mark Steinberg and Golf Channel. That said, this was another valuable learning experience for those of us social media adopters and this painfully long dissection is necessary, if nothing else than to help most of you work on your quick scrolling abilities.

Still, for those who care, here goes.

It won't go down in the annals of sports gaffes like The Decision (as TMZ hinted), but instead the Tiger-Tilghman-Golf Channel-Steinberg "special announcement" non-news Monday appears to be a simple mistake compounded by social media and the late Sunday night timing.

Here are the events, as best as I can recreate them after making a few calls Monday.

- Golf Channel, whose PR department is very good about sending out press releases to announce special programming, did not send anything to media to promote this "special announcement" regarding Tiger Woods. This should have been the first cue that something was amiss. Instead, Golf Channel Tweeted that there would be a "special announcement concerning Tiger Woods on Golf Channel" at 11 a.m. ET.

- Adding fuel to the fire: the Golf Channel Tweet has since been taken down. Yet, the wording would help people see what was actually sent out, because it did say there would be a "special announcement concerning Tiger Woods on Golf Channel." No, there is nothing special about Mark Steinberg joining an agency, nor in the context of Tiger's career is this "special" news, but the Tweet also is not saying that Tiger himself would be making a special announcement. The Twittersphere and Facebook get the blame for taking the Tweet and twisting it. However...

- More confusion came Sunday evening when Golf Central anchor Scott Walker reported that "Kelly Tilghman will be on location" for this special announcement, but again, there was never a mention of a sitdown interview with Woods. Sadly for Tilghman, her business ties with Tiger's EA game and go-to status as Woods' safe-bet interview has become so ingrained that anyone who hears her name associated with Tiger now assumes another fawning interview is around the corner. But again, still not a legitimate reason to have assumed an interview was happening.

- Mark Steinberg, surely aware that he's going on Golf Channel and CNBC Monday morning to promote his move to a new agency Monday morning, denies there was ever a special announcement to AP, but does not take the opportunity to suggest to AP that this may have been a misunderstanding involving his own personal announcement. Perhaps because he was saving that news for his Keeler, Darren Rovell of CNBC, who does indeed get the scoop on Steinberg's new agency.

- When NPR calls Golf Channel Monday morning, they are told to tune-in to see what's up. Again, not a great move, but this is television and they want eyeballs.

In conclusion (applause breaking out), social media took some scraps of info and assumed the worse, then regular media and bloggers ran with it (myself included). Finally, Golf Channel and Steinberg did not clarify what was up once the media reports started going out.

In other words, a little blame goes around to all parties involved.

We did, however, get to hear Brandel Chamblee, sitting with Rich Lerner to host a very brief live "special announcement" report, try to justify why Golf Channel was cutting in to discuss an agent signing with a new agency.

Thanks to the reader who transcribed...

"To your point, any announcement involving Tiger Woods cause a contegration of speculation. But when you start talking about Tiger Woods, the diamond has lost almost all of its lustre. I think it is an important business decision going forward for Tiger Woods to look for places where he can change the way he is perceived as not only an athlete, but as a personality. He needs to align himself with certainly elite athletes, but squeaky clean athletes. Derek Jeter, these guys across the world of sports have very positive images. Tiger Woods, well you say he's made a fortune in the game of golf. But the fact is he's the single highest paid athlete in the world. So much depends on Tiger Woods...golf, personality, health. The heartbeat of golf beats in tandem with Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods gets a fever, golf gets sick.

Okay here's where it gets a little strange and indecipherable. And the tone for those who saw it live was described as "borderline meltdown" and "seriously over the top."

You start talking about the PGA of America, the PGA TOUR, Yahoo.com, MSN, TMZ. Everyone of these companies and institutions have made a fortune on Tiger Woods' ascent. Some of these media outlets have made a fortune on his descent.

And the Golf Channel too. Maybe more than most?

They will all stand to make another huge fortune if he comes back. You start talking about blockbuster movies and how are they made up? They are made up of an ascent, followed by a descent; impossible hurdles that they can't get over, somehow they get over them, then they come back with an ascent, with perspective and humility. Tiger Woods, should he come back, will make more money than he's ever made before. Not just for himself, but for any business he's aligned with and any ancillary businesses that are with him."

Whoa Nellie!

Then he was asked by Lerner how hard it would be for Steiny to go out on his own.

"Impossible. you're talking about putting all of your eggs in one basket. Tiger Woods' marketability at this point is linked to one thing and one thing only. Winning. If he doesn't come back and win, Tiger Woods in 5, 10 years will hardly be marketable at all because the scandal will look like the thing that brought him down. If he comes back, people will say that this guy has withstood the most adversity that any athlete has endured. Wrongly so, but they will say that.

There goes another Texan thinking Hogan getting-hit-by-a-bus was a bigger deal.

"And that he climbed to a spot higher than he's ever climbed before and that he did so with dignity. Now whether he does so or no, that remains to be seen. But winning, we've seen this so many times. When someone wins, we attach these wonderful attributes to it."

Anyway, time to get on with some golf!

“What you’re seeing is that sports are becoming more relevant to more people.”

SBJ's John Ourand asks how high rights fees can go after another stellar Olympic rights battle and recent deals with college conferences, but does not mention the PGA Tour other than a chart valuing the average annual value of the PGA Tour television contract at $491.7 million.

“The market is very, very robust,” said CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus. “Each of the parties that’s spending this money must be figuring out a way to justify the rights that they are paying.”

The huge increases may have the feel of a market bubble, having grown so much in such a short amount of time. But veteran sports media executives believe the prices accurately reflect the value of the rights and have room to grow.

“Have sports rights peaked? I don’t think they have,” said NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins. “What you’re seeing is that sports are becoming more relevant to more people.”

And it's all about cable.

Cable TV channels view sports programming as the easiest way to increase ratings and the license fees that distributors pay. Today, several cable networks actively are trying to add sports to their schedules, which, sports media executives say, is the main reason why media rights fees are rising so quickly.

Comcast wants more sports on Versus. Fox is putting more sports on FX. Turner is trying to build up truTV’s sports assets. And, of course, ESPN needs reams of sports content for its multiple TV channels, broadband platforms and mobile applications.

And great news for the PGA Tour, they...oh wait, what? Oh that's right they're locked into Golf Channel exclusively over 15 years, unless NBC wants to re-write the deal and throw some programming to Versus.