CBS Opens Canadian Open With Strong Rebuke Of PGA Tour's Defectors

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I’ve seen some wild stuff in this PGA Tour v. LIV situation but in a lot of ways, the likely fissures in the sport have only just begun based on CBS’s opening to Saturday’s RBC Canadian Open.

Nick Piatstowski at Golf.com summarized it here.

After showing some golf and maybe selling the leaderboard of 5 world top 18’s a wee bit hard—it is a doozy of a final group Sunday with Finau, McIlroy and Thomas—Jim Nantz explained how the LIV event in London had just concluded.

"Charl Schwartzel with his first win of any kind in six years, ranked 126th in the world, he was the victor of this 54-hole event of the tour that’s Saudi backed,” Nantz said.

Any kind and Saudi backed. That’s a declaration of war in the Hello Friendsphere!

Oh but it got better.

Faldo, speaking after clips of PGA Tour players talking:

“We’ve got two totally different golf tournaments. One, we play for tournaments and national championships over here. And the LIV Tour is what, 54 holes and no cut, shotgun start, you know, sounds crazy. 

“And the other thing that is very noticeable is the players that have left. Obviously they’re in mid-40s, they’ve been out here on Tour, they’ve been battling away and they probably know they can’t win out here against these youngsters. So they’re taking the easy option to go over and try and win a boatload of cash.”

Then Nantz turned up the heat after admitting that CBS’s relationship with the PGA Tour is something they’re proud of.

“But I think about — what I keep hearing from people, too, is a sense of disappointment, even a little betrayal. They’ve always been told the story, and I know it was true, that at some point in their careers the dream was to play on the PGA Tour, build a legacy, build your future financially. 

“And the Tour’s been good to them. It’s a Tour that’s come into these communities for decades and made these communities better than how they were when they first got there. I’m talking not millions; I’m talking billions of dollars into these communities.”

He hit the billions word hard, as you can see in the video I tweeted of Nantz’s remarks:

Credit CBS for addressing the topic at the top of the show along with disclosure of the obvious Tour partnership and conflict. And for doing it in a way that came off as genuinely believing in what the traveling circus format has done for communities on the calendar. These are points not emphasized enough in this entire debacle.

But all parties will have some soul searching to do after their partners failed to take the disruptive threats seriously until it was too late. The Global Home has never publicly suggested LIV’s money source is one their members should not be associating with (unless you count vague references in leaked memos).

So that’s why Nantz noting the Saudi source Saturday was significant.

Either way, we’ve just watched a series of events emblematic of intense coddling that is now coming home to roost when players are not always held to account publicly for their actions, are held up as the greatest to ever play the game, have excuses regularly made for them when making a poor decision, and often believe—in key cases—they are the game.

Colonial 2022: Another Rough Ratings Week On The PGA Tour

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The 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge featured World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler as the third round leader and Jordan Spieth in contention, but that was not nearly enough to help CBS’s ratings.

Eventually won by Sam Burns in a playoff over Scheffler, the final round telecast drew a 1.46/2.43 million average audience, down 2021’s 1.79/3.11 million for Jason Kokrak’s win over Jordan Spieth. All numbers courtesy of ShowBuzzDaily’s weekly sports report on a busy weekend for viewers.

Saturday’s CBS broadcast from Colonial and all Golf Channel telecasts showed declines. The LPGA’s match play event at Shadow Creek was also down across the board and did not draw a top 150 rating for Sunday’s final match.

The NCAA Women’s Championship earlier in the week on Golf Channel also failed to rate.

The same week in 2021 courtesy of Showbuzzdaily:

Texas Captures Its Fourth NCAA Title With Win Over Arizona State

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The team was inspired by a young man named Sonny Santrelli, who is battling cancer and was able to be on hand to watch. Quite a moment after:

The full highlights package:

The final day also marked another sad chapter in Golf Channel and NBC Sports, as the network’s coverage was off air for around 50 minutes of the final match and viewers let them have it. Not the synergy and support the NCAA signed up for but life in the world of Comcast chintziness.

More Details On PGA Manningcast: Buck And Collins Host, Guests To Include Aikman, Allen, Couples And The Mannings

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First reported last week by the New York Post and confirmed by Joe Buck on Twitter, the minds behind ESPN’s successful Monday Night Football “Manningcast” are bringing the concept to the 2022 PGA Championship.

The details of an aggressive effort—four hours a day—now include confirmed guests. The full release:

Joe Buck, Michael Collins To Host First of Its Kind PGA Championship Alternative Telecast for ESPN 

Celebrity Guests Joining Telecast Include Troy Aikman, Josh Allen, Charles Barkley, Doris Burke, Fred Couples, Jon Hamm, Peyton & Eli Manning 

Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, Production Company Behind Monday Night Football With Peyton and Eli, to Produce Telecast in Conjunction with ESPN  

ESPN is bringing a new additional viewing option to golf for the first time in its coverage of the upcoming PGA Championship with an alternate telecast - PGA Championship with Joe Buck & Michael Collins - that will complement the event’s traditional television production. 

The new telecast, produced by ESPN in collaboration with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, follows the success of the innovative and critically acclaimed Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli alternate telecast this past NFL season.

The alternate telecast will be hosted by Joe Buck, who recently joined ESPN to anchor Monday Night Football next season, and ESPN senior golf analyst Michael Collins, the host of the ESPN+ program America’s Caddie. Buck will be making the first ESPN appearance of his new deal.

PGA Championship with Joe Buck & Michael Collins will air during all four days of competition in the May 19-22 tournament and feature an array of guests to offer running commentary and conversation as live play in golf’s second major of the season unfolds at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla. 

Peyton and Eli Manning will be among the guests on the telecast during the tournament. Other guests who will appear across the four days of coverage will include Troy Aikman, Josh Allen, Charles Barkley, Fred Couples, Jon Hamm and ESPN’s Doris Burke with more guests to be announced later.

“Working with Omaha Productions, we are producing a telecast that is designed to reach a new and different audience and elevate the appeal of the PGA Championship even more,” said Lee Fitting, ESPN senior vice president, production. “We feel that this will ultimately help grow our viewership and provide fans with another fun and creative way that they can enjoy sports.”

“We loved doing Monday Night Football with ESPN and the entire Omaha team has been looking forward to producing alternate telecasts that celebrate other sports,” said Peyton Manning. “As one of golf’s majors, the PGA Championship is a perfect place to do our first one for golf and we look forward to working with Joe, Michael and everyone in ESPN’s golf team.”

The telecast will air for four hours each day. During the first and second rounds on Thursday and Friday, May 19-20, the telecast will air on ESPN from 1-2 p.m. ET during the final hour of live tournament coverage on ESPN+ and then move to ESPN2 from 2-5 p.m. while tournament play is airing on ESPN.

During the third and final rounds on Saturday and Sunday, May 21-22, the telecast will air on ESPN from 9-10 a.m. while live play is airing on ESPN+ and then it will switch to ESPN+ from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. while live play is airing on ESPN.  

Earlier this year, ESPN and The Walt Disney Company announced an expanded agreement with Peyton Manning and his Omaha Productions company, a relationship that launched Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli. The extension added a fourth year (through 2024 season) for Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli, featuring a 10-game annual slate of alternative productions to ESPN’s traditional Monday Night Football telecast. Additionally, the agreement calls for alternative presentations (with other hosts) for UFC, college football and golf to be produced by Omaha Productions in collaboration with ESPN.

In the third year of an 11-year deal with the PGA of America, ESPN and ESPN+ will present more some 230 hours of live coverage of the PGA Championship including traditional coverage as well as Featured Holes and Featured Groups.

SBJ: LIV Golf Close To Landing PGA Tour's Preferred Production Company; Discussions With Fox Have Died

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Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand says the LIV Golf group has awarded a production deal bid to NEP Group, which also handles general production for the PGA Tour.

Awkward alert!

As Ourand notes, the PGA Tour has understandably been trying to discourage such deals by its partners.

That’s because NEP already has a deep relationship with the PGA Tour, which has been dissuading its corporate partners from working with the Saudi-backed upstart league.

Essentially, the PGA Tour’s partners have to decide whether it’s worth the risk of angering tour executives in order to grow their business — and presumably cash a big check — with LIV Golf.

For the most part, the PGA Tour’s messaging has been delivered. If NEP signs a deal, it would become one of the only companies to work with both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

NEP has been the Tour’s partner as it took control of on the television compounds at their events. It’s led to noticeably upgraded PGA Tour Live coverage on ESPN+.

Ourand also has this on LIV’s efforts to land a major media partner:

The other big question is who will carry the LIV Golf events in the U.S., considering that most of the big U.S.-based media companies already have deep relationships with the PGA Tour. Sources said LIV Golf had discussions about doing a deal with Fox, but those talks died down weeks ago.

Ratings: Spieth Delivers For CBS; Zurich And Valero Have Rough Years

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Paulsen at Sports Media Watch with the good news for CBS’s 2022 RBC Heritage won by Jordan Spieth and viewed by the largest non-Masters audience of 2022.

Final round coverage of the PGA Tour Heritage tournament averaged a 1.9 rating and 3.68 million viewers on CBS Sunday, marking the largest audience for the event since 2003. Jordan Spieth’s win, which peaked with 5.04 million viewers, increased 20% in ratings and 43% in viewership from last year. The previous 19-year mark was 3.46 million for Spieth’s previous win in 2015.

Also noted by Paulsen and this should not be underestimated: “The 19-year high for the Heritage came on the same Easter Sunday in which the NBA scored its largest opening round playoff audience in 20 years.”

CBS had the other highest-rated non-major of the year with the WM Open in February.

The two-man team Zurich Classic fared poorly for CBS despite Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele winning. According to ShowBuzzDaily.com, it drew a 1.16 final round rating on CBS, averaging just 1.8 million viewers, down from 2021’s 1.37/2.1 million avg. Saturday’s third round drew a .96/1.4 million average, a tick down from 2021.

The 2022 ratings news for NBC continues to be uninspired. But at least the Tour can go right down the Global Home hall and ask what’s going on?

The Valero Open prior to the Masters was down a million average viewers (1.45/2.3 million avg.) for Sunday’s final round from 2021 (1.80/3.3 million).

Discovery Head Of Streaming Says Move Into Golf Has Been A Failure

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In reporting on Warner Bros. Discovery’s sudden shuttering of CNN+, the New York Times’ Michael Grynbaum and John Koblin obtained a staff meeting audio recording where executives explained the decision.

JB Perrette, Discovery’s global head of streaming, explained the struggle his company has had with streaming launches. This includes GolfTV, which is paying $2 billion over 12 years for PGA Tour international streaming rights.

To the left of Mr. Licht sat Mr. Perrette of Discovery. He invoked tweets that called the service “CNN Minus,” because it did not include any programming from CNN’s cable network, “the global calling card of this new organization,” he said. (CNN+ carried only unique programming to avoid running afoul of CNN’s agreements with cable carriers.)

Mr. Perrette also referred to Discovery’s own “painful” history of starting niche streaming services — focused on cars, food and golf — and said they were costly to market and ended up with few subscribers.

“We have failed almost at every turn launching these products,” he said, according to the recording.

The “failed” launch started in 2019 after Discovery CEO David Zaslav said would be a "golf Netflix” and Tiger Woods declared would bring “new youngness” to the game.

Discovery also purchased Golf Digest in May, 2019.

CBS Sports: 2022 Masters Up 7%, Most Watched Golf Telecast In Three Years

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Tiger Woods gave early round coverage a boost but a pair of weekend 78’s made him only a small part of CBS’s coverage. Couple that with a three stroke lead by Scheffler, no major stars expected to contend Sunday and lackluster ratings all year, and CBS must be thrilled with these numbers.

They’re also declaring record streaming numbers but there are no numbers released…

CBS SPORTS’ 2022 MASTERS COVERAGE SCORES ACROSS ALL PLATFORMS 

CBS’ Final-Round Presentation Delivers Most-Watched Golf Telecast on Any Network in Three Years 

Paramount+ and CBS Sports Produce Record-Setting Streaming for Golf

 April 12, 2022 – CBS Sports delivered strong viewership across all platforms for its presentation of the 2022 Masters.

Sunday’s final-round coverage on CBS is the most-watched golf telecast on any network since the final round of the 2019 Masters, when Tiger Woods captured his fifth green jacket, averaging10.173 million viewers and up +7% versus last year.

With Scottie Scheffler comfortably ahead of the competition for most of the day, Sunday’s coverage averaged 12.443 million viewers for the final hour (6:00-7:00 PM, ET) as Scheffler wrapped up his first major victory. Viewership peaked with 13.160 million viewers for the conclusion of Scheffler’s round (6:45-7:00 PM, ET).

Paramount+ and CBS Sports’ digital properties registered record-setting streaming for golf. Overall, the 2022 Masters is Paramount+ and CBS Sports’ most-streamed golf tournament ever in average minute audience and streaming minutes, producing double-digit year-over-year growth.

Sunday’s final round delivered the most-streamed golf day ever for Paramount+ and CBS Sports in average minute audience and streaming minutes while recording double-digit year-over-year growth.

ESPN released preliminary numbers Friday, with a nice Tiger-fueled boost for round two that only got bigger:

The average of 3.5 million viewers was up from the 2.7 million average for last year’s second round and was ESPN’s highest second-round average since 2018. The Friday telecast also drew an audience that was up 26 percent from the average of 2.8 million that watched Thursday’s first round. Fast Nationals are preliminary and do not include out of home or streaming audiences on computers and mobile devices.

Across the first and second rounds, ESPN’s telecasts averaged 3.3 million viewers, up 31 percent from 2021 and the highest two-day average since 2018.

That final number has since been updated to 3.9 million to include Out of Home and streaming. Also, SportsCenter at the Masters from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. on Friday averaged 711,000 viewers, including 1.223 million for the last hour before coverage.

Golf Channel May Bring Back Weekly Tin Cup Airings In Bid To Win Back Viewers

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Due to budget cuts and tax-incentive driven move to Connecticut, Golf Channel ratings have flatlined and the “brand” diminished despite housing all early round PGA Tour coverage. The once highly-profitable and popular channel is now down to 63 million homes from a peak of nearly 80 million just a few years ago, causing NBC Sports to shift early round U.S. Open and The Open coverage to USA Network.

To stop the bleeding, network executives are said to be mulling an aggressive plan to win back nostalgic viewers. Sources say the initiative, dubbed internally as “Since Holly’s No Longer An Option,” centers around regular weekly late night showings of Tin Cup, the Ron Shelton-directed movie once airing so often that Cheech Marin bought two ocean front homes just off his Golf Channel residuals.

“Someone upstairs equates the film with our Golden Age instead of anything from the original programming, documentaries or award-winning feature department,” said a source. “So get ready for a lot more Tin Cup. Seems Tommy’s Honour just isn’t clicking with the millennials.”

Another source added: “It’ll be expensive, but say goodbye to late night infomercials for Villages insomniacs like Relief From Inflammation, Forgetful?, Try THIS Trick, and Bye Bye Neck Pain. They think this will get the channel’s average age viewer back into the mid-70s.

A third source in Hollywood and connected to actor Don Johnson added, “It’s his most layered role and worthy of more study. So it’s a win-win-win.”

Sponsors like Sqairz golf shoes, penile health pillmaker Xiaflex, Preparation H and crooner Mike Stone have signaled renewed interest in scooping up more premium ad time if Tin Cup returns.

A network spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Quadrilateral: What We Learned From The 2022 Players

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Ratings: 2022 Arnold Palmer Down, Honda And Genesis Hit 25-Year Lows

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Showbuzzdaily.com has all the numbers which are not very encouraging.

The 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational featuring Scottie Scheffler’s second tour win scored a Nielsen 1.70 rating with 2.825 million viewers, down a million average viewers from 2021’s 2.36/3.862 million.

Saturday’s third round went from a 1.55/2.5 million viewers last year to a 1.21/1.95 million in 2022.

The 2021 numbers:

Last week’s Honda and the previous Genesis saw a historic lows, as noted by Paulsen at SportsMediaWatch.com:

Final round coverage of the PGA Tour Honda Classic averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.57 million viewers on NBC, tying the second-lowest final round rating for the event in at least 25 years. Third round coverage the previous day had a 1.0 and 1.62 million. The previous week’s Los Angeles Open on CBS turned in a 1.3 and 2.13 million on February 19 and a 1.6 and 2.62 million on February 20, the latter tying as the lowest rated final round of the event in at least 25 years.