The TV Deal Quote(s) Of The Year

Sal Johnson recaps the end of ABC's run televising golf, which reminded me that the new TV deal was analyzed in far greater depth here than probably necessary. So instead of rehasing the coverage, I thought it would be fun to dig up the best things said and written about the PGA Tour's 15-year commitment to The Golf Channel.

In the Writer Division, we have a tie between Golfweek's Rex Hoggard, who wrote...

Fifteen years? That's not a TV contract, that's alimony.

and Golfobserver's Frank Hannigan wrote... 

For the Tour to find and command a new audience would require a freakish event ­ like a hermaphrodite dwarf becoming leading money winner. And it would help if the dwarf's caddie could be Anna Nicole Smith.

In the Player Division, Fred Couples summed things up nicely when he told Golf World's Bob Verdi:

"I don't understand the new TV deal. We signed for 15 years with The Golf Channel? Isn't there a number between one and 15? Did the NBA sign for 15 years with TNT? How'd we lose ESPN? I also don't get that. What if ESPN decides in three years they want golf again? What does the PGA Tour tell them? Sorry, we're with The Golf Channel until 2021?"

And in the Commissioner Division, I was partial to this subtle but beautiful justification from Tim Finchem to explain the loss of ABC, ESPN and ESPN on ABC:

Number one is that we have a streamlined set of relationships with NBC and CBS having all the weekends. It really relaxes and reinforces the continuity we can now provide to our fans.