Working Around The NFL: A Good Idea?

A couple of items posted today remind us just how determined the PGA and LPGA Tour's are to work around the NFL season. And looking at the FedEx Cup after two years and the latest LPGA plans, it seems that the desire to work around the NFL has led the tours in a negative direction.

Consider this from Steve Elling, writing about the LPGA's disastrous dismantling of the ADT Championship and desire to move the $1 million first prize event to the season opening slot, all because it's running up against the NFL.

If there is a silver lining, a sliver of hope, it's that there are no plans to overhaul the whacky format, Bivens said. She even has a dream time frame in mind, if it can be negotiated with TV and the new title sponsor.

"Ideally, I like that weekend between the (NFL) league championship games and the Super Bowl," Bivens said.

That certain sports gorilla with the oblong ball is one reason she wants the ADT relocated to a less-congested part of the year. Even given its increasing momentum, Bivens felt the tournament was underappreciated and overshadowed. The PGA Tour season is over, and there's no competition for viewing eyeballs on that front, but still.

"The NFL is the property and you cannot compete," Bivens said.

Golf doesn't compete with many major sports in the ratings department anyway, so why dismantle an event that had a quality sponsor, unique season ending format and solid host course with a supportive host in Donald Trump?

Okay, I understand that the LPGA is tired of underwriting television production costs and all that good stuff about equity for the players, but is this really the time to be taking such risks with one of your proven events?

The more nuanced dilemma involves the PGA Tour and the decision to create the FedEx Cup so that the season ended earlier and gets out of the way of football. Nearly every observer now concedes that Tim Finchem's vision was well-intentioned but severely blurred, because golf's "playoffs" run up against season-opening college and NFL games when optimism and interest is highest. Instead of say, now when the mid-season blues are kicking in.

Check out Cameron Morfit's Q&A with Steve Flesch on the FedEx Cup. Morfit clearly isn't buying the direction the tour is headed and neither is Flesch, though as a PAC member he half-heartedly tries to defend the idea of a points system and that all-important, buzz-killing obsession of the tour to "protect" the season points leaders at the expense of a true playoff. But even more interesting was Flesch's stance on the FedEx Cup schedule and the playoff dates failure to deliver audiences.

People are starved for football that time of year, whether it's college or pro. The Tour moved it up to accommodate Tiger and Phil, who wanted the year to end earlier, but now we see that they're taking the chance to go abroad and collect appearance fees in Europe and Asia and wherever. So we're like, did we really achieve what we wanted here? Because now they're just going abroad and playing, so they're really not shutting down their year like they said they were going to. Last year Tiger played six of seven weeks in a row including his tournament right before Christmas, whereas during the year, during the regular Tour, he never plays more than two [straight weeks]. Then we threw the off-week in this year, which I don't think was very popular except with people playing in the Ryder Cup.

And Flesch offers this wise solution, which would seem to counter one of Tim Finchem's main rationale's behind the cup structure (and therefore, makes it dead on arrival).

SF: I think if you don't see Tiger or Phil for a couple weeks after the PGA, you let football start and run its course for a couple weeks. God help me I'm a Bengals fan, living in Cincinnati, and I'm jacked up to watch 'em play the first couple weeks. But when they're 0-3 and 0-4 I'm back to watching golf in October or early November. So August, September, you let the hype of pro and college football die down. That's our big problem and I don't know why we battle that.

Neither do I.