Hubby Of USGA Business Affairs Dealmaker: NBC Had Complacent Approach On USGA Deal, Fox Just Called Up!
/The worst sports transaction of the year and maybe of the century refuses to go away.
Former Golf Channel producer-turned-author Keith Hirshland, husband to USGA Senior Manager Of Business Affairs Sarah Hirshland, said while promoting his memoir that NBC did not take an exclusive USGA television negotiating window seriously and implied that Fox Sports merely swooped in at the last second because of a longtime desire to televise golf.
Unfortunately, this appears to be one of many efforts to revise the history of a stinker-of-a-deal that is haunting all parties involved. Namely, Hirshland, Gary Stevenson, Wasserman Media Group, the committee of five that voted unanimously to recommend Fox Sports (Nager, Hirshland, Stevenson, Davis, O'Toole) and the Executive Committee that voted unanimously for a rushed deal designed to boost Fox Sports' per-subscriber fee.
Mr. Hirshland was a longtime respected tournament producer working as an independent contractor, who has since seen his duties eliminated after publishing his book critical of several network colleagues. Talking to station WTNH where he was the former Director of News, Hirshland explained the things he wanted to put in his book about Golf Channel's purchase by Comcast, but was advised against doing so for obvious reasons (he's still calling them boneheads though!)
Anyway, he explains (there is also the full interview on video here):
"So I've written a book, the book has gone through all of it's rewrites, all the people that I trusted most to read it, while I was writing it, told me everything that was wrong with it, told me all the times that I was bitter and angry and had to rewrite, and you can't say this and you can't include emails from this president of Comcast in a book when you're basically saying they made a bonehead move," said Hirshland.
"I left the emails out, but I told the story about them being boneheads, so Sarah negotiates a deal with the USGA because their broadcast rights were coming up. So, they had been with NBC for 20 years. NBC has aired all of the USGA Championships for 20 years and negotiations were going on to see who would take over, because those rights were going to end in 2014. So the folks at NBC figured it was a lay up that the USGA would never change broadcasters. They love us and we do a great job for them, they're going to to do anything and so there was a 60 day exclusive negotiating window with NBC, which didn't come to play and didn't make a substantial offer. And, the day that the 60 day negotiating window ended, Fox who has long wanted to get into Golf, called up the USGA and said we're interested. So, the USGA said okay and Sarah did the deal."
Sarah, I have someone calling from Fox Sports on the line and they hear NBC only offered $73 mill, plus they've already talked to Greg Norman about the job even though this is the first you've heard from them. Should I put them through or send to voice mail?
Yep, that's just how it went.
Let's just set aside that no one from NBC or ESPN has talked on the record about the confidential bidding and negotiating process, no doubt having signed NDA's. (NBC/Golf Channel declined to comment on Mr. Hirshland's comments).
And let's forget that both respected and extremely influential networks were insulted by the USGA outgoing president Glen Nager in the initial press release announcing the Fox deal during PGA Championship week. (An apology since from Mike Davis.)
Meanwhile, the spouse of the USGA's deal architect is talking publicly about the process and not even coming close to reflecting the reporting of Ron Sirak, whose primary source for the timing was...Sarah Hirshland!
Just to clarify based on my own reporting and Sirak's: Hirshland was talking to Fox as early as April by her own account, and NBC was so lazy during their 60-day exclusive window that their top executives only wined and dined the USGA at Seminole, made strong offers more than doubling the current TV deal and brought in Arnold Palmer for the big sales pitch at 30 Rock. They certainly did not mail in the effort.
For the USGA, this latest episode will not discourage skeptics from wondering if the Hirshlands were motivated by Keith's diminished role at Golf Channel.
USGA Executive Director Mike Davis, asked by this website to comment through spokesman Joe Goode about this latest breach of good faith, declined and instead Goode issued this statement: “We led a fair, transparent and fact-based negotiation with all participants, and remain confident in the integrity of that process.”
I reached out to Keith Hirshland to clarify his remarks and he confirmed that his wife would "would know what really happened. Not me."