Rupert! Sky Looking To Push BBC (59 Years!) Out Of The Open
/The Daily Mail's Charles Sale believes the BBC, rights holders to The Open Championship for the last 59 years may not be prepared to bid as much as their private rival.
Rupert Murdoch's Sky seems prepared to pay for the rights, Sale says, all based on the USGA's partnership with Fox Sports.
And certainly R&A opinion has shifted a lot further towards a subscription TV partner with the astonishing deal done in America by Fox Sports who, with no previous golf experience, have paid more than $1billion over 12 years for US Open rights.
This is regarded as a game-changer on both sides of the Atlantic, with the USGA prepared to relinquish their long partnership with NBC in return for a mountain of dollars.
And the R&A will not want to fall behind the money invested in the other three majors.
Sky, who have shored up their golf contracts after arch-rivals BT Sport made a bid for the PGA tour, are certain to want to add to their portfolio a flagship event such as The Open.
The R&A's Peter Dawson was asked about the report in the R&A press conference and was non-committal.
PETER DAWSON: Well, we have had an extremely long relationship with the BBC and a very happy one. I think it's now 59 years since The Open Championship was first televised in 1955 on the BBC. Our current contract runs through the 2016 Open. And what will happen thereafter remains to be seen. Being a rights holder we obviously have to balance that long-term relationship and the high viewership of the BBC against commercial considerations. The value of golf rights has accelerated dramatically, particularly in the United States just in the last 12 months. And that's perhaps a bigger item in the equation than it might otherwise have been, that's for sure. But it's massively premature to speculate on what might occur.
ESPN holds American rights through the 2017 Open.
Murdoch was also in the news today for having attempted a $80 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable in the United States.
