Falling Out Of A Tree And Crushing The U.S. Open "Brand"

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Chris Chase of USA Today launches a withering and articulate attack on the USGA's "cash grab" after Fox’s "amateurish, substandard coverage."

Chase writes at For The Win:

Their brand has now been tarnished. The USGA knew Fox would be its face for the next 12 years and after the first big broadcast the damage caused may be irreparable for years. It’s far easier to lose reputation than it is to gain it.

Chase touches on the very issue many of us had with the USGA giving our national championship to an unproven entity: would they tarnish the image of the U.S. Open?

It pains some to accept that television shapes how we perceive events. Look no further than the second week of April for evidence of a broadcasts' power to shape an event.

Last week's debut reinforced two key lessons to be learned from the first Fox Sports foray into golf and the ensuing fallout from reactions to Chambers Bay:

(A) Golf is the most difficult sport to broadcast competently, even when many of the crew members have worked on broadcasts.

(B) In sports, there is a very difficult balance between serving as a broadcast partner and a house organ.

To point (A), the USGA handed our beloved national championship to a network, after having the U.S. Open and other USGA events handled with care by NBC since 1995, and ESPN for even longer. The USGA emphasized their hope of shaking up golf broadcasting with new technology and a younger attitude to stave off the stereotype of the organization as a stuffy navy-and-khaki set. They also hoped to join forces with a partner that would share their message on the Fox networks, with more editorial influence. As the late Frank Hannigan warned, the USGA wants to be loved and that's not their core mission. The resulting product put forward by Fox at Chambers Bay, where the USGA's brand became the focal point over the championship, confirmed his worst fears.

A rocky telecast was widely expected for a network that had little opportunity to get “reps” broadcasting golf. The broadcast was riddled with an endless series of mistakes, peculiar announcer comments (Joe Buck saying wives and girlfriends shouldn't meet) and declining announcer energy due to an unprecedented number of on-air hours.

Richard Sandomir handled most of the constructive criticism very well in this review.

The social mediasphere was harsh, but Fox invited some of the vitriol by allowing Joe Buck to declare in pre-championship hype that they would bring a fresh, innovative approach. Buck opened the broadcast with a jab at Johnny Miller’s remark upon learning that Fox would be starting its golf broadcasting foray at the U.S. Open. The brief bit of humility displayed at last fall's Shark Shootout was no where to be seen.

While some of the mistakes were understandable and others pretty funny, too many people worked too hard to rehash the errors. Furthermore, the strong performance by the digital streams and record viewer response to those alternative broadcasts revealed some fun Fox innovations and forward-thinking that were hardly seen on the network broadcast.

Which leads us to the U.S. Open's identity and the tone set by the USGA.

Players, fans and media turned on this U.S. Open’s on-course viewing experience and course conditions. At times with unusual and embarrassing vitriol. The greens were certainly not ideal, particularly in the afternoons. For those unable to get a grandstand seat, viewing was almost impossible. Fortunately, the last day course setup and great play from Spieth, Johnson, Oosthuizen, Smith, McIlroy, Scott and others allowed the golf to take center stage.

Yet the anger expressed toward the USGA and Executive Director Mike Davis by the likes of Billy Horschel, Ian Poulter and others was clearly a response to Fox's sugarcoating of the effort by their "partners" at the USGA.  Other than a refined explanation of the putting surface issue by Gil Hanse on Sunday and some forthright comments on the digital streams, hosts Buck and Norman went into hard sell mode on the great setup efforts and generally downplayed the turfgrass issues. They were chatting with Davis during Friday's telecast for one of his three lengthy in-booth visits as a former U.S. Open champion and a pre-tournament favorite, Justin Rose, was making a triple bogey at the par-4 18th. The audio featured discussion of fescue grass and Norman's suggestion that he'd like to play heather on the property, all set to visuals of Rose taking himself out of contention. The episode gave the impression that messaging for the USGA took priority over the playing of the national championship.

This fueled the widespread player view that the U.S. Open has become about the USGA and not the players. The contestants returned the favor by blasting away and viewing the event with disdain. 

Another example landed during Tom O’Toole’s in-booth visit where the outgoing USGA president conceded adjustments would have to be made to Chambers Bay so that fans could see play at a future U.S. Open there. To which Norman launched into a declaration that there was 100% approval for the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay from the “masses” he queried during a walk of the grounds.

The importance of USGA "brand identiy" as focal point over our national championship was reinforced by the absurdity of a stark red USGA logo on screen (sometimes in two spots), always at the expense of “U.S. Open” mentions on the lower right leaderboard. The USGA branding overpowered the player names and even the Fox logo. Backdrops for interviews and other moments empahsized the USGA logo, not the U.S. Open name or logo. The overall look cemented the impression of Fox being asked to sell the “brand” of the USGA. With a mess of a telecast, the USGA brand obsession distracted from celebrating the history, people and story of America’s national championship.

Yet this was exactly the partnership vision set forth by the those who orchestrated the move to Fox: former USGA president Glen Nager and (brief) Executive Committee member Gary Stevenson. Starting with the 2015 U.S. Open telecast, they got exactly what they wanted in a partner. But as the first telecast revealed, having a partner selling the USGA brand came at a huge price to the U.S. Open's image as a premier sporting event.