SBJ: Pitchtime In Ponte Vedra For Network Executives

Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand reports in great detail that some network heavyweights are descending on Ponte Vedra Beach to make initial PGA Tour, Champions, Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and LPGA Tour media rights pitches.

Ourand lays out the schedule to include sessions with Warnermedia chairman Jeff Zucker and Turner Sports head Lenny Daniels, CBS’s Sean McManus and David Berson, ESPN’s Jimmy Pitaro and Burke Magnus (EVP programming), Eric Shanks and president Mark Silverman from Fox Sports, Amazon’s Marie Donoghue and Jim DeLorenzo, with NBC Sports Group President Pete Bevacqua and Golf Channel President Mike McCarley helming Comcast’s effort.

With the NFL’s timing in limbo, Ourand notes the PGA Tour’s desire to wrap things up by year’s end comes with risk.

The tour is coming to market after a year that saw weekend television viewership (excluding the majors) drop considerably. NBC’s weekend coverage was down 18% this season; CBS’s was down 10%.

The looming NFL rights negotiation also could have an effect on these negotiations. All the networks are prepared to pay a lot more to keep the NFL when its rights come up in 2021 and 2022. The risk is that the prospect of those rights could keep networks from committing as much money as the PGA Tour is hoping for.

(The Athletic’s Daniel Kaplan filed an update on the NFL’s proposed plans which now focus on a 17-game schedule and other elements that might take their schedule into late February if the season begins in the traditional post-Labor Day period, including an extra playoff game and an added bye week.)

Ourand says the number of bidders is working in the PGA Tour’s favor in spite of a ratings drop.

AT&T has told tour officials that it has looked into flipping one of its existing channels (Headline News or truTV) into a golf channel that would pick up the rights that currently are on Golf Channel. It’s likely that AT&T would offer the PGA Tour a stake in that channel.

ESPN is expected to make an aggressive pitch centered on streaming rights for its ESPN+ platform. CBS has carried PGA Tour rights since 1970 and wants to maintain that relationship. Finally, NBC has built a healthy business around PGA Tour rights, like Golf Channel and GolfNow, and is expected to be aggressive in trying to keep them.

Notably absent from the meetings: Discovery and its GOLFTV Powered by the PGA Tour, aka golf Netflix.