We”re exactly three weekends away from the playing of the 114th annual United States Open Golf Championship. It will be contested at the No. 2 course at the Pinehurst Golf Resort located in the hill country of North Carolina. A classic American course designed by Donald Ross a little more than 100 years ago, Pinehurst will repeat the feat the following week in a truly historic gesture as it will then host the Women”s United States Open. Never before have the men”s and women”s National Open been contested at the same site on back-to-back weekends.
The first two days of National Open coverage will play out on ESPN while the weekend-long broadcasts will be televised throughout the world by NBC. The men”s and women”s Opens are two of the national championships coordinated by the United States Golf Association, the umbrella of all things golf in this country for the past 120 years.
While the USGA relies upon a national network of dues-paying members to enhance its coffers, the real value to the organization”s profit line is its national championships, primarily the U.S. Open followed by the Women”s Open and the Senior U.S. Open. The broadcasting rights to all things USGA, mainly the three professional tourneys plus the U.S. Amateur, have been in the hands of the fine folks of NBC and ESPN for the past 20 years. The 2014 broadcasts of all things USGA will mark an end to the 20-year affiliation with its television partners. Starting in 2015, the Fox Network, the home of Bart Simpson and NFL football, will be the new broadcast partner of the United States Golf Association.
Most of this played out in the late summer of 2013. With the USGA contract set to expire at the conclusion of 2014, the USGA had a 60-day negotiations period with NBC and ESPN that lasted through June and July of 2013. At the conclusion of the negotiation session, the USGA had a firm offer from its broadcast partners that would have resulted in a decade-long deal that would have added $80 million annually to the bank account of the USGA. It was at that point in time that the national golf organization took a gamble and decided to open up the bidding process to all other networks that were interested in taking on the USGA brand.
During the past few years, the USGA has admittedly become more media savvy. It hired Sarah Hirshland from the Wasserman Media Group to take on the role as the USGA Senior Manager of Business Affairs. One of the first things Hirshland did upon taking on her new job was to hire her former employer, Wasserman Media, to serve as a consultant during the bidding process. Wasserman was of the opinion that the USGA was in an enviable position with the economy recovering from its recession funk, with the continued marquee value of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and a host of young stars, coupled with the increased interest in the women”s game and its latest generation of young stars such as Michelle Wie.
Once the USGA opened up negotiations, they soon realized that Fox fully intended to become a major player in the world of televised golf. While the PGA Tour”s contract had most recently been renewed in 2001 with NBC and CBS and while the game”s most prolific property, the Masters, would always remain in partnership with CBS, it was apparent to the Fox people that the next best thing out there were the broadcasting rights to the United States Open. It was contested annually during Father”s Day weekend. It was historically contested at some of golf”s finest and most visual venues, and, as earlier mentioned, outside of the Masters it was the next best thing golf had to offer. The PGA Championship has long been regarded as the fourth major and the British Open is a bit too quirky with simulcasts from the BBC as well as early morning broadcast times, especially on the West Coast. Yes, if you wanted to make a splash in the world of broadcast golf, then the United States Open was the property you needed to have.
The Fox Network has long been interested in golf and Hirshland has been quoted as saying that “It was very clear that Fox was willing to bring a different perspective and we felt that was quite healthy.” To accurately translate Hirshland”s quote, Fox was willing to throw a boatload of money at the USGA to be able to acquire its three professional championships as well as its many and varied amateur championships. Sure, I doubt if Fox was truly willing to broadcast the Men”s U.S. Senior Amateur, but at least they”d have the broadcast rights to it.
In the end the USGA went with Fox”s bid, explaining from Hirshland”s perspective that “The ability to showcase amateur golf was really compelling.” Better yet, I”m sure Fox”s offer of $100 million annually for a 12-year period was just as compelling. Don”t ever kid yourself into understanding broadcast golf”s most important mantra. After all, money does talk.
More recently, Fox Sports has kept itself in the golfing media spotlight by announcing its lead team for its USGA broadcasts. Starting in 2015, Fox will have noted baseball and football announcer Jack Buck as one of its frontmen. The jaw-dropping partner of Fox for golf is the game”s Great White Shark, namely two-time major champion Greg Norman.
Norman has always had a connection with Fox Sports and its mercurial owner, fellow Australian Rupert Murdoch. During Norman”s prime in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s when he was the game”s top player, Norman publicly talking about the idea of a series of world golf tourneys featuring only the world”s top players. The world events would be sponsored by Fox and would be beyond the grasp of the PGA Tour and the European PGA Tour. While his idea was immediately shot down by PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, Norman”s vision would be the basis for the current foursome of World Golf Championships that are a major part of the American and European Tour calendars.
So while we”re just a mere three weeks away from the playing of the U.S. Open and a full four weeks away from the Women”s U.S. Open, both contested at historic Pinehurst, be aware that there are changes afoot in the world of broadcast golf. The golf will pretty much be the same. It”s just that the commentary will go from the always-opinionated Johnny Miller to the always-opinionated Greg Norman. I guess outside of the vast sum of money involved, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
