USGA's Davis: Fox Sports Announce Team "Will be more knowledgeable than what we’ve seen in the past."

SportsBusiness Journal’s Michael Smith posted "5 Questions With" USGA Executive Director Mike Davis (subscription required). The Fox television deal starting in 2015 is the centerpiece of the chat and Davis, unfortunately, could be interpreted as demeaning current partners NBC and ESPN in equal fashion to outgoing USGA President Glen Nager's remarks when the deal was announced. (The fallout from that was covered in Ron Sirak's Golf Digest feature and follow up.)

For context, Davis denounced the USGA's initial press release announcing their Fox Sports television deal, where President Nager touted the "fresh and innovative" approach Fox would bring. Davis later defended the deal's timing and thanked both organizations for taking "our championships to a new level."

Davis appears to re-open the can of worms and then some with Smith even though there is still one more USGA championship season with NBC, Golf Channel and ESPN.

On the Fox deal...

DAVIS: For the game of golf to get the “other big network” engaged in the game is a positive. One of our biggest priorities in 2014 is to integrate Fox. Golf is a unique sport to broadcast. You’ve got 18 arenas out there and the announcers have to be very golf savvy. If you don’t know the nuances, the audience will know it. Fox has hired their executive producer, Mark Loomis, and soon they’ll have a lead host and lead analyst. … What’s neat about this is they can focus on our events. It’s not 30 weeks a year where they’re doing golf and the U.S. Open sneaks up on them.

The U.S. Open broadcast snuck up on Tommy Roy or Gary Koch or Johnny Miller or Andy North or the hundreds of people who worked on the broadcasts and made them so engaging?

They plan on taking their announcers to the site months in advance to learn the golf course, and I’ll be there with them to take them through what we’re trying to do. …

While there may be a new group, in some ways they’ll be more knowledgeable than what we’ve seen in the past.

Fox's unnamed team will be more knowledgeable because Davis takes them through his setup plans and design interpretations?

Now, longtime readers know I'm not going to be chairing the Andy North Marching & Chowder Society, but to suggest the possibility that the 2-time U.S. Open Champion did not revolve his year around the U.S. Open coverage and devote every ounce of his being to giving as much sound information to viewers as possible, speaks to a continuing level of disrespect for the current "partners" that is hard to fathom. It also makes it easier to assume that the current partners never stood a chance in a bidding process increasingly seen as stacked against them.

But back to the announcers. Take a former USGA winner like Gary Koch. Or Johnny Miller, who lived for the U.S. Open to the point he reminded us of his greatest--and it was a great one--accomplishment every year?  Or Dottie Pepper, who cries when the anthem is played and treasures her Curtis Cup days probably more than just about anything she did in her career? Or Dan Hicks or Tommy Roy, who were behind so many signature broadcast moments? And before you nominate the dreaded Chris Berman to support Davis's claim and who undoubtedly was stylistically wrong for a USGA national championship, was there at the USGA's contractual request.

Frankly, the list of people who devoted themselves to USGA events and giving their best to the broadcasts is a long one, and it's disconcerting to think Davis assumes Greg Norman, the living icon his ownself, is going to visit Erin Hills in months in advance to spend hours hearing about the course setup?

I give that about five minutes before Norman is telling Mike what he's doing wrong and how he, a living icon of his own brand, would set the course up.

SBJ's Smith also asks Davis about the struggle between corporate and golf people internally, and the answer suggests that predecessor David Fay left the organization in less than an ideal place (with a $250 million war chest!) and that golf is no longer the sole focus of the "$200 million organization."

When I started at the USGA 25 years ago, we were a golf association and there really wasn’t a corporate way of doing things.

And that's a bad thing?

Back then, we didn’t have a legal department or a marketing department. There was a skeleton communications department. It was all about golf. We’ve moved to a time where we now have these corporate functions that really do support the golf part. I would argue that golf vs. corporate, well, it needs to be both. … We’ve really focused the last two years on making the USGA more efficient and more business savvy. We have to evolve because now we’re running a $200 million organization.

The shareholders demand results!

Corporatization reportedly led lifelong amateur and USGA hero Bill Campbell to dissolve his ties to Far Hills late in life, as Frank Hannigan wrote in a letter worth re-reading. And let's face it, if you think like a corporation, you are not likely to tell actual corporations that their golf ball should go a little shorter for the long term health of the game.

As for spending the new television revenues, giving back to the game is on their mind and no doubt the ad agencies are salivating at all the new money to spend on campaigns.

So many people have missed that this Fox deal will not only provide our championships with more broadcast hours and focus, it’s also a game-changer for the USGA financially. We’re not going to shy away from that. People are missing the point that these moneys are going to go back into the game.

Interesting sentence.

We’re going to do things that we’ve never been able to do before. As a nonprofit, we’re focused on how best to serve the game and the focus on those three areas. … We’re at a crossroads now with the game of golf, so now that we know our financial future a little better, we can spend money to help the game.

Only time will tell how that money is spent, but I'd start with these suggestions. Something tells me that they are not corporate enough.