More Reads On The Late Jack Whitaker

/

My original post was here but some wonderful tributes have rolled in to celebrate the life, work and times of Jack Whitaker.

Frank Fitzpatrick of Whitaker’s home town Philadelphia Inquirer with a sensational remembrance, including this:

As one of sports broadcasting’s first and best essayists, Whitaker, who died Sunday at 95, introduced elegance and erudition into the genre. His work was infused by a broad vocabulary, a tweedy wardrobe, and a thoughtful demeanor.

But while he added a professorial air to decades’ worth of telecasts from Super Bowls, Masters, Olympics and Kentucky Derbys, the Germantown native never forgot that he once stood before a camera dressed like a gunslinger.

“It wasn’t my finest hour,” Whitaker told the Inquirer in 2007, “but you did what you had to do and you hoped it made you better.”

 Richard Goldstein filed another superb New York Times obituary, writes:

But he was perhaps best known for his essays about sports, inspired by writers he admired like Alistair Cooke and Heywood Hale Broun. He received an Emmy in 1979 as “outstanding sports personality” and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sports Emmy Awards in 2012. “I know that I’m regarded as The Talking Head,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1977. “I’d like to be exactly that and say something that people will remember or get excited about. I’d like to bring sports into the thinking process.”

Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic respected Whitaker’s talent as a writer, but he said the combination of that talent with his voice prompted him to wonder if we’ve lost one of the last broadcasting icons:

But, like with most broadcasters, it was his voice that mattered most, in tone and in authority. 

Dick Enberg had one, too. So did Vin Scully, who’s still alive but stopped calling baseball games in 2016.

Who are the voices who will take their place? Not as announcers, whether calling a came or providing analysis.

Who will replace them as icons? Anyone?

We discussed Whitaker this morning on Morning Drive.

Overnights: 2019 BMW A 2.4, U.S. Amateur At Pinehurst A .3

/
Screen Shot 2019-08-19 at 11.18.25 AM.png

According to Sports Business Daily, the 2019 BMW Championship drew a 1.9 Saturday audience and a 2.4 for Sunday’s final round on NBC, well up over non-Tiger-contending Wyndham Championship’s previously played in this schedule spot. The 2018 Wyndham drew a 1.9.

The slide in US Amateur interest and visibility continued with a .4 Saturday and a .3 for Sunday’s finale on Fox going head-to-head with most of the BMW final round. Talk about an event screaming out for a change in its Monday to Sunday format to avoid being an afterthought.

Two notes on the audiences from Tunity regarding the BMW final and first rounds:

R.I.P. Jack Whitaker

/
Screen Shot 2019-08-18 at 6.11.57 PM.png

One of the voices most closely associated with televised golf, Jack Whitaker was a World War II veteran, essayist and voice of genuine authority in sports broadcasting. His career spanned decades in multiple sports, including the first Super Bowl, Wide World of Sports and legions of Triple Crown races.

But his work in golf is how most of us knew him and grew to expect his presence, as no event was complete without a Whitaker essay.

In golf his work started with CBS at the Masters—with a brief Clifford Roberts induced break—and then as a huge part of ABC’s glory years with Jim McKay, Dave Marr, Bob Rosburg, Peter Alliss, Judy Rankin and others, followed by many more years handling Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf’s reboot, he lent a gravitas like few others in all of broadcasting.

A major influence on some of sports’ most authoritative voices, Whitaker’s life is captured in this CBS obituary by Brian Pascus. The story includes this remembrance from his friend, understudy and Sports Broadcasting HOF inductor, Jim Nantz.

“When I first met Jack Whitaker in 1986 at Pebble Beach, I felt like I had just been introduced to Ernest Hemingway," Nantz said. "I grew up watching him deliver contemplative and contextual prose with his famous short essays, bringing class and dignity to his industry. He was enormously proud to have called Super Bowl I for CBS and was the last surviving network commentator from that landmark game. I spoke to him this week after hospice came to his home and his mind was still brilliantly sharp right to the end."

From Rich Lerner:

His Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame page with Nantz’s induction speech and tribute film narrated by Brent Musburger. A must watch!

He most recently could be heard playing the role of A.W. Tilinghast in this 2019 feature for Golf Channel.

A few things to sample since the YouTube offerings are slim, starting with this interview:

And here’s a little later career work on Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf:

PGA Tour Exec: "It’s not an easy thing to consider leaving Comcast, but it’s also not an insurmountable one.”

/
Screen Shot 2019-08-11 at 7.33.17 PM.png

On top of the original July 29 story by John Ourand and John Lombardo detailing the possible ways a new PGA Tour television/digital deal may play out, a second and more pointed column from Ourand appeared on August 5th. I’m presuming the quotes from this were in the original interview, though the tone of this column is decidedly more incumbent-friendly than the original piece.

Ourand predicts that it will take “a significant bid to convince the tour to turn away from” the Golf Channel, NBC and parent company Comcast.

But it’s the quote from the PGA Tour exec in charge of shaping the new deal that will interest (or concern) fans and viewers.

“It’s not simple,” Rick Anderson, the PGA Tour’s executive vice president of global media, told SBJ golf writer John Lombardo and me recently. “Comcast has built an entire multibillion-dollar linear channel with our programming. They are phenomenal in terms of their production of golf, and they have a strength of position in the game. Changing that and walking away from that and leaving them will not be easy. It would be the hardest path. It would be a lot easier to talk about doing a renewal instead of going to the market … It’s not an easy thing to consider leaving Comcast, but it’s also not an insurmountable one.”

Phenomenal but not insurmountably so.

As for the viewer appetite to stream golf, Anderson believes the audience wants more digital streaming, even if means watching a guy take over two minutes to hit a six foot putt and paying for the privilege.

“The digital platform is as big an opportunity as the linear channel,” Anderson said. “We know that our opportunity extends beyond the current business model of cable and a linear channel. We can build a real digital platform that has content that people will pay for and in a different way than any other sport can do.”

Anderson said the tour’s available package has more than enough content, particularly Thursday through Sunday with the PGA Tour, LPGA, PGA Tour Champions and Korn Ferry tours.

“The landscape that I see with those big deals is definitely a linear channel, but then an extremely robust digital platform where you really could almost literally go and watch golf on a 24-7 basis,” Anderson said.

I continue to have a hard time seeing more than friends and family paying significant chunks of change for a more robust PGA Tour Live on top of all other streaming or cable subscriptions.

Maybe the folks doing this negotiation will be inspired by Disney’s brilliant, trend-bucking bundle announced last week and pricing of its new combined Disney/ESPN+/Hulu and give golf fans the chance to buy a one-stop place for all of this content at a fair price.

Brooks And Brandel A (Lighter) Sparring Item Again

/
Screen Shot 2019-08-11 at 7.21.38 PM.png

I’ve missed these two lovebirds chirping at one another, so naturally Brandel Chamblee had to go and pick on Brooks Koepka displaying improper etiquette by standing ahead of Rory McIlroy during their Northern Trust round.

While Bryson v. Brooks could have turned ugly Sunday—it did not but gave Eamon Lynch a fantastic start to a slow play column—I still have hope for eternal sniping between Brooks and Golf Channel’s Chamblee.

Josh Berhow of Golf.com pieces together the latest manspat, this time Chamblee trying to suggest walking ahead was a greater breach of etiquette than a slow player.

Team Koepka alerted their man, who replied on Twitter (above) with a little less bite than some of other recent jabs back at Chamblee, which date back to the Masters when Chamblee questioned Koepka’s toughness and quality of his major wins.

Despite The Leaderboard, Final WGC Fed Ex St. Jude Ratings Tumble Hard

/

The schedule in 2020 will stick the new Minnesota stop in the slot after The Open, so maybe this is an aberration. But given the quality of the leaderboard (Brooks Koepka/Rory McIlroy final pairing), the final ratings for the WGC FedEx St. Jude were not good.

Paulsen from SportsMediaWatch attempted to compare them to both the old WGC Bridgestone (played in August) and the FedEx St. Jude Classic’s ratings (June). And the new WGC FedEx still fell shy of those events.

Last Sunday’s final round of the PGA Tour/WGC-St. Jude Invitational averaged a 1.6 rating and 2.31 million viewers on CBS, down 30% in ratings and 33% in viewership from last year (2.3, 3.45M), and down 11% and 13% respectively from 2017 (1.8, 2.66M). The 1.6 rating is the lowest for final round coverage of the event — previously the Bridgestone Invitational — since 2012 (1.3).

Numbers for pre-coverage on Golf Channel were also way down from the event’s ratings in the August/Bridgestone slot.

PGA Tour Expediting TV Rights Deal To Avoid NFL, Believes Golf Needs A Second "Linear Channel"

/
Screen Shot 2019-07-31 at 9.10.07 PM.png

I got a chance to read the longer version of John Ourand and John Lombardo’s SBD piece on the PGA Tour rights fees and beyond the summarized version I posted about yesterday.

There were several interesting nuggets shared by Rick Anderson, who will head the Tour’s negotiations.

Ourand and Lombardo call the timing “aggressive” given that it could create an awkward situation with existing partners for two full seasons. Or…

If the PGA Tour signs new deals with CBS and NBC, it will be able to add new features two years early. If it moves on from CBS and NBC, the tour believes that it will need those two years to develop a new channel and digital presence.

Another reason for the tour to move early is to take advantage of an overheated media rights market before the NFL comes in and takes over a sizable piece of that market. The NFL’s deals are up in 2021 and 2022, and all indications are that the $5.5 billion of linear TV rights deals that the league collects annually will see a huge increase. 

The NFL is also pushing hard to expand its season deeper into February, which could impact who might be interested in fall or west coast events.

The Tour also seems to believe there is a need for a lot more golf on television, including options to pay for the privilege of seeing every shot from every player if someone chooses to:

Anderson said he is looking for one or, potentially, two linear channels. He pointed to the content it has from the PGA Tour, LPGA, PGA Tour Champions and Korn Ferry tours as evidence that the tour has enough content to fill two channels.

“When you start talking about capturing every player and every shot, the digital platform is where that would come to light,” he said. “We know that our opportunity extends beyond the current business model of cable and a linear channel. We can build a real digital platform that has content that people will pay for and in a different way than any other sport can do.”

I’m thinking you could call it PGA Tour Live. Just a thought!

It will be fascinating to see how many streaming services believe they can sell subscriptions with golf as part of their package. It’s hard to see HBO Max and ESPN+ feeling that adding golf will be that final piece getting someone to pay $20 a month.

In sizing up the bidders, SBD’s assessments beyond the expected interest of CBS, NBC and Golf Channel featured surprising notes, presumably shared with them by Anderson:

Discovery

Discovery signed a 12-year, $2 billion deal for the PGA Tour’s international rights. It paid $30 million to $35 million for Golf Digest this spring. But Discovery has not showed interest in the tour’s U.S. rights.

What happened to Netflix for golf on our phones? Oh right, when you’ve got to cover the CEO’s absurd compensation package, it’s hard to start a new channel.

ESPN

Much of ESPN’s interest revolves around its streaming service ESPN+. But new President Jimmy Pitaro has expressed interest in the PGA Tour’s linear rights, too.

Don’t count out ABC, where golf’s demographic actually would watch in numbers that sponsors care about.

Fox

Sources say Fox is not interested in a big PGA Tour package, but the tour hopes it will want tournaments around the U.S. Open to help streamline its production and sales processes around the sport.

The new U.S. Women’s Open date rules out the Memorial going to Fox two weeks out from the men’s U.S. Open, meaning an RBC Canadian or Rocket Mortgage could be in their future?

WarnerMedia

WarnerMedia has showed a lot of interest. Last week, AT&T’s Randall Stephenson said he is in the market for live sports rights for the company’s planned direct-to-consumer streaming service HBO Max. PGA Tour rights would fit that bill.

And since he gets to have a say as part of the PGA Tour Policy Board, you have to like his chances.

SBD: AT&T May Be Willing To Flip Headline News Or TruTV Into A Golf Network As Part Of PGA Tour Bid

/
Screen Shot 2019-07-29 at 8.35.26 PM.png

That and other nuggets appear in John Ourand’s first significant Sports Business Daily story on the upcoming PGA Tour television rights chase.

The headline grabber: WarnerMedia, a subsidiary of AT&T looking to expand its sports offerings on their HBO Max app and on its various channels, is willing to create a new golf channel.

Given that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is on the PGA Tour Policy Board with oversight of the next TV contract, common sense says his company would seem to have an inside track if it bids. Then again, his company has received one of the worst dates on the PGA Tour just weeks after the Masters and the week prior to the PGA Championship. Tony Romo was the major draw this year.

In recent months, AT&T has been dealing with debt-reduction as its primary focus though that appears to not be a major issue.

It was WarnerMedia that most recently was responsible for 2018’s The Match as a test case for sports gambling, synergy and golf. Reviews were mixed, with a massive pay-per-view payment disaster, live drones that didn’t work and a sense that the intersection of golf gambling and television has a ways to go.

Ourand writes of other negotiation notes:

During its initial conversations with media companies, the PGA Tour has made it clear that it wants to control its own linear TV channel. NBC execs have discussed letting the Tour take an ownership stake in the NBC-owned Golf Channel, which has carried the Tour’s cable TV rights exclusively for the past 13 years. WarnerMedia owns channels like HLN (Headline News), which has distribution in 86.3 million U.S. homes, or truTV, which is in 84.1 million homes. Those two would be the most likely channels to be flipped if the company follows through on its initial plan.

And this on the timing, which sounds as if it’s on a fast track to be decided sooner than later.

Even though two years remain on its current U.S. deals, the PGA Tour will invite media companies to deliver formal pitches in the coming weeks. The Tour already has held informal talks with the incumbent networks, as well as others like Amazon, ESPN, Fox and WarnerMedia. The Tour hopes to have a new media-rights deal in place by the end of the year.

1.8 Overnight For WGC FedEx St. Jude, 0.6 For Senior Open

/

Austin Karp reports on ratings from the weekend where the good news for golf was that it led the way with a 1.8 final round rating for the WGC FedEx St. Jude. The bad news? There was nothing of note in the way of network sports programming and sponsor FedEx did not get the eyeballs their predecessor enjoyed for the premium WGC experience.

A week later last year and then the WGC Bridgestone, the 2018 event drew a 2.5 final round rating.

The Senior Open won by Bernhard Langer drew a .5 and .6 respectively on NBC.

From Tiger To Shane: Open Championship Overnights Down 42%

/

Big lead, no Tiger making his first run at a major in years and what do you get? A 2.9 for NBC and ratings decline for the 2019 Open Championship.

From SBD’s Austin Karp:


.84: Open Rating Round One Best In Four Years, 55.1 Million Minutes Streamed

/
TheOpen2019.jpg

Tiger playing late enough for the east and west coast to enjoy him certainly helped, but overall interest appears solid for the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush. So far at least.

For Immediate Release:

BEST OVERNIGHT RATING IN FOUR YEARS FOR

THURSDAY’S OPENING ROUND OF THE 148TH OPEN 

Opening Round Earns Highest One-Day Streaming Total for NBC Sports

at The Open, 55.1 Million Minutes (+48% YoY) Across All Platforms

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland, (July 19, 2019) – Thursday’s opening round coverage of The 148THOpen on GOLF Channel was the highest-rated opening round at The Open since 2015. Coverage averaged a .84 Overnight rating for the eight-hour telecast (8A-4P ET), up 6% vs. 2018, and it becomes the highest-rated opening round at The Open on GOLF Channel (2016-’19).

Opening round coverage peaked with a 1.0 rating from 11:15-11:45 a.m. ET. Early coverage of the opening round (1:30-8A ET) earned a .33 Overnight rating, +22% year-over-year (.27), and also becomes the best Overnight for early opening round coverage of The Open on GOLF Channel (2016-’19).

Golf Central Live From The Open (4-5P ET, .41) becomes the highest Overnight rating for any Thursday hour of Golf Central Live From (other than Thursday at the 2019 Masters) since Thursday at The Open in 2018 at Carnoustie. Thursday Total Day (6A-3A ET, .47) is GOLF Channel’s highest Total Day Overnight rating since Friday of The Open in 2018 at Carnoustie (7/20/18, 6A-3A, .51).

Opening round coverage also earned the highest one-day streaming total on record for NBC Sports at The Open (2016-’19). Thursday’s coverage saw 55.1 million minutes streamed across all platforms (+48% vs. 2018), including marquee groups, complementary feeds and on www.TheOpen.com (U.S.)

Golf’s original championship made its highly-anticipated return to Northern Ireland for the first time in 68 years on Thursday at Royal Portrush Golf Club. Live second round coverage continues Friday on GOLF Channel until 4 p.m. ET. Early coverage of the third and final rounds will begin on GOLF Channel on Saturday-Sunday, before shifting to NBC for the majority of play, tracking those at the top of the leaderboard as they attempt to earn the distinction of “Champion Golfer of the Year”.

New 3M Open Takes A Ratings Dip Over Comparable Week, Perhaps Fueled By AT&T Dispute

/
Screen Shot 2019-07-12 at 9.32.05 AM.png

It was an auspicious kick off to the new 3M Open with a thrilling final round headlined by Matthew Wolff’s last hole eagle to top Bryson DeChambeau’s last hole eagle, but some reported affiliates signing off as the event ran long. Others noted an AT&T satellite dispute with that meant coverage on at all for many.

Paulsen at Sports Media Watch compares ratings with last year’s 2018 Greenbrier Classic, now a fall event. He also notes pretty steady early round numbers and a nice increase over the 2019 Rocket Mortgage event’s ratings.

Will AT&T's Debt Slashing Ways Preclude A Lucrative PGA Tour Bid?

/
Screen Shot 2019-07-08 at 10.29.06 PM.png

That’s the question on some minds as the PGA Tour nears the end of its current television contracts in 2021 and looks to potentially line up suitors for both broadcast and cable rights.

AT&T, with golf-loving CEO Randall Stephenson, who also sits on the PGA Tour Policy Board, is believed to have an interest in a major investment, even potentially turning a current channel acquired from Time Warner into a standalone sports or golf network.

But Nabila Ahmed, Eben Novy-Williams and Scott Moritz write for Bloomberg, a sale of its regional sports networks appears all about reducing debt after $180 billion in acquisitions of DirecTV and Time Warner.

A sale of the regional sports networks -- known as must-see content for avid fans -- highlights AT&T’s ongoing struggle to fix a debt-heavy balance sheet. The company, which has to spend money on a number of priorities, including an expansion of its 5G wireless network, has been financially handcuffed after amassing more than $180 billion in debt with the acquisitions of DirecTV and Time Warner Inc.

Despite a steady decline in TV subscribers, AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson has said the company’s top priority this year is to reduce debt. As part of that plan, he has been raising cash by selling holdings, including its stake in Hulu and its New York offices. The two deals fetched $3.6 billion in proceeds.

Ryder Cup, PGA Championship Digital Moves From Turner To NBC Sports

/
Screen Shot 2019-07-08 at 10.20.42 PM.png

Turner Sports really mailed in the final PGA Championship this year apparently with no plans to renew their deal handling the May majors’ website and after losing the first rounds on TNT to ESPN.

NBC Sports will now handle both Ryder Cup sites (let’s hope we end the silly separate sites) and the PGA Championship’s digital “activations”.

Coverage of the PGA Championship moves to ESPN and remains on CBS starting next year, while the Ryder Cup is on NBC and Golf Channel for the foreseeable future.

For Immediate Release:

PGA OF AMERICA & EUROPEAN TOUR JOIN FORCES WITH NBC SPORTS FOR GLOBAL RYDER CUP DIGITAL PLATFORMS

PGA of America and NBC Sports Partnership Also Includes Marquee PGA Championship Events

ORLANDO, Fla., (July 8, 2019) – A new, global Ryder Cup digital-media relationship has been formed by the PGA of America, European Tour and NBC Sports Group. NBC Sports will develop a multi-platform Ryder Cup presence, including a comprehensive website that serves fans of both the U.S. and European teams and a new app that will enhance both the onsite and overall viewing experience. The long-term relationship begins in advance of the 43rd Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin (Sept 25-27, 2020). The announcement was made today by Jeff Price, Chief Commercial Officer, PGA of America; Rufus Hack, Chief Content Officer, European Tour; and Will McIntosh, Executive Vice President, Digital & Sports Consumer Businesses, NBC Sports Group.

The PGA of America and the European Tour will lead the sales process through their Global Partner Program, and NBC Sports will develop and execute customized digital activations for partners. Digital content for these Ryder Cup platforms will be provided by all three organizations, as well as NBC Sports’ colleagues at Sky Sports, which is owned by Comcast.

“This is an important next step in expanding the global reach of the Ryder Cup,” said Price. “This relationship will allow us to deliver the best possible digital, social and emerging technology experiences to fans around the globe. It will also add significant value for global brands that want to participate in this iconic sporting event as part of their marketing mix.”

“The 2018 Ryder Cup in France saw more than 22 billion social media impressions across the week – the highest in the event’s history – and this exciting partnership with two of our key partners will allow us to expand the reach of our award-winning social and digital content to even greater numbers,” said Hack. “It is fantastic news for fans who follow the contest avidly and also for the many global brands who are associated with one of the world’s greatest sporting occasions.”

“As one of the biggest events on the global stage, the Ryder Cup inspires great pride and is a highlight every two years of NBC Sports’ golf calendar,” said McIntosh. “Building upon our comprehensive news and event coverage, NBC Sports Digital now will super-serve fans with engaging content and interactivity across multiple digital platforms, tapping into the passion NBC Sports and Sky Sports have for this unique event.” 

The Europeans were victorious in 2018 outside Paris with a decisive victory against the United States, extending their dominance on European soil for nearly three decades. The U.S. team, which has won two of the past three Ryder Cups hosted on U.S. soil, will be led in 2020 by Wisconsin native Steve Stricker as U.S. Captain, while Ireland’s Padraig Harrington will captain Europe. Next year’s Ryder Cup will be held at Whistling Straits (Straits Course) in Kohler, Wisconsin from September 25-27, 2020. Upcoming host sites include Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, Rome, Italy in 2022 and Bethpage Black, Farmingdale, New York in 2024. 

PGA OF AMERICA CHAMPIONSHIPS’ DIGITAL PLATFORMS:

Starting in 2020, NBC Sports Digital also will develop, power and operate the back-end service to three of the PGA of America’s championship branded websites, including for the PGA Championship, KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship and the PGA Professional Championship. Future PGA branded sites and their related products include:

  • 102nd PGA Championship, TPC Harding Park, San Francisco, May 10-17, 2020

  • KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, Harbor Shores, Benton Harbor, Mich., May 18-24, 2020

  • 53rd PGA Professional Championship, Barton Creek Golf Resort, Austin, April 26-29, 2020

(Mid-Round) Interview: Rahm On Ireland Golf, How Blind Holes Can Simplify Things

/
Screen Shot 2019-07-04 at 8.30.49 PM.png

Tim Barter’s mid-round interviews for Sky Sports always remind that players respond well to good questions and that they are capable of sharing wisdom mid-round without threat to world peace or rankings points.

Jon Rahm’s comments about links golf and blind holes added to the immensely enjoyable day one proceedings from the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open.

Rahm’s comment that blind holes simplifying things for the player could be the best reverse thinking and positivity I’ve ever heard from an elite player. Really neat: