Tour TV Deal Perspectives

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A few weeks removed from Tim Finchem's impactful press conference and it appears some perspective has set in. First there was this quote from Greg Norman, Chairman Emeritus of Finchem's Fans:  

The PGA Tour plays things close to the chest. You really don't know what's going on until [Tim] Finchem decides to say something and then when he says something he really doesn't tell you anyway.

And Ron Sirak puts the PGA Tour's network problems this way:

...tour players should volunteer to freeze purses for the duration of the next TV contract, which will go into effect in 2007, and agree to play each tour event at least once during that four-year cycle.Golf simply has priced itself out of the market with the networks, and schedule manipulation will not make that reality go away.

Points Race Mess?

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Doug Ferguson writes about the debacle that the 2006 LPGA points race will be, at least in the context of the 2005 season.

Annika Sorenstam had the trophy at her side and spoke of her 10-win season. Had this been 2006, the $1 million payoff would have been decided between Michele Redman and Soo-Yun Kang in extra holes.

"I'm just glad it's 2005, that's all I can say," Sorenstam said.

Note from Tim Finchem to personal assistant #3: make sure Dick Ebersol does not see this story.

"Great Game's Long Goodbye"

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It took way too long for John Huggan to weigh in on the Tour's '07 concept and the state of the game.

Oh but it was worth the wait.

A season-long points series will lead to a play-off-style Fed-Ex Cup involving leading qualifiers that will, it is hoped, identify the biggest draws in the game. Otherwise, America's ever-diminishing attention span, and its desire to satisfy an out-of-control gambling habit, may switch from fades to football even earlier than it does now.

Ah he was just warming up.

As always when the PGA Tour is involved, this proposed change to a long-established status quo has nothing to do with what may or may not be good for the game. To the surprise of no-one, this is all to do with money. Instead of taking a long, hard look at an increasingly one-dimensional product involving the use of driver, wedge and putter, Finchem and his army of sycophantic minions have gone for what appears to be a short-term fix: dazzling disgruntled networks with big names and numbers in advance of imminent negotiations for the renewal of television contracts.

Oh heck, why am I interrupting?

Such a move, you won't be shocked to hear, is shortsighted, and pays no attention to recent history and the demise of tennis as a participation/spectator sport in the US. As bigger racquets and hi-tech materials removed entertaining 'feel' players, such as John McEnroe and Ilie Nastase, from the upper echelons, tennis became more and more a power game dominated by big-serving behemoths. And not surprisingly, the public rejected that tedium. From a peak of 34 million in 1975, it is estimated that only 13 million Americans play tennis and only rarely does it make it onto network TV.

Golf is going the same way. The numbers are not pretty, yet administrators on both sides of the Atlantic do nothing to stop the game becoming more about grunts than guile.

Oh I'll stop here because he goes into that tedious USGA/R&A Statement of Principles stuff which you know all too well from the last week. And the various stats also thrown in your face here and here this week.

Phony Finish

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Add Peter Kostis to the list of those underwhelmed by Tim Finchem's announced intentions to fix the Tour schedule. He raises several points not addressed in other columns and offers this extreme idea, sounds much closer to something the Tour should consider to make this so-called "playoff" dramatic instead of a rich-get-rich pyramid scheme:

...if you really want to create some excitement, play the FedEx Cup finale tournaments with a $10 million purse—winner takes all.

You have to figure that if the Tour can't convince players to do something semi-radical at The International (daily cuts, start from scratch Sunday), it's going to be tough to convince the players that FedEx Cup will only work with something bold and brash. And this is why the FedEx Cup concept will continue to receive nothing but yawns and "why?"

Hawkins on Tour TV Deal

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Golf World's John Hawkins weighs in on the proposed 2007 concept for the Tour. He's mostly celebratory, so much so that the Commish will want to order reprints. But the story is loaded with mini-bombshells and interesting anecdotes may infuriate the rank-and-file player while creating new questions about how the framework of the schedule was put together.

With considerable help from the title sponsor, the FedEx Cup will offer a whopping $38 million payoff to the 30 players who make it to the Tour Championship, a source told Golf World. About 25 percent of that will go to the winner -- unofficial money likely to come in the form of a contribution to the players' retirement funds.

Hawkins will get a wine and cheese basket from the Commissioner for this line:

Though it may never rival the major championships in terms of relevance or do much to determine a Player of the Year, the four-week playoff series should resolve the tours late-season issues and bolster Finchem's bargaining power when he meets with the networks to negotiate the upcoming television contract, a process that is expected to begin this week.

Here's the part that may have the rank and file asking more questions:

It's hard to imagine a scenario where fewer than the top 70 would advance into the playoffs. Although the tour has developed a reputation in recent years for disregarding the best interests of its middle class, the FedEx Cup series will market opportunity -- the idea that No. 78 in the standings could get hot, play great golf under immense pressure and walk off with the $10 million. In a manner of speaking, he'll have earned it. "It will probably be like NASCAR, where it's hard to move up [in the Nextel Cup]," Woods surmised. "The research says 80 percent of the time, the winner comes out of the top five [in the standings]."

And this really caught my eye:

"There are going to be two sides to this," said IMG's Mark Steinberg, Woods' agent and a key player in the shaping of the tour's revisions. "A player who has a dominant year may get passed because of the reset. Having said that, a player who had a good year but not a great one will have a chance to make it great in the final month."

Tiger's agent was a "key player" in shaping the revisions? Hmmm. He also, amazingly, was complimentary:

In that sense, Finchem didn't exactly pull a rabbit out of his hat, but he didn't produce a goat, either. "I think Tim and Ed [tour executive VP Moorhouse] have done a hell of a job in creating a new system," Steinberg said. "They've done a great job of salvaging what could have been a very difficult situation."

Uh, they haven't inked any deals yet.

The television networks may be very willing to fork over a dollar total close to (or more than) the nearly $1 billion it paid to telecast the tour four years ago, but the long-term relationship between pro golf and TV could be irreparably harmed if Finchem doesn't deliver a series of tournaments that feature all the game's top-ranked players.
"It's a step in the right direction," ESPN's Wildhack said. "Player participation is what drives ratings. The three guys that make the ratings are Woods, Mickelson and John Daly."

Then Hawkins drops this, which doesn't exactly make the ESPN guy look too good.

Last month's WGC-American Express Championship featured a near-perfect competitive scenario on Sunday afternoon: Woods vs. Daly in a playoff televised by ABC, whose parent company, Disney, also owns ESPN and has an endorsement deal with Woods. Despite a marquee leader board (Sergio Garcia and Colin Montgomerie also were in contention), the WGC emblem and the Woods-Daly showdown, the final round ranked 21st in sports programming shown on national TV that weekend.

Two More '07 Skeptics

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The normally jovial Kraig Kann sounds skeptical in posing ten questions about the proposed 2007 Tour concept.

And Seth Soffian reports that Greg Norman says what a lot of writers have come close to saying:

"The PGA Tour plays things close to the chest," said Norman, taking a not-so-veiled shot at Finchem, who offered only a framework for the proposed schedule changes last week after a year of speculation.

"You don't really know what's going on until Finchem decides to say something, and then when he says something, he really doesn't tell you anyway. If you're going to make an announcement, make an announcement and tell the world what's going on."
But see Greg, if you make an announcement without really saying anything, and no one likes the sound of the announcment,  then you can say you never really made such an announcement!

Rude On Western Open

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Jeff Rude on the proposed disaster known as the Western Open moving to September:

Cog Hill owner Frank Jemsek has given his course to the Tour annually for no charge — that's right, no site fee — and this is what he gets? A sharp stick in the eye? Right after he meets with architect Rees Jones with the idea of face-lifting the course?Doesn't seem quite fair.

Well, that's what you get for hiring Rees. Oh wait, you meant, oh I gotcha. Sorry. My bad.

You want to rotate the Western around to four courses, then let's do it in Chicago. Knock on the doors of Medinah, Olympia Fields, Butler National and others. Get three courses to rotate with Cog Hill. If those clubs don't step up, keep going down the wealthy list.

I challenge the Tour and the membership of those clubs to step up and keep a Tour event in Chicago every year. I'm looking for someone with soul.

Jeff, you meant, $oul.

More Questions About Cup

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There seems to be a consistent thread emerging from stories looking at the "FedEx Cup" and Tim Finchem's Tour Championship press conference. Dave Perkins in the Toronto Star:

The feeling here is that Finchem is making it up as he goes along, so sketchy are the precise elements to date.

And Tod Leonard in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

As with any new endeavor, there are a lot of questions with very few answers before it gets rolling.

Chris DiMarco, one of the tour's straightest shooters, on and off the course, said last week: "I don't know whether it's my Florida education or not, I still don't quite understand everything that's going on."

Don't worry Chris. Harvard can't have pegged this one yet.

Two More Takes On Schedule Proposal

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Tim Cronin lays out a devastating case against moving the Western Open to September. Makes you wonder if anyone at Tour headquarters gave this much thought.

Mark Bradley in the Atlanta JC points out a key distinction between NASCAR and the Tour, and why this proves that the "FedEx Cup" probably won't work too well.  

The big golfers --- Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh --- pick and choose. A NASCAR driver runs every weekend. Jeff Gordon can't skip a race just because he feels a little peaked. He can't because the folks at DuPont, the company bankrolling his car, want their logo displayed before 100,000 spectators plus another hefty TV audience every time the green flag waves. Estimates put the cost for a primary sponsorship in a Nextel Cup team at upwards of $15 million. When you spend that kind of money, you expect the maximum return on your outlay.

The FedEx Cup is designed to make the Big Names play more, but will a series of end-of-season tournaments capped by a fabricated "championship" alter the schedules of guys who adjust their calendars to prepare for the four majors above all else? Consider: Ted Purdy has played in 34 Tour events this season; Woods and Mickelson have played in 21 apiece.

As has been noted, NASCAR is different from other sports. It has its Big Event --- the Daytona 500 --- at the start, and then everything else is geared toward the Chase. The Chase works because Gordon and Earnhardt wanted badly to be part of it but missed the cut, not because their attentions were elsewhere.

"Do I fully understand [the FedEx Cup]? No," Ben Crane said. "But the commissioner [Tim Finchem] has a history of doing great things for the Tour."

Still, Tim Finchem doesn't control golf. Tiger Woods does. And Woods, when asked Friday if he'd consider playing five or 10 more events a year to accommodate the FedEx Cup, looked at the questioner as if he were nuts. "I don't know if my body could hold up," Woods said. "I've never played in more than 21 events."

And there's your answer right there. Gentlemen of golf, find yourselves a different gimmick.