Should Networks Ban Reporters And Hosts From Endorsements?

After ESPN's rollout of new policies and full disclosure on announcer endorsements, SBJ's John Ourand says the "ship has sailed" on television following the print model guidelines of not allowing these sometimes blatant conflicts of interests for television talent.

But you can’t convince me that it makes good business sense to have people that you want the public to trust on the payroll of companies they talk about on-air. Forget journalism. It’s a core business conduct issue.

“More than 50 percent of the fans probably don’t care,” Williamson said. “But there’s a section of fans that do. If we can improve our product for them, why don’t we do that?”

Under ESPN’s new guidelines, analysts — former athletes and coaches — can continue to have endorsements. Williamson said it would be too difficult to attract top-flight talent to Bristol if they banned those deals. I understand that distinction. I don’t like it, but I don’t have a big problem with it.

After ESPN disclosed their announcers' endorsements and listed the many golf related deals for their talent, I went to the networks televisin golf in America to clarify if they would be following ESPN's lead.

Christopher McCloskey of NBC:

“We take this subject seriously and handle on a case-by-case basis. Contracts with our talent require endorsement opportunities to be disclosed and provide us with approval rights. Some talent currently have endorsement agreements, which have been approved.”

Dan Higgins, Golf Channel:

"Endorsement opportunities are handled on a case-by-case basis but, in general, all of our on air personalities (reporters, hosts and analysts) are required to disclose these opportunities, and all  have to be approved by Golf Channel.

CBS's spokesperson initially did not respond and eventually when they did respond, would not put the CBS policy in writing and instead simply said there is no "set policy," and that they "monitor on a case by case basis."

I remember the first time it became apparent this was a credibility problem. Many years ago Jack Nicklaus came to the booth for his standard Memorial tournament Saturday visit and mentioned the need to roll back the ball. CBS's Jim Nantz, then (as he is now) endorses Titleist by doing voiceovers and rebutted Jack's assertion. It's been hard to look at Nantz as a neutral reporter of golf ever since and as with the Erin Andrews situation at ESPN, he will be closely scrutinized should an equipment-related situation develop during a tournament.

And who could forget David Feherty's overreaction to J.B. Holmes' first victory when both were with Team Cobra?

Oddly, the reaction to an endorsement conflict that I hear about most involves Johnny Miller and the perception that he loves Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els because they are fellow Callaway guys.

It seems to me that at the very least, the networks are obligated to reveal the endorsement deals their reporters and analysts have signed to match ESPN's transparency. Perhaps the ship has sailed, as Ourand writes, but at least we could get the ship's docket to better gauge the veracity of what we are hearing on a golf broadcast.