BBC rejects offer to show PGA Tour highlights for free
BBC recently rejected the PGA Tour's offer to broadcast the 2023 Players Championships highlights on their channel for free.
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BBC seems to be rejecting the game of golf all together. In a disappointing move, the news channel BBC decided against streaming of the PGA Tour highlights, which would have been provided to them for free. This has resulted in this weeks 2023 Players Championship being excluded from BBC’s run time.
The Players Championship comes with some of the most high profile players, tough competition and an even tougher course to tackle. With the kind of deal that the PGA Tour has with Sky Sports, the highlights of this Players Championship can be shown on other news channels as well.
However, according to sources, BBC has constantly rejected offers to broadcast golf, and show no interest in doing so in the near future either. This has caused quite the frustration amongst the top management of the PGA Tour For them, the UK market is important, and it is being affected by these actions.
Why is BBC rejecting the offer from PGA Tour to broadcast their events?
The BBC gave up its rights to broadcast the live Open Championship. Now, in further news, no deal has been made to show the Masters highlights either. While this information could still change, it is quite disappointing to many fans and the management that BBC has not supported golf more.
Along with this, many heads were turned when golfer Matt Fitzpatrick was not even considered for BBC Sports Personality of the Year- despite him being the reigning US Open Champion. Reacting to this, Fitzpatrick also showed no interest, and did not even attend the gala or the ceremony.
While BBC refuses to issue a statement against the issue, many expert believe it is because of the demographics of golf in the UK that such move has taken place. However, sources suggest that golf viewership reigned high during Covid-19.With her 5.6 million adult golfers across the UK and Ireland, it is quite shocking that BBC does not want to show golf.
“Our streaming partner, ESPN+, brings its 25 million subscriber-base to golf and 60% of those subscribers are between the ages of 18 and 44,” the PGA Tour’s commissioner Jay Monahan said, emphasising on the strength of PGA’s broadcast deals. “Together our collaboration has resulted in mic’d-up players, more golf shots, more technology, new camera angles, new cameras, and some familiar voices in new roles.” Whether the BBC will make a move or not however is still unsure.
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