Golf isn't boring, broadcasting has been (most of the time)
James Knocks wrote an interesting article Golf really isn’t boring – but we’ve got a lot to do to prove it that was right on point.
Golf broadcasting has a lot to do with that perception. Hours of live coverage have gone up tremendously since Golf Channel took the PGA Tour rights in 2007. A decade ago, 3 hours of live coverage was the norm, including for big tournaments. Now even the minor ones get more than that. And many sports now follow that trend.
In 2017, the Tour de France started producing all the stages live from start to finish (while only the mountain stages got this treatment so far). The reasoning behind this? Since, in most cases, channels are paying hefty fees for sports rights, they might as well maximise the number of hours of live coverage.
Golf is far from boring these days, as Knocks rightfully points out. Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Ricky Fowler and co are charismatic, young, athletic sports stars but it's being diluted in those lengthy hours of live broadcasting that don't even allow you to see the golfer you want to follow. Take the Career Builder Challenge this week, 4 hours of live coverage every day, that's a lot but if Jordan Spieth is playing in the morning, too bad you won't be able to watch him. The PGA Tour has built a great offer with PGA Tour live which provides early coverage of tournaments, especially on Thursdays and Fridays, however, it has to go a lot further.
Broadcasting in golf has evolved a lot in the past 15 years, probably more than in any other sport in my opinion. Just take a look at what Fox did with the US Open over the last few years to understand that: heavy usage of Trackman technology, drones, animated CG, highlight clips shot with RED cameras and so on... Now, the narrative has virtually remained the same. It is either frantic cutting between shots or staying all the time on Tiger Woods, even when he's picking his nose.
It has to be more dynamic. Golf has the most to gain from the new technologies and non linear forms of broadcasting. You need to be able to see the golfer you want whenever you want, you need to be able to see highlights packages of what you missed at the tip of your finger. You need to have more stories within the live, not just when the producer feels like it but all the time. All the majors are producing state-of-the-art fly overs but we never get to see the 18 holes during the live coverage. How about being able to dig into the bags of all the champions, see what shafts they have in their driver or what switch they made on their putter? You want coaches and caddies providing insights on what they are working on.
Golf desperately needs a narrative and technological revolution to prove that it is actually one of the most entertaining products in sports. OBS showed what could be done with golf during the Rio Olympics. Their app provided coverage of each separate hole, one could basically see the player they wanted and hole they wanted, and that's a great start.
The "world feed" is another outdated concept that just can't survive in 2018, or at least it shouldn't be allowed to. During the 2016 World Cup of Golf, The French team was playing brilliantly and finished second. Golf+ (our French Golf Channel) aired 20 hours of live coverage throughout the 4-day event, but we only got to see about 30 minutes of the French team. You invest in a great product but you are not provided with the opportunity to enjoy the best part of it for your market. It cannot go on that way. We should kill the World Feed asap.
Formula One Management under the umbrella of Liberty Media already said that they were working on a custom feed for each market. Formula One can be boring sometimes but if you get to see the driver you like for more than 5 minutes during the race, it's probably going to be more entertaining for you.
Most of the sports are not boring, the way they are broadcast sometimes is. I worked on golf programming for more than 10 years, spent hours and hours calling shots of PGA Tour events, and I must admit even I got bored at times. It is our job (but mostly the job of the host broadcasters) to be better in showing golf the right way and now we have all the tools to do so.