Tour goes to two networks, with early rounds to Golf Channel
HONOLULU (AP) - The PGA Tour will be found on only two of the three major networks starting in 2007 under six-year deals announced Wednesday with CBS Sports and NBC Sports, with the first two rounds of every tournament and selected other events relegated to The Golf Channel.
The deal culminates a massive shake-up on the PGA Tour, which began last year when commissioner Tim Finchem unveiled a new schedule that will include a season-long points race that leads to a playoff system of three blockbluster events and the Tour Championship.
The Players Championship, as expected, will move from March to the second week in May starting in '07, and Finchem said there would be no more than five minutes of commercials every hour, similar to the Masters.
Finchem did not release how much CBS and NBC paid for the rights, or the cost to The Golf Channel for its 15-year deal with the tour. He said benefits to players, including prize money, would increase about $100 million a year over the next six years.
But he conceded that total prize money, which has increased from $96.4 million to $255 million under the last two four-year TV deals, would level out.
"The purse increases year to year will not be as steep in the next six years as they have in the last six," Finchem said in a conference call. "Retirement benefits will actually go up more steeply, but our purses ... will flatten a little bit."
Missing from the contract was ABC Sports, which walked away from negotiations late last month, and cable partner ESPN, which televises the first two events of the year and had picked up most of the fall schedule when fan interest turned heavily to football.
The departure of ESPN and USA Network is a boon for The Golf Channel, and Finchem believes it will help to have the first two rounds of every tournament on the same cable network.
The Golf Channel also will televise the first three events - the season-opener at Kapalua, the Sony Open and the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, before CBS takes over through most of the West Coast swing.
NBC Sports will get two of the World Golf Championships, starting with the Accenture Match Play Championship that is expected to move from La Costa Resort in southern California to Tucson, Ariz. The other WGC event on NBC will be the CA Championship (formerly Computer Associates), which will be played the final week in March at Doral.
Ford did not renew its title sponsorship at Doral, which traditionally has been the start of the Florida swing.
CBS will continue with the WGC event at Firestone, and ends its coverage with the Barclays Classic, the first of three FedEx Cup Championship Series events. NBC will have the other two - the Deutsche Bank Championship and the Western Open, along with the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake.
Finchem said the full 2007 schedule will be announced in the next week, with minor moving parts. He said The Golf Channel would television the tournaments after the Tour Championship, known as the "Quest for the Card" for the players trying to finish in the top 125 on the money list.
