Lack of golf on terrestrial TV - Golf Monthly Feature

TomC

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We're writing a feature for the October issue on golf on TV, and the fact there's not a lot of it on free to view TV, asking whether this hurts the game in this country.

We wanted to get some opinion.

Would more golf on terrestrial TV improve participation at grassroots level?

Argument on the flip side is that there are now more ways than ever to follow the golf via various channels...

But are these only followed by people who already enjoy golf and are not stumbled on by those just looking for something to watch on telly of a Sunday afternoon?

Please reply as usual so we can see your thoughts.

Tom
 

Jacko_G

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NO!

Golf takes too long and has stupid white ankle sock rules etc.

Kids can't be bothered with that and the idiots that enforce such stupidity.

Only way I can see kids getting more into golf is through more par 3 courses and fun, where the emphasis is on fun, shorts, flip flops, trainers, hoodies etc are are encouraged and not looked down upon by grumpy old farts.
 
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Of Course yes it improves things.

Golf to as wide as audience as possible means :-

1) Occasional golfers that see it is on, means they are more likely to go and have a game...thus green fees to clubs and normally the 'lower' tier golf courses(a good thing for those courses), which are feeder clubs to better/higher tier local golf course [a lot of the people I know are occasional golfers and fit this bill, so for example when the masters comes on will go play golf or if I hold a golf day will go play golf...sure some have sky but pre-advertising of golf events is fairly minor nowdays imho]

2) It does mean someone totally new to the game will go and try it. [this is how I came about golf, then it got me speaking to a couple of clients who played golf and next thing I knew was I was up the driving range..which then lead to me, wife, son and mum playing golf]. I know some other have posted similar stories on this forum.

Basically it all helps, as golf needs a massive number of people coming into the game and therefore wide as possible audience we need, so all possible platforms(TN, internet, social media etc) it needs to be promoted on(not just free to view telly).
 

Slab

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I don't see terrestrial tv as the primary/preferred route to increasing participation at grass roots
And even if it is a suitable driver to increasing participation, what makes anyone think that showing golf on a weekend afternoon/evening on terrestrial tv (up against football & other sports + I’m strictly a celebrity idiot etc etc) is even going to find an audience

What non-golfer is going to watch golf on a Saturday afternoon only to realise after 4 hours there is no winner… tune in again tomorrow

As you say the (golf) content is pretty much all there online all nicely edited for anyone with an internet connection to view, through not only the various Tour youtube channels but countless others as well as linked coaching content, compilations, libraries, fun stuff etc etc …. it just goes on and on.

Surely anyone with even a passing inclination to try golf can already overdose on free golf content without paying anyone a viewing subscription
 
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https://forums.golf-monthly.co.uk/threads/sport-on-terrestrial-telly.102176/

A lot of good views on the above thread from both sides of the fence

But ultimately for me a sport can only benefit from a wider audience . The
Extra money that’s gained from paywall telly doesn’t filter out beyond the pro game , golf clubs and viewers don’t benefit from the extra money so what is the benefit ?

I don’t expect the viewing figures at the Open to get beyond 1 mil , when it was on Terrestrial telly it was hitting 5-6 mil - that’s a lot of viewers lost which must imo have an impact on the sport
 

patricks148

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No, i don't really ever remember seeing too much golf on TV apart from Tarby and Brucy hacking up the course, if anything that put me off golf.

Terrestial onlt want the crown jewels if that is on FTA, why woudl any broadcaster pay to show all the other stuff.
 

ger147

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My view is that there is very little correlation between grass roots participation in sport and that sport being available to watch on terrestrial TV.

In addition, the addition funds generated from the subscription service providers is a great source of revenue that can be used to help fund sports at grass roots level.
 

Dan2501

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Terrestrial TV providers aren't interested in Golf, or most sports in-fact. The BBC gave up their Open contract a year early to Sky. Until that changes and Terrestrial platforms start showing an interest in buying Sports Rights again it's not a worthwhile discussion. Sky are made out to be the devil, hiding the precious sport behind a paywall, but at least they're willing to plough money into these sports and give it a platform. Coverage of golf has improved so much since Sky took over too, especially The Open. They spend a fortune improving the production, trying to innovate and bring something new to the audience, they've provided investment to keep events on the calendar (the British Masters for example), to me that's good for the sport. At least they care enough to stump up the cash and are trying to build a better product.
 

Lord Tyrion

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It would help to an extent but in terms of grass roots, juniors, you have to ask the question how do youngsters watch tv now? On the whole it is not through regular tv channels in a living room. They need to be picked up via social media, something the European tour is pretty good at and individual players are getting wise to.

Where it may impact is the person who is looking for a second sporting interest, usually in the 30-40 bracket. They will have played another sport at club level but through injury or time constraints they can no longer commit week in week out. They are looking for ideas of where to go next and a lack of terrestial golf to inspire them may, just may, mean golf misses out on some of them.

Saying that, there is no appetite from the terrestial channels to pick up golf. The BBC has a small interest in The Open and The Masters but is token at best. It is one thing to complain about lack of terrestial coverage but who is it that really wants to braodcast golf?
 

Spear-Chucker

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Yes, it would help to have more on terrestrial tv from a few conversations I’ve had after The Open... It also needs to tap into online sources to capture younger folks these days - my lad sees lots of sporting clips through any number of online news and streaming services.
 

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Golf on terrestrial television won't improve participation at grass roots level, this has become an outdated argument in the modern age in my opinion. Sure, if it was the last day of The Open, more people would tune in, but that wouldn't translate to more participants (eg, my mum would watch it, and she's not about to start playing).

Kids may be interested if they're inspired by something, but today that means hype and buzz and the best players being 'influencers' to a certain degree with their social media presence. The way society consumes their entertainment has also changed; we have access to considerably more platforms, and people are prepared to pay for these. Bitesize chunks of video interest people - Youtube channels - some with loud brash players, some with more considered content, etc. - rack up 100's of thousands of views and the segments are uploaded a few times a week. It's accessible to peoples mobile on the go and is hassle free. The same with social media. Golf has to move with the times; Sky has a paywall which means that those that are properly interested in watching hours of golf have an option; but that doesn't attract new people to the sport. Neither would sweeping views of Portstewart and Portrush on the BBC if had been free to air. Hype is what gets people interested these days, but it must be centered on the right person, and supported by social media. For example, brilliant that Lowry won the Open, but the hype and peak was on Thursday and Friday. McIlroy possibly has an equal amount of haters and supporters, and he delivered a story both days. He may be polarizing in terms of peoples opinions of him, but there's no doubting the interest in him one way (success) or the other (failure).

Young people want, for example, Brodie Smith - loud, brash, charismatic, fun – for 20 edited minutes, rather than 5 hours of Molinari, Koepka, Rose (likeable as he is amongst actual golfers), slowly, deliberately plotting their way round a course. Terrestrial television doesn’t offer this, but the platforms exist for Golfing bodies to get a message across – it just won’t be the traditional message, but that doesn’t matter. You just need to inspire enough interest that they get a club in their hand, make sure it’s fun when they get to a course with a clear kids set up and the rest will follow.
 

GreiginFife

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Good god, not this again. A million threads on this subject with the same tired views. Golf was not "big" on Terrestrial TV for a long time, two majors a year (Masters and Open) was your lot. Did that bring lots of people to the game? Golf was in decline for a long time even when the two majors were televised so the answer is probably not.
I have yet to see any compelling evidence that greater viewing figures results in greater participation in golf. There is little football on terrestrial TV, does that mean less people play because they can't watch it free week in week out? No. it doesn't.

For me, the lack of TV argument is a lazy excuse for not wanting to get to the root causes of why golf declined as far as it did.

Golf suffers from a number of challenges. It has a perception of a rich, old person's game played in stuff attire in stuffy golf clubs centred around stuffy clubhouses with shirt and tie attitudes.
It's a game that takes hours of time commitment, using football as an example you can play in games that last 30, 40, 60 and 90 minutes at the sports centre next to my club. Golf is usually 3-4 hours.
Golf needs specific equipment, ok you can get it cheap as you like, but it still needs specific equipment. Golf can't just be played anywhere, you can't just nip down the local park for a knock about, travel is often required and that makes it less accessible logistically and finally... It's hard, no two ways about it, golf is hard. How many people take it up, realise how hard it actually is and then decide it's not for them as success doesn't come instantly?

Commitments in time, travel and cost are far bigger barriers to participation than the 8 days annually of live golf disappearing from council telly.

As Craw says, make it fun, make it quicker and make it more accessible and you will get far greater returns than the off chance someone is channel hopping on the 8 out of 365 days a year that golf was shown on terrestrial TV.

Of course, after the boom of the mid 90s, is this golf just actually normalising back to where it was, participation wise, before that boom?
 

IanM

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No one in my family played golf, cricket was the main sport I played and watched to the age of 20.

I was enthralled watching Seve win at St Andrews in 84. That's what made a group of us take up golf. Then followed the 85 Ryder Cup win, the first since 1957.

Both on the BBC. Wouldn't have seen it if on subscription channels. (Not that they existed in 1984, so the market is currently quite different)

I am sure an low profile on terrestrial TV is not good for any sport, people have to have access to it in order to get interested. All sports report challenges in getting kids off the gaming devices!!!

But, access isnt just TV.
 

Jimaroid

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I don't see much future in terrestrial and free-to-air TV so tend to think it's a backwards looking discussion these days.

If people want to promote golf to new audiences they need to put golf on the platforms that the new audiences are actually using.
 

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More airtime (of the right kind, see below) can only be a good thing in my view.
Some thoughts as they come into my head in no particular order.

  • A lot of the pay-to-view content shown today is aimed at golfers or golf fans, much of this goes over the head of the few casual drop-in viewers and can make the sport seem too complicated.
  • Golf has a terrible image which is always picked up on by lazy broadcasters (and it pains me to say that the BBC is one of the worst for this) and that needs to be changed.
  • Golf competitions shown in their entirety are dull viewing for all but the avid fan, highlights are good but they need to be broadcast very soon after the competition has finished, not several hours later.

  • I've never understood golf's obsession with attracting young players. Yes, we should be encouraging them but they're never going to save the sport as there aren't and never have been enough youngsters interested in golf.
  • I was always a fan of the low-key golf programmes such as "A Round with Alliss" which allowed golf to be shown in a casual way that could attract casual viewers who might then be tempted to try it.
  • Another area that was tried successfully in the past was a golf introduction series, I think John Jacobs did an excellent one for Yorkshire TV. This can explain the basics of golf, how to start playing, swing principles, competition formats, how to join a club, etc. It can at the same time show golf to be an affordable and inclusive sport and that most clubs are very friendly places and don't require a secret handshake etc.

  • It's stereotyping I know but leisure golfers (who are the bread and butter of the sport and pay club subs etc) are generally middle aged, this is the target audience we should be focusing on, both men and women, people who are giving up on other sports perhaps due to age with time and money to spare. The health benefits and social side of golf should be promoted more as well. Terrestrial TV is the ideal platform to reach these people.
 
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If, when it was on terrestrial TV getting allegedly far more viewing figures than what it is now on subscription channels, then why did golf decline in its numbers over so many years when that was only the place to watch it?

I didn't see or watch or know anything about golf throughout my childhood or main adult life, and that is well before subscription channels were about, so I don't buy into the 'hmm, that looks fun I'll give that a go' philosophy, unless you smoked a pipe and had leather patches on your jacket!

If you came across golf on the TV, any TV right now or before, I personally doubt many who don't have a natural interest in it wouldn't find it engaging enough to try, and I still think that's the case now.

The only difference now is that more money is available through buying the rights which can filter through to grassroots so that clubs can introduce schools to visit and market out schemes [get into golf] to local people with group introductory classes! Also, through all that money it creates far more visibility than what terrestrial TV could ever offer, SKY and the likes are not going spend all that money and not publicize it everywhere, billboards, TV adverts, magazines etc, the BBC wouldn't do that!

For me terrestrial TV pinned its colours to the mast and didn't want to pay anymore for it than they thought was justifiable, I'm sure they did their due diligence and saw it for the value it was, and hence didn't push themselves to cover certain tournaments that 'club golfers' felt should be free to view, after-all, they could still watch it down their club before or after they play themselves, it's only existing golfers I hear moan, but they have it freely available to them at their club!

We all go on about draconian views and opinions we still come across within our golf clubs, well I think wanting golf on terrestrial TV is in the same vein, as it isn't or wasn't presented anywhere near the same as it is now on the likes of SKY with all the bells and whistles, SKY experimented and have succeeded in making golf more attractive and interesting to the casual viewer imo, only those that can sit through hours and hours of golf riveted to a screen in a typical boring BBC format don't want change, and I think its those same people that are adverse to many of the changes in other areas of the game we are seeing come though.

If you can't afford a subscription to watch, and there are so many cheaper options available now like NowTV where you can buy into it for a week or month with no contract, then I doubt if golf is for you anyway, it's not exactly a cheap hobby to get into!

If someone is sat at home on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday when a golf tournament is on the TV (terrestrial), are they really going to find out where there local club is or range is or say to mates 'lets give that a go', I don't think so....

Local marketing and advertising and encouraging people of all ages and genders to come to your local club swells numbers, not sat on their asses watching TV, that's gatling gun sales at best, which may catch the odd sprat, but more will fall away from that kind of marketing catch than that of targeted marketing, imo, and that's no good for any business model, of which golf clubs have to be run like now, a business.

The main people moaning about it not being on terrestrial TV are already playing and involved, so they're the wrong people to ask to get a balanced view, imo!

Sounds like a rant, but when have I ever cared.....;)
 

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I would think people would be far more likely to stumble across some interesting, amusing, golf related content on you tube, and want to try it, then be dragged in by seeing 8 hours coverage of the open.

Sometimes the most brilliant pro golf, is also the most boring to watch, even for a golf fan. Koepka springs to mind, or Jason Day.

In a cult of personality worship, people are far more likely to take up something if a celeb they follow is passionate about it. Nothing to do with it being on telly.
 

HomerJSimpson

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Terrestrial TV have made their decision and are not prepared to invest in obtaining TV rights to show live golf and I can't see this changing. TV viewing has changed since the BBC did have golf, certainly since the heyday when it would show regular tour events and so accessing golf coverage is arguably easier than it has ever been. I would argue that for the majority with an interest in sport in general they already have sports packages from Sky/Virgin and for those that don't but want access to a specific event like the open or RC then there are a number of pay per view options out there.

The R&A will have made a huge profit from the Open last week and so the issue of grass roots participation doesn't lie with the TV companies but with the governing bodies themselves. The TV pictures are just a transient view of one event but to really get kids into golf it needs greater access in schools and at clubs and both of those need access to equipment and the facilities to be able to hit balls safely whether that is using a local club/range or on a playing field somewhere. Only by getting kids to try golf hands on will they develop an interest in the game, not watching it on TV where it is competing with a host of other programmes for their attention.

I have said before, I hold little relevance in viewing figures and while it is feasible there may be higher on terrestrial TV is there any correlation the take up in golf or any other sport is higher if a sport is shown on both terrestrial and satellite TV simultaneously (eg the weekend coverage of the Masters). Throwing this back to the OP and GM, is there not a case that golf publications, including their social media platforms, along with the likes of BBC and Sky could not collaborate more with the governing bodies and champion grass roots interest and participation? Surely if someone gets into golf and also knows there are interesting publications and social media posts to engage with it'll only fuel the interest further
 
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