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Golf’s PGA Tour has signed three lucrative nine-year media rights agreements in the US, including extensions to its domestic cable broadcast deals with CBS and NBC, and a new live streaming partnership with Disney’s sports subscription streaming service ESPN+.
For the first time, the US-based circuit has negotiated its linear and digital rights deals concurrently and has moved to make ESPN+, which recently surpassed 7.6 million subscribers in the US, its official over-the-top (OTT) streaming partner, taking over from NBC Sports.
ESPN+ has also gained exclusive rights to PGA Tour Live, the tour's owned subscription video service, which will move to Disney’s OTT platform from 2022, and will include on-demand recaps and original content.
ESPN is paying US$75 million a year for the rights, according to a report by the New York Times, and will include four live content channels during every week of the FedExCup season. The deal will deliver more than 4,000 hours of live streaming annually, and includes live coverage from 36 tournaments.
“We are looking forward to working with the PGA Tour to bring current and future golf fans the next generation of tour coverage,” said ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro. “ESPN+ will offer golf fans unprecedented access and storytelling at an incredible value on the industry’s leading sports streaming platform.”
Commercial broadcasters CBS and NBC will retain weekend coverage of most FedExCup tournaments, with CBS averaging 19 events and NBC eight events each season. Under the new schedule, one network will televise all three FedExCup Playoffs events each year, starting with NBC in 2022.
The new arrangement is reportedly worth a combined US$680 million, according to Variety, which claims that the PGA Tour has secured a 70 per cent increase on its existing US$400 million deal with the broadcasters, which is due to run until next year.
Furthermore, NBC Sports Group will also continue as a PGA Tour cable partner, with the Comcast-owned network’s Golf Channel providing all early-round coverage and early weekend coverage of every FedExCup event each season.
For the first time, the PGA Tour has also negotiated domestic rights contracts for the women’s LPGA Tour, which will receive expanded exposure across Golf Channel, NBC and CBS until 2030 as part of the new agreements.
“We were extremely pleased with the interest we received from the market – both with incumbents and other media companies – and are excited that our current partners shared our vision for the future,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.
“These new deals will be a major win for our fans, bringing an elevated commitment from all three partners to help us expand and innovate our content and its delivery.”
Under the terms of the agreements, the PGA Tour will assume responsibility of the onsite production area and technical infrastructure each week, which it says will allow the tour to ‘more efficiently aggregate, distribute and develop content for its various platforms worldwide’.
Despite this change, PGA also confirmed that CBS and NBC will continue to use their own production teams, led by their own producers, directors and production personnel.
The new deals mark the latest media distribution contracts the PGA Tour has signed this year. In January, the tour announced an agreement with Facebook to distribute daily highlights on its Watch platform and a partnership with Pluto TV to share a mix of content on a new dedicated digital channel.
The tour also announced earlier this month that it will launch a new GolfBet betting content platform available via the Action Network sports site.
Golf’s PGA Tour has signed three lucrative eight-year media rights agreements in the US, including extensions to its domestic cable broadcast deals with CBS and NBC, and a new live streaming partnership with Disney’s sports subscription streaming service ESPN+.
For the first time, the US-based circuit has negotiated its linear and digital rights deals concurrently and has moved to make ESPN+, which recently surpassed 7.6 million subscribers in the US, its official over-the-top (OTT) streaming partner, taking over from NBC Sports.
ESPN+ has also gained exclusive rights to PGA Tour Live, the tour's owned subscription video service, which will move to Disney’s OTT platform from 2022, and will include on-demand recaps and original content.
ESPN is paying US$75 million a year for the rights, according to a report by the New York Times, and will include four live content channels during every week of the FedExCup season. The deal will deliver more than 4,000 hours of live streaming annually, and includes live coverage from 36 tournaments.
“We are looking forward to working with the PGA Tour to bring current and future golf fans the next generation of tour coverage,” said ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro. “ESPN+ will offer golf fans unprecedented access and storytelling at an incredible value on the industry’s leading sports streaming platform.”
Commercial broadcasters CBS and NBC will retain weekend coverage of most FedExCup tournaments, with CBS averaging 19 events and NBC eight events each season. Under the new schedule, one network will televise all three FedExCup Playoffs events each year, starting with NBC in 2022.
The new arrangement is reportedly worth a combined US$680 million, according to Variety, which claims that the PGA Tour has secured a 70 per cent increase on its existing US$400 million deal with the broadcasters, which is due to run until next year.
Furthermore, NBC Sports Group will also continue as a PGA Tour cable partner, with the Comcast-owned network’s Golf Channel providing all early-round coverage and early weekend coverage of every FedExCup event each season.
For the first time, the PGA Tour has also negotiated domestic rights contracts for the women’s LPGA Tour, which will receive expanded exposure across Golf Channel, NBC and CBS until 2030 as part of the new agreements.
“We were extremely pleased with the interest we received from the market – both with incumbents and other media companies – and are excited that our current partners shared our vision for the future,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.
“These new deals will be a major win for our fans, bringing an elevated commitment from all three partners to help us expand and innovate our content and its delivery.”
Under the terms of the agreements, the PGA Tour will assume responsibility of the onsite production area and technical infrastructure each week, which it says will allow the tour to ‘more efficiently aggregate, distribute and develop content for its various platforms worldwide’.
Despite this change, PGA also confirmed that CBS and NBC will continue to use their own production teams, led by their own producers, directors and production personnel.
The new deals mark the latest media distribution contracts the PGA Tour has signed this year. In January, the tour announced an agreement with Facebook to distribute daily highlights on its Watch platform and a partnership with Pluto TV to share a mix of content on a new dedicated digital channel.
The tour also announced earlier this month that it will launch a new GolfBet betting content platform available via the Action Network sports site.
