Just like so many professional sports leagues before it, the PGA may be getting ready to start it’s own cable channel.
Even though their deals with CBS and NBC run through 2021, the PGA can opt out of both in 2018 and, according to Sports Business Daily, has already begun reaching out to other potential media partners about new rights packages and potentially partnering to start a new channel of their own.
The PGA is locked in to it’s Golf Channel deal through 2021 with no opt-outs.
According to SPD, the league has had “informal” talks with Fox, ESPN and Turner. The unknown sense of what the PGA has planned, coupled with the current state of sports media rights fees and an ever-changing battleground between the big players, leads many to think the league will look to start a new channel instead of negotiating with others.
With the opt-outs two years away — combined with the tour taking back its digital rights from Turner in 2013 — PGA Tour officials are studying whether the time is right for the tour to own a channel, either on cable or via an over-the-top service. Potentially, the tour could cut a new Golf Channel deal that gives it a stake in the network. This would follow the strategy Golf Channel parent NBC Sports Group has taken with its regional sports networks.
Of course concerns over cord cutting and distribution could make an independant channel seem unwise as well. Especially since Golf Channel, which would be losing a lot of content, is owned by Comcast, whom the PGA would have to then negotiate with.
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