ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt is known for his all-sports coverage on his titular version of SportsCenter. But Van Pelt also has clear sports interests himself, and one of those is golf. He discussed that on an ESPN preview call ahead of the PGA Championship this week, and said it was great to get some added golf work with TGL this year, as golf has long been key for him.
My career began at the Golf Channel in the mid-’90s, which was a lot of years and some hair ago. There’s pictures of me somewhere that can prove that that was part of it.
…The majors have been something I’ve always done. I’ve been really fortunate in my life, whether it’s Augusta, U.S. Open, Open Championship or PGA, at different times in my life, the networks I’ve worked with have had some role with it. So to get to do it is something that will always matter to me, something I care deeply about because I’ve gotten to know the people in the game and the places.
…There’s nothing like it. And for me, it’s something that will always be on my plate, at least from my perspective. I’m always going to have an appetite to do it, and hopefully I can do it well enough that they want me to continue to do it.
Van Pelt’s answers there are notable. And what’s perhaps particularly interesting there, as David Rumsey noted at Front Office Sports, is that this comes around talk that future U.S. Open rights might be up for grabs. As Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner noted Friday, the USGA (which controls the U.S. Open and other tournaments) had their exclusive negotiating window with NBC expire in March, and Puck’s John Ourand wrote this week that there doesn’t seem to be a ton of outside interest. But ESPN and ABC certainly could be a landing spot.
Of course, ESPN is not making live event contract decisions of that magnitude simply because of interest from an on-air figure, even one as prominent as Van Pelt. But the network is in a star-driven era, and Van Pelt is one of those stars. So it’s at the least interesting to hear him speak about how he loves golf work and specifically loves the majors. And if ESPN does wind up making a U.S. Open play, it seems like Van Pelt could be a notable fit for coverage there.
