NBC, USA Sports extend media rights deal for Ryder Cup

One of golf’s most storied events will remain on its current broadcast home for the foreseeable future.

NBC Sports and USA Sports (the division of NBC’s spinoff company Versant that operates USA Network and Golf Channel) have agreed to a two-year media rights extension with the PGA of America that will see the Ryder Cup remain on each company’s respective networks through 2033, the networks announced on Monday.

The current deal was set to expire in 2031, but the two-year extension allows NBC and USA to guarantee broadcast rights to a home Ryder Cup in 2033 from Olympic Club in San Francisco.

The extension also covers other tournaments put on by the PGA of America including the Women’s PGA Championship, which will continue to air on NBC and Peacock, along with the Senior PGA Championship and PGA Professional Championship, which will exclusively air on Golf Channel.

The PGA Championship, PGA of America’s annual major tournament in men’s golf, remains under contract with CBS and ESPN through 2030.

With the extension in place, USA Network will now have a piece of the biannual Ryder Cup for 44 consecutive years.

As part of the deal, Golf Channel will continue to broadcast studio coverage, including the popular Live From series and Golf Central, surrounding the four PGA of America events covered under the deal.

The two-year extension might not seem like much, but it guarantees another home Ryder Cup for both companies. The Ryder Cup is only contested on U.S. soil once every four years, and viewership for the event is predictably much higher in those years compared to European Ryder Cups due to the time difference.

The extension also comes at a time when many sports properties are scrambling to ink rights deals before the NFL reworks its own set of broadcast agreements, potentially taking significant money out of the market for non-premium leagues and events.

Financial terms of the deal were not reported.