Seasons come and seasons go, but one thing remains consistent in the minds of golf fans: the PGA Tour airs too many damn commercials.
Golf is a challenging sport to broadcast. There are no natural breaks in the action, and at any given time, dozens of golf shots are happening across 18 holes. Quite honestly, it’s a miracle that the golf presentation on television looks as good as it does.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t occasionally some snafus. Last week, NBC had a big one when the network failed to come back from commercial in time to see all of Russell Henley’s tournament-winning chip-in for eagle. Blunders like that provide plenty of fodder for golf diehards to complain about the PGA Tour’s commercial load. And make no mistake, the Tour airs a lot of commercials.
James Colgan of GOLF.com reports that NBC and CBS air between 17 and 21 minutes of commercials per hour of broadcast as part of the media rights agreements the networks reached with the PGA Tour circa 2019. That’s nearly a third of the broadcast filled with commercials for BMW and Morgan Stanley, not ideal for someone who just wants to watch a little golf.
So while the Tour’s broadcast partners have objectively improved their presentations of the sport in recent years —adding innovative graphics, improving cut-line coverage on Fridays, securing more access with players and caddies—the elephant in the room remains the volume of commercials that NBC and CBS are required to air.
And according to GOLF.com, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan was confronted with this issue during the Players Championship earlier this week. His response wasn’t exactly encouraging for golf fans.
“Commercial inventory is one element of the value that our partners generate through our partnership with the PGA Tour,” Monahan said. “We’re going to do everything that we can to continue to improve and to continue to evolve, but make no mistake about it, the commercial underpinning we receive, and the ability for our partners to be able to express their brand and tell their stories is an important element of how we’re able to present the very best tour in the world.”
That convoluted non-answer says quite a bit. Monahan acknowledges that the PGA Tour’s corporate partners are, in many ways, the lifeblood of the Tour’s operation. It’s part of how the PGA Tour can command such hefty rights fees from its broadcast partners; they can sell valuable advertising inventory, and a lot of it.
More than any other sport, golf leans into its corporate partnerships. Every tournament’s title sponsor gets a softball interview where an executive sits down with Jim Nantz or Dan Hicks to promote their company right in the heart of the broadcast. Almost every part of the PGA Tour’s front-facing operation is sponsored: the FedEx Cup Playoffs, the Aon Swing 5, and the Comcast Business Tour Top 10.
Of course, part of what drives the PGA Tour’s lucrative deals is its audience, which is generally comprised of well-to-do individuals with plenty of disposable income.
Between the cozy relationship that PGA Tour sponsors get for their money and the wealthy demographic being exposed to their brand, marketers see advertising with the Tour as an excellent bang for their buck. That makes it quite tricky for Monahan to commit to any reduction in commercial load during the broadcasts.
So, while the Tour may be making several other improvements to its broadcast, don’t expect any fewer commercials anytime soon.