How will broadcasters address – or ignore – the elephant in the room that is the ongoing civil war in professional golf with 18 members of LIV Golf competing at the 87th Masters next week?
It was an obvious question and one that CBS Sports’s Chairman Sean McManus knew he was going to be asked during the network’s annual pre-Masters conference call – it’ll be the 68th consecutive year for CBS broadcasting the Masters! – with sports writers. And McManus, who has been reticent in discussing LIV, gave a good answer.
“We’re not going to cover up or hide anything,” he said. “As I’ve said often, our job is to cover the golf tournament. We’re not going to show any different treatment for the golfers who have played on the LIV Tour than the other golfer. If there is a pertinent point or something that we feel we should bring up in our coverage Saturday or Sunday or on our other coverage throughout the week, we’re not going to put our heads in the sand.”
It was an interesting choice of expressions because when asked on previous calls with journalists, he has been quick to shut down any discussion of the topic. In a January call before the CBS team kicked off its season at the Farmers Insurance Open, I asked CBS lead producer Sellers Shy if there were any guidelines or rules for his broadcast team pertaining to LIV Golf and what they can or cannot say? Before Shy could answer, McManus cut him off. “I don’t want to get into discussing any other golf programming. I’d like to keep it to CBS.”
When pressed to get a better sense of what viewers can expect, McManus said only, “he can expect coverage of the CBS golf event, basically, and I hope it’s the best in the industry.”
This time, McManus had more to say, and make no mistake, CBS won’t be leaning into the PGA Tour-Liv controversy. “Having said that, unless it really affects the story that’s taking place on the golf course, we’re not going to go out of our way to cover it. I’m not sure there is anything that we could add to this story as it already exists. It’s a factor and we’ll cover it as suitable.”
When Shy was asked if there is a part of him that roots for a LIV player to be in contention going into Sunday because of the interest it would draw to the telecast, he said, “We’re not cheerleaders here. We just want to cover the golf tournament. So, whoever is on that leaderboard, we’re covering them because they are invited to the Masters.”
When the topic resurfaced later during the call in a question posed to Trevor Immelman, CBS’s lead analyst said, “The Masters Tournament and Augusta National is bigger than any player that has come before, any player that is around now and any player that will come in the years ahead. That’s what we’re focused on is giving that tournament justice and crowning a great champion and putting a Green Jacket on a great champion on Sunday afternoon.”
During a Tuesday media call with ESPN, who will have live coverage of the Par 3 Contest as well as the first and second round tournament coverage, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said, “I make zero distinction between anyone. It’s an Augusta National Golf Club event. This isn’t a PGA Tour versus LIV tour conversation at all. A guy like (LIV player) Cam Smith, the last time we saw him in a major, he played pretty well. We’re there to cover whatever storylines there are.”
Golf Channel, who will show plenty of auxiliary programming, seemed to have the clearest vision for how to address LIV Golf.
“I don’t think there’s any way around it. This would be the first time that I can recall that Tiger Woods will very likely, certainly on Monday night barring any breaking news with respect to his health, first time that I can remember that on ‘Live From,’ we likely, underline likely, will not lead with Tiger Woods, but instead the presence of LIV Golf, the 18 players that are set to tee it up there,” said Golf Channel host Rich Lerner. “At this point not knowing what may be said or how LIV players may or may not interact with PGA Tour players, without knowing that at this point, our goal going in at this point is to cover LIV at least initially through the competitive lens.
“You cannot deny however you feel about LIV. You cannot deny their accomplishments at Augusta and at the majors in general. Six LIV players have won seven of the last 13 Masters, going back to 2010, LIV golfers have won approximately 40 percent of all the majors played. These are significant figures in the game. We’ll cover it and ask questions, how competitively sharp might they be, how much golf have they played, where have they intersected with PGA Tour players on the worldwide competitive circuit, the Middle East earlier in the year, things of that nature.
“And then we’ll have cameras trained to watch for any interactions in the tournament, the practice area. Will they be in the media center? Will Augusta make them available? Assuming they will, but we don’t know for sure at this point, so we’ll be ready on that front. Then from there, we cover the Masters and we remember always that — at Augusta you take a breath. You slow down a little bit. People are tuning in I think because they’re curious as to how all this is going to go with respect to LIV, but also because they love the Masters and they want to find out about the changes at the 13th hole…So we’ll be golfy. We certainly won’t be all LIV all the time. We’re certainly not going to shy away from that, but there’s so many other aspects to cover, as Brandel and Notah know full well.”
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