PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The questions about coronavirus outnumbered those about the health of reigning Masters champion Tiger Woods by a six-to-one margin at PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan’s State of the PGA Tour press conference on Tuesday.
While several tournaments on the European Tour have been canceled, Monahan said the PGA Tour administers 175 tournaments over six tours and, with the exception of postponing the start of the PGA Tour China Series, the Tour says it is planning to stage all of its events at this time. The most pressing concern, at the moment, is the WGC-Dell Matchplay, which is scheduled to be held in Austin, Texas in two weeks. Despite the cancellation of SXSW, the annual music, film and interactive festival, Monahan said the golf tournament will go on as scheduled.
“We’re all in and making certain that we’re able to operate that event,” he said. “This thing is so dynamic that you just have to go hour-to-hour, day-to-day, but right now we have every assurance that we’ll be in Austin for the event.”
But Monahan said his staff is taking into consideration the well-being of fans, players and staff, and has assembled a team that is taking its cues from the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It started out as a task force,” Monahan said. “It’s now essentially a business unit, where we have two leaders, Tom Hospel, our medical director, and Alison Keller, our chief administration officer, who have organized a large team to fully understand the coronavirus and its implications on all facets of our business.”
Other than the potential implications of the coronavirus, the business of the PGA Tour appears as healthy as ever.
“It’s clear to me we have a winning formula,” said Monahan, who noted the Tour has 18 tournaments under contract for seven or more years. “We’re growing in virtually every metric, and it’s not because the winning formula remains the same. We listen, and we respond.”
On Monday, the Tour announced a nine-year renewal with TV partners CBS and NBC/Golf Channel and established a new relationship with Disney and ESPN+. While the financial terms weren’t disclosed, Monahan said it will help the Tour secure $12 billion in revenue through 2030.
The purse for the Players jumped to $15 million this year, with the winner awarded $2.7 million on Sunday, and he predicted that when the new TV riches kick in, the purse of the Players would reach $25 million. The FedEx Cup, which has doubled from a season-long pot at the end of the rainbow of $35 million to $60 million as of last season (plus $10 million for the Wyndham Rewards Top 10), also will receive a turbo-charge.
“Perhaps $100 million or more,” Monahan said. “That’s not a commitment, but that’s, generally speaking, the kind of growth that I expect for us to see for our athletes.”
This week at the Players, every shot will be live-streamed on NBC Sports Gold to PGA Tour Live subscribers. That’s more than 32,000 shots over the course of the tournament, captured by more than 120 cameras positioned throughout the course. Making every shot available was first achieved by CBS Sports at the 2019 Masters, and it could be the future of golf coverage on TV.
“Our vision is to bring every shot and every PGA Tour tournament to our fans, and this is the first step in making that a reality,” Monahan said.
This week’s broadcast also will feature the first use of a drone-operated camera.
Gaming opportunities present a new frontier, and the Tour has invested heavily to develop its ShotLink technology, which captures real-time data on every shot hit in competition so that it can be used in its various media platforms and engage fans in new ways as legalized betting becomes a reality.
Monahan answered several questions about the Premier Golf League, which has surfaced as a potential rival, and said that the Tour would protect its turf.
“We have regulations in place that allow us to protect the interests of our media partners, our sponsors and all our constituents, and if we got to the point in time, we would take measures to vigilantly protect this business model,” he said.
But Monahan downplayed the possibility that an upstart league would be able to make any inroads in the already crowded space that is professional golf.
“We’re about to get a lot stronger,” he said.
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