Good morning. It’s Monday, March 28, 2011, and this is your weekly Sports article and editorial from Cyn opsis. If you’d like to comment on this story, there is a space for that below the article. Look for more of these in the future!
Golf Channel Now a Feather in NBC’s Cap
It was a year ago when Golf Channel first hit a crossroads that ultimately changed its brand. Ratings juggernaut Tiger Woods had yet to return to the tour following extended time off, and stumbled when he did come back. Few household names were able to fill the void of “must watch” player for audiences. The Comcast-owned channel also faced operational questions with a merger with NBC Universal on the horizon, and how the once-dubbed “niche” channel would fit into the scheme of the new company.
Now, executives at the network are finally able to exhale. Ratings for Golf Channel are growing. PGA Tour audiences are up 55% for the year, even with Tiger faltering. New series such as Morning Drive are clicking, boosting year-ago time period averages nearly 50% and viewership for WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship grew 84% over the same period in 2010. All of these factors helped push the channel to its second most-watched February ever with 15.3 unique viewers.
Earlier that month, longtime NBC Sports executive Mike McCarley was named President of Golf Channel, largely due to his talents in developing “big-event” strategies for the Olympics, the NFL and the NHL.
“I’m walking into a place that’s filled with a lot of people who have poured their heart and soul into this network and over the last few years have created a tremendous amount of momentum,” said McCarley. “I think that energy now has been put into hyperdrive with our relationship with NBC Sports and the ability to promote Golf Channel on the network and across the various assets of NBC Universal. Things are going very well and we are able to quickly create a lot of cross promotion and a lot of synergy between the two channels.”
Indeed, only two months after the merger was completed, the NBC marketing machine is working on overdrive. The WGC-Accenture was identified by NBCUniversal’s Marketing Council as a cross-channel priority and received extensive promotion across the company’s twenty channels and more than forty websites. Golf programming on NBC has been renamed “Golf Channel on NBC” and now incorporates the Golf Channel look and designs, down to the logo on the commentators’ apparel. Golf Channel’s tournament graphics are showcased for all coverage and includes a custom-made Golf Channel-NBC peacock combination logo.
Talent is crossing the bridge as well, such as a State of the Game Live special that featured faces from the two channels, including Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo, and doubled Golf Channel’s year-to-date primetime average for non-PGA Tour programming.
“This past Tuesday, we brought in both the NBC and the Golf Channel crews from the road and had a one day production seminar,” said McCarley. “The only time we’ve ever done something like that is for the Olympics and it’s never been done to that extent for a single sport. That’s the type of thing we are doing to bring those groups together.”
Moving forward, the company’s ability to build brands will also be applied to some of the up-and-coming players set to make a name for themselves. With the void being left by Tiger Wood’s struggles, names like Graeme McDowell, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Mark Wilson, and Johnny Vegas are starting to claim airtime.
“Let’s not kid ourselves, if Tiger begins to win, he’s the biggest draw in golf and people are going to tune in to watch,” said Tom Stathakes, SVP/Programming and Production at Golf Channel. “But there are some exciting guys that are shaking up the game and making names for themselves. Guys like Graeme have a lot of personality and aren’t afraid to compete with Tiger. Players like Johnny Vegas aren’t intimidated and are athletic and kill the ball. You don’t know who is going to win anymore and that makes it exciting.”
The goal now, according to McCarley, is to tell their story and make audiences care about them.
“When you look at NBC’s experience with the Olympics, where you have relatively unknown athletes literally become household names overnight, it gives us the opportunity to tell their story,” he said. “We promoted Michael Phelps for a year leading into the Beijing Olympics, discussing his relationship with his mother, the incredible amount of food he eats, his love of video games and music, etc., and audiences responded because it was told in a compelling way. We are now taking that same approach to some of the young stars in the world of golf in order to make them relevant to the fan base and when they win that’s when stars can be made. NBC knows how to make something big, and that’s good for fans of the game.”
In My Opinion
Viewers may love (or love to hate) Tiger, but his time away from the Championship trophy helped force networks such as ESPN, CBS, NBC, Golf Channel, and others into marketing rehab. His success through the years made it difficult for channels to focus on anything else. Now that other players have had the opportunity to grab their share of the spotlight, channels have been able to step away from the Tiger crutch and plant seeds that could one day become superstars in their own right. After all, when you have a behemoth, it makes it difficult to see anything else.
Whether you agree or disagree with Chris’ article and/or his In My Opinion, we welcome your posting your comments below.
Later — Chris
Chris Pursell for Cyn opsis| Sports
March 28, 2011
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