Grant Horvat's PGA Tour rejection; NBC's surprising open shift

Golf YouTube Megastar Grant Horvat announced on Tuesday that he rejected an offer to play in the Barracuda championship of the PGA Tour after the tour made it clear that he could not create a YouTube content from experience.

According to Horvat, the tour said that he should not film his round during the tournament game and quoted his own IronClad rules on the tournament video as the cause. (Effective the rules currently state that only the highly paid TV network partners of the tour and the tour themselves can create and create a video from the gates of the goals of a tour event. Everyone else is considered competitors and are therefore severely restricted.)

Access: not granted

Horvat was a good sport over the entire ordeal and he should be: his fame when YouTube creator landed a place in a damn tour event. But did he deserve a unique exception that launched the long -standing media regulations of the tour? I wouldn't argue.

As I wrote extensively, part of the value of the media rights of the PGA Tour Intrinsisch is connected to the exclusivity of its product. If someone appears for a PGA tour event and creating a YouTube video of the competition, the promise of the tour for their network partners of 750 million US dollars per year (roughly said: You pay us for the right to transfer events) would fall apart. In theory, a PGA Tour -TV world with an unlimited supply would collapse the demand for advertising, which in turn crumbles the entire Tour -TV economy.

Of course, Horvat is unable to crush the media apparatus of the PGA tour on a counter -field, and its admission to the Cuda is the kind of positive sums that think that I encourage the tour in general to become more serious.

But there are the rules for the rotary competition to keep the PGA tour profitable, and I do not accuse the tour for the enforcement of the rules. For me, the line around so-called “non-sanctioned media” is clear: the media should have the right to turn and publish videos of most things that happen outside the tournament game, but as soon as the balls are in the air, the stage belongs to the TV partners who pay for it.

Psst, you read a digital extract of the Golf Hot MIC newsletter, a weekly shipping that cover all things. To get these insights into your inbox before landing on the web, click the button below.

But wait …

Wouldn't Horvat's participation in Barracuda increase the television values and interest in the event and thus increase the sponsor value of the tournament?

Maybe I say. Despite my criticism of the enforcement of the media rules of the tour in relation to other things as a competition (the relaxing of video rules in relation to exercise rounds, for example, would be pretty good for me), the tour has the right and the obligation to exercise its media rights quite strictly on the competition. The TV partners of the tour at NBC and CBS pay a fortune for the right to transfer the PGA tour and hand over these rights to a player with a large audience free of charge by a large audience a dangerous precedent. The PGA tour is in business to build audience, but not at the expense of its own end result.

Think about this: If someone can play on their YouTube channel with an internet connection Horvat in a tour event, how can the same audience be set to NBC?

And speaking NBC …

Don't call it a comeback

For years, NBC has been running the Open Championship on a hybrid model and split the world -feed show from R&A with shots of cameras sent by NBC. The method made it possible to carry an open television program without spending assets for the production costs, but was led to the price of an NBC-specific feeling in the last major of the year (and during international Ryder Cup).

The solution

According to an NBC spokesman, things are changing in 2025, whereby the network sends enough cameras and employees to the open fate so that the leading producer Tommy Roy has cultivated a fully NBC parts trecast.

Of course, the network will still rely on the world feed for many recordings, but the overall sequencing and provision of the television program should feel similar to the remaining television programs of the network in the entire 2005 season – a considerable change that NBC hopes to further distinguish its efforts in the golf world.

Promise made …

This message follows the admission of NBC Sports EP Sam Flood that the network “redirect” the golf resources of some events to emphasize the largest television programs in the calendar. After mostly positive reviews at the US Open, the open appears with a steam head.