In the latest interactive monthly data report, SportBusiness Media analyses the golf media-rights landscape.
Further detail on the deals covered in this interactive data report is available with our Rights Tracker tool – click here for more information.
Tenth-most valuable sport
According to the 2020 SportBusiness Consulting Global Report, golf has the tenth-most valuable media rights worldwide.
The year saw a host of cancellations among top-level events, including the Open Championship in the UK, although the other three majors – the Masters Tournament, the US Open and the PGA Championship – were all played after rescheduling. The cancellation of the Open, along with cancellations of events on the PGA Tour and the European Tour, heavily impacted the sport’s global media-rights value. The 2020 Ryder Cup tournament – the biennial men’s golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States – was postponed until 2021.
PGA Tour
The value of golf media rights will get a boost in 2022, when the PGA Tour begins its new domestic deals. It is the most valuable property in golf, making up about 58 per cent of the value in 2020. That year, the Tour finalised nine-year domestic linear deals with CBS and NBC Sports Group, as well as a streaming deal with ESPN+. Running until 2030, the deals are about 70 per cent higher than the Tour’s current domestic deals.
For its international rights, the PGA Tour set up a joint venture with Discovery for its media rights outside the US in a 12-year deal. From 2019 to 2030, the deal involved the creation of an OTT streaming service, Golf TV. Discovery’s deal is a large increase on the previous combined value of the PGA Tour’s various international rights deals.
Although the deal started in 2019, the venture did not immediately control all markets’ rights as existing rights deals were still honoured. The Discovery/PGA Tour venture will manage rights in all territories outside the US by 2024. One of the Tour’s most valuable ex-US deals is in the UK and Ireland, where the venture will control rights from 2022. Until then, pay-television broadcaster Sky holds rights to the property, in a seven-year deal until the end of 2021.
South Korea is also a valuable market for the PGA Tour. In January 2021, JTBC sublicensed rights from Discovery for the PGA Tour from 2020, which are thought to run until 2030.
Click on each market icon to filter historical media-rights value information.
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The Majors
In 2020, US broadcaster Fox elected to walk away from its rights to US Golf Association events, which include the US Open. This is because it saw an opportunity to cut its rights expenditure by accepting rival network broadcaster NBC’s offer to take over the remaining six-and-a-half years of the USGA contract. NBC offered Fox to take over the rights, reducing Fox’s per-season outlay of about 43 per cent and making both parties contractual partners of the USGA. Initially, Fox acquired rights to USGA events in 2013 in a 12-year deal set to run from 2015 to 2026.
Commercial broadcaster CBS holds rights to the other two US majors: the Masters and the PGA Championship. For the former, the broadcaster has covered the tournament’s full production costs on a rolling one-year contract since 1956, rather than paying a rights fee. Pay-television broadcaster ESPN has also aired coverage of The Masters since 2008. For the latter, CBS and ESPN joined forces in 2018 to sign an 11-year deal for rights to the PGA Championship, from 2020 to 2030. Rights were previously held by CBS and media group Turner in eight-year deals, from 2012 to 2019.
NBC broadcasts the British Open in the US. In 2015, NBC holds rights through a 12-year deal from 2017 to 2028, doubling the value of the previous contract with ESPN.
In 2019, Sky UK extended its rights deal for The British Open as an attempt to maintain its dominant position in the UK golf market against the threat of GolfTV. The three-year deal extended the broadcaster’s relationship with rights-holder the R&A until 2024. The fee marked a 20-per-cent increase on the annual amount Sky pays in its current five-year deal expiring at the end of the year. Public-broadcaster the BBC holds UK free-to-air highlights rights in a five-year deal from 2017 to 2021.
Click on each property and market icon to filter historical media-rights value information.
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European Tour and Ryder Cup
Rights to the European Tour and the Ryder Cup are generally sold together. The lure of the Ryder Cup provides leverage in media-rights negotiations to guarantee coverage of less glamorous European Tour events. When striking deals, broadcasters are not thought to have to provide a split in value between the two properties.
Sky holds rights to both properties in the UK and Ireland for four years, from 2019 to 2022. The current deal is an increase of about 11 per cent on the value of Sky’s previous six-year deal, from 2013 to 2018. The BBC holds UK free-to-air highlights rights to the Ryder Cup, in a four-year deal, which also runs from 2019 to 2022.
In 2019, Discovery announced a wide-ranging golf partnership with the European Tour for rights in selected markets to all European Tour events and the 2021 and 2023 Ryder Cups.
From 2019, Discovery holds exclusive rights to European Tour events in Albania; Cyprus; Greece; Hungary; Italy; Malta; Romania; Russia; Spain; Turkey; and Ukraine. It also holds digital streaming rights in the Balkan territories; Bulgaria; Estonia; Central Asian territories; India; Indonesia; Latin America; Latvia; Lithuania; Malaysia; Myanmar; Portugal; Singapore; Taiwan; and Thailand.
From 2020, Discovery gained exclusive European Tour rights in Iceland and Poland, and digital streaming rights in Vietnam. From 2021, exclusive rights in Belgium and the Netherlands will be rolled in, with digital streaming rights in Hong Kong. Digital rights for Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Middle East will be rolled in from 2022.
Ryder Cup rights are for European markets only, excluding Denmark; Finland; France; Ireland; Germany, Austria, Switzerland; Norway; Sweden; and the UK.
Click on each property and market icon to filter historical media-rights value information.
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