The Australian Open golf tournament is searching for a new domestic free-to-air broadcast partner after Channel Ten confirmed it would not cover this year’s event in December.
The Age newspaper reported that Ten’s decision could have serious ramifications for the event’s owner and operator, Golf Australia, as the Open’s naming rights sponsorship deal with Emirates was contingent on free-to-air television coverage.
“We just made a decision that we didn’t want to do it this year,” Ten’s head of sport, David Barham, said. “We’re thinking about everything we do at the moment.”
Barham rejected the view that Ten’s Australian Open withdrawal was part of a complete exit from televising Australian golf. “We don’t make decisions that far ahead,” he said. “We’ve got two years of the (Australian) PGA (Championship), and two more years of the US Masters to go yet.”
Golf Australia’s chief executive, Stephen Pitt, said negotiations for a new free-to-air partner were ongoing, adding that “we fully expect we will achieve a result that will be positive.”