Talk about discrimination

[Garland Bayley]

Come on guys. Quit piling on the Golf Channel. NBC had the rights to the telecast. If you are seeing it nowhere else, it is because NBC is not allowing others to broadcast anything. At least that is my understanding of how these things work. Anyone know any differently?

I was out playing so didn't watch any of it. However, I see the scoreboard was lit up with read numbers today. Any explanation for that?

[John Moore II]

Come on guys. Quit piling on the Golf Channel. NBC had the rights to the telecast. If you are seeing it nowhere else, it is because NBC is not allowing others to broadcast anything. At least that is my understanding of how these things work. Anyone know any differently?

I was out playing so didn't watch any of it. However, I see the scoreboard was lit up with read numbers today. Any explanation for that?

Yeah, they shortened 6 of the holes to make the course play easier. Which I think is stupid. The course was also softer and slower from the rain.

My biggest beef more than anything else was with the Golf Channel.

I work weekends so most of my golf is only viewed after hours on replays. TGC decided this week that that stupid Wayne Gretzky Nationwide thing was more important than the Women's Open and the Deere, both events of which I found much more compelling.

TGC could not cover the other two events because they did not have weekend coverage rights. CBS had the PGA event and showed it starting at 3pm, which is about standard for a normal event. NBC had the Women's Open coverage and I can't believe that they waited until 3pm to start that coverage. At least give us the chance to see the leader tee off and play her whole round, surely you could have gotten more viewers for the Open than for whatever odd ball shows they had on before. But none of this fault lies with the Golf Channel.

Add my disgust to Ran's original post of there being no third round make-up coverage last night.

But 11 episodes in a row of Big Break Sandals, well, we can't possibly show anything more interesting than that, can we?

[Matthew Rose]

I understand in many cases the TGC doesn't have the rights to these events, so I can't blame them entirely.

But maybe the real issue is that they should.

I guess I'd like to see more actual golf on the golf channel and less junk. One would hope that would be the main goal of a "golf channel". But the world isn't perfect.

I have the same feelings about the NHL network. There were several playoff games in the first and second rounds this year that weren't televised except in local markets and the NHL network was showing minor league games and that dull Sidney Crosby biography 500 times. When there is meaningful, live hockey going on you would hope that a TV network calling itself "The NHL Network" would pick up the slack on some of that.

I guess I'd just like to see the major sports leagues use their networks for backup/overflow/replay coverage more than they do.

[Terry Lavin]

The Women's Open had the perfect winner, a great storyline and a fabulous golf course and they still get no traction.  I don't think you can blame the media, because they cover what people want to watch and want to talk about.  There aren't enough people in America who care about the LPGA week in and week out and they apparently aren't capable of being roused by Creamer beating the field at Oakmont.  More's the pity, but that's the reality.  I watched for about two hours yesterday and I just loved looking at Oakmont...and Creamer...and Petterson...etc.

[RJ_Daley]

Come on guys. Quit piling on the Golf Channel. NBC had the rights to the telecast. If you are seeing it nowhere else, it is because NBC is not allowing others to broadcast anything. At least that is my understanding of how these things work. Anyone know any differently?

I was out playing so didn't watch any of it. However, I see the scoreboard was lit up with read numbers today. Any explanation for that?

I think you are correct Garland.  I too was out playing (as I think most 'real golf fans' were doing on a Sunday when the toonamint was being broadcast live.  I caught some of the end of it in the clubhouse after my round.  And, I was too forgetful to set the DVR 


So, it seems to me that if I was like most 'real golf fans' they would have been playing rather than viewing live as well.  This is where NBC and TGC seem stupid to me.  If NBC has the rights, wouldn't TGC be wise to pay something for the rebroadcast rights because it would be a sure thing that "real golf fans" would watch that rebroadcast, and they are the people that would BUY real golf stuff advertised on commercial breaks during the rebroadcast? And wouldn't NBC be smarter to sell the rebroadcast for something rather than get nothing and leave the footage in a video digital format somewhere to rot on a shelf or in cyberspace?

It boggles my mind to hear all the stupid gaffs that TV executives make, while  earning princely sums of compensation.  Whether it is Zucker and the NBC Leno-O'Brien disaster, or this mismanaged rebroadcast or live telecast debacles of sports-golf, going back to Heidi-football, they seem to me to be a bunch of totally stupid stuffed suits.

[George Pazin]

The Women's Open had the perfect winner, a great storyline and a fabulous golf course and they still get no traction.  I don't think you can blame the media, because they cover what people want to watch and want to talk about.

I guess the question is whether the media reflects the public or whether it defines it. I think it used to be the former, but is increasingly the latter.

It is pretty weird to me when one looks around at the competition that women's golf doesn't do better in the ratings. It's more compelling to me than a lot of other things out there, but I guess as a golfer, my view is strongly biased.

[PThomas]

will Creamer be on Jay Leno or Letterman?  even Lucas Glover was last year

[Jim Nugent]

Didn't the LPGA cut back its schedule a whole lot this year?  The handwriting is on the wall for women's golf, and it ain't pretty. 

[Dan Herrmann]

Sure did.