Agreed there Tom,
Websites are relatively cheap to run and you can do it from anywhere. I'm surprised they're giving up their name to be fully integrated into the NBCSports site which I can count on one hand the number of times I've gone there.
Depends on how it's done. NBC will probably be able to absorb this and use a lot of existing resources, both technical and content, to significantly reduce costs. It's a strangely worded article, but I'm sure the golfchannel.com domain will remain active and redirect to nbcsports.com/golf or something (in fact, the reverse is true today).
The new site will likely be better positioned to push people to live streams and promote viewership like the existing nbcsports entities, as well as better reach and opportunities for selling ads. Views, watch time, app downloads, all coalesced under nbcsports will help them show growth and impress investors, and this makes NBC Sports more popular in the app store as well. Downloads, MAU's, Views are what they're after - I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner.