New PGA Tour CEO must focus on television rights as much as LIV golf split

USA Today

4 hours ago

There are likely many reasons that Brian Rolapp was hired as the new CEO of the PGA Tour, and several reasons that he will take over day-to-day operations of the men's tour while Commissioner Jay Monahan slowly heads toward the end of his contract in 2026.
In many ways, it seems like Monahan beat the odds by staying in his job so long, two years after his announcement of a deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund caused questioning and even anger from rank-and-file tour members over the proposed deal.
Rolapp will have to deal with the continuing efforts to end the split in the game between the PGA Tour and LIV Tour. But pretty high up among those reasons Rolapp has the new CEO job has to be Rolapp's previous position with the National Football League, the unstoppable steamroller of American sports.
Rolapp, you see, was most recently the chief media and business officer of the NFL. In that capacity, he was an integral part of media rights negotiations for the league, and we all know that it is media money that pushes the NFL to higher and higher heights each year.
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That's important because the looming renewal of television rights for the PGA Tour is going to be a priority. Where golf will be seen in the future, or at least how consumers can view the PGA Tour, will be key to the growth of the game in the coming years.
The tour's current contracts with CBS, NBC and ESPN run through 2030, contracts that bring in $700 million. Those contracts do not include events like the Masters or the U.S. Open, non-PGA Tour events that have separate deals with the networks.
So Rolapp might well focus on two main issues when it comes to broadcast rights deals. First, in an era of spotty ratings, should the deals be renegotiated before the completion of the contracts in 2030? Second, in looking beyond 2030, will Rolapp and the PGA Tour look for something other than traditional television platforms like broadcast television?
Anyone who watched the U.S. Open last week knows that at least some of the broadcast hours were exclusively on Peacock, NBC's streaming platform. You could also watch the event on Peacock while the championship was being shown on NBC.
Streaming is becoming the new normal in American sports, with Netflix showing NFL games, particularly on Christmas Day, Peacock grabbing NBA games under that league's new deal with NBC and even the PGA Tour having a digital deal to show its tournaments on ESPN+. Other NBA games are moving from TNT this year to Amazon Prime next year.
It seems logical that more and more of the PGA Tour's product will find its way behind paywalls as cable continues to bleed subscribers. Yahoo Finance reports cable subscriptions were down by 1.6 million in the first quarter of this year and 6 million since the first quarter of 2024.
Options for streaming for the tour include ESPN+, which already works with the tour. Could the tour put its own streaming app together, like other sports and teams are doing? Peacock and potentially Paramount+ are natural partners because of their association with NBC and CBS.
We haven't mentioned yet that Comcast, which owns NBC, is spinning off many of its cable networks in the coming year to the highest bidder. Part of that package will be Golf Channel, which shows at least the first two rounds of most PGA Tour events and all four rounds of numerous events, including The American Express in La Quinta each January.
It could be that the tour has to negotiate separate deals with Golf Channel once it splits from Comcast. If the PGA Tour found another outlet to show its events, would Golf Channel even exist?
It's a lot to take in, especially with just four and a half years left in the current contracts. You know the tour and the networks would rather have a new deal done much earlier, not waiting until the last minute.
That is at least part of the landscape that Rolapp will inherit as the first-ever CEO of the PGA Tour. It might not be as front-burner headline worthy as the negotiations with LIV, but in the long term, television rights might be just as important. If the NFL has streaming for its games, it might make sense that Rolapp at least explores that area for the PGA Tour.