NBC and the Ryder Cup

[Greg_B]

I’m not sure what the TV rights deal for the Ryder Cup looks like, but NBC has had the rights for at least 30 years.  It might be time for the PGA of America to look for a new TV partner. 
 

I found this year’s coverage to be a step below what we have seen in the past. There are always going to be shots either missed outright or shown on delay, especially on Sunday, so my complaint isn’t really about that. It is more of a comment on the overall presentation, from the badly downgraded Live From pregame, to the graphics, to the tired NBC announcers.

 

NBC’s dismantling of the Golf Channel operation over the last 9 months really exposed the costs of cost-cutting this week. The early pregame coverage on GC gave us the likes of Paige MacKenzie and Damon Hack.  I could make some smart comment on how bad they were but the work speaks for itself.  I found it very odd that the early pregame was where they deployed their best expert commentator, David Duval. I don’t know if he has commitments elsewhere with Sky in Europe or whatever, or if he no longer wants to appear along side Chamblee and Leonard, but it struck me as very odd.  Chamblee and Leonard, when they finally made an appearance, convinced me that Chamblee’s air time needs to be scaled back and that Leonard just isn’t suited for the role. Chamblee has worn very thin for me and Leonard just leaves me cold. Others may disagree. 
 

When they were covering actual golf action, I was struck by how inadequate the graphics were.  I could tell where things stood overall because there was a mostly static team scorebug in the lower right all day, but most of the time you didn’t know who was hitting what shot or where that match stood.  There was also very infrequent use of an all-matches summary scoresheet which should appeared far more often, especially on Sunday.  They also seemed to use mostly tower cameras and very few on the ground, so there were very few low-level shots showing green contours or fairway elevations. I can only speculate this is also the result of cost-cutting by Comcast.  
 

Then you had the usual tired NBC announce crew, with Maltbie sounding like he was on oxygen much of the time, the usual Hicks-Azinger inanities, Begay being his usual blah self, and Koch being Koch. All in all, it only seemed like a special event due to the amount of airtime devoted to it, which of course gave them the opportunity to sell more ad time. There was certainly no shortage of those, which must have made the bean counters happy.

 

I can only wonder how a CBS-ESPN co-production like we see at the Masters might have looked. 
 

[grm24]

13 minutes ago, Greg_B said:

I’m not sure what the TV rights deal for the Ryder Cup looks like, but NBC has had the rights for at least 30 years.  It might be time for the PGA of America to look for a new TV partner. 
 

I found this year’s coverage to be a step below what we have seen in the past. There are always going to be shots either missed outright or shown on delay, especially on Sunday, so my complaint isn’t really about that. It is more of a comment on the overall presentation, from the badly downgraded Live From pregame, to the graphics, to the tired NBC announcers.

 

NBC’s dismantling of the Golf Channel operation over the last 9 months really exposed the costs of cost-cutting this week. The early pregame coverage on GC gave us the likes of Paige MacKenzie and Damon Hack.  I could make some smart comment on how bad they were but the work speaks for itself.  I found it very odd that the early pregame was where they deployed their best expert commentator, David Duval. I don’t know if he has commitments elsewhere with Sky in Europe or whatever, or if he no longer wants to appear along side Chamblee and Leonard, but it struck me as very odd.  Chamblee and Leonard, when they finally made an appearance, convinced me that Chamblee’s air time needs to be scaled back and that Leonard just isn’t suited for the role. Chamblee has worn very thin for me and Leonard just leaves me cold. Others may disagree. 
 

When they were covering actual golf action, I was struck by how inadequate the graphics were.  I could tell where things stood overall because there was a mostly static team scorebug in the lower right all day, but most of the time you didn’t know who was hitting what shot or where that match stood.  There was also very infrequent use of an all-matches summary scoresheet which should appeared far more often, especially on Sunday.  They also seemed to use mostly tower cameras and very few on the ground, so there were very few low-level shots showing green contours or fairway elevations. I can only speculate this is also the result of cost-cutting by Comcast.  
 

Then you had the usual tired NBC announce crew, with Maltbie sounding like he was on oxygen much of the time, the usual Hicks-Azinger inanities, Begay being his usual blah self, and Koch being Koch. All in all, it only seemed like a special event due to the amount of airtime devoted to it, which of course gave them the opportunity to sell more ad time. There was certainly no shortage of those, which must have made the bean counters happy.

 

I can only wonder how a CBS-ESPN co-production like we see at the Masters might have looked. 
 

NBC has the television rights for the RC through 2030.

Edited September 27, 2021 by grm24

[NJBigFish22]

16 minutes ago, Greg_B said:

I’m not sure what the TV rights deal for the Ryder Cup looks like, but NBC has had the rights for at least 30 years.  It might be time for the PGA of America to look for a new TV partner. 
 

I found this year’s coverage to be a step below what we have seen in the past. There are always going to be shots either missed outright or shown on delay, especially on Sunday, so my complaint isn’t really about that. It is more of a comment on the overall presentation, from the badly downgraded Live From pregame, to the graphics, to the tired NBC announcers.

 

NBC’s dismantling of the Golf Channel operation over the last 9 months really exposed the costs of cost-cutting this week. The early pregame coverage on GC gave us the likes of Paige MacKenzie and Damon Hack.  I could make some smart comment on how bad they were but the work speaks for itself.  I found it very odd that the early pregame was where they deployed their best expert commentator, David Duval. I don’t know if he has commitments elsewhere with Sky in Europe or whatever, or if he no longer wants to appear along side Chamblee and Leonard, but it struck me as very odd.  Chamblee and Leonard, when they finally made an appearance, convinced me that Chamblee’s air time needs to be scaled back and that Leonard just isn’t suited for the role. Chamblee has worn very thin for me and Leonard just leaves me cold. Others may disagree. 
 

When they were covering actual golf action, I was struck by how inadequate the graphics were.  I could tell where things stood overall because there was a mostly static team scorebug in the lower right all day, but most of the time you didn’t know who was hitting what shot or where that match stood.  There was also very infrequent use of an all-matches summary scoresheet which should appeared far more often, especially on Sunday.  They also seemed to use mostly tower cameras and very few on the ground, so there were very few low-level shots showing green contours or fairway elevations. I can only speculate this is also the result of cost-cutting by Comcast.  
 

Then you had the usual tired NBC announce crew, with Maltbie sounding like he was on oxygen much of the time, the usual Hicks-Azinger inanities, Begay being his usual blah self, and Koch being Koch. All in all, it only seemed like a special event due to the amount of airtime devoted to it, which of course gave them the opportunity to sell more ad time. There was certainly no shortage of those, which must have made the bean counters happy.

 

I can only wonder how a CBS-ESPN co-production like we see at the Masters might have looked. 
 

100% agree with you.  There coverage of golf stinks.  At  1 point they came back from a commercial, showed 1 shot then went to the playing through thing.  Ridiculous.  I get during a normal tournament having to show delayed shots, but not when all the action is on 4 or 12 holes.

[SUITS]

There are just so many things they could be doing that they are not. I believe it was the sky broadcast at the open that showed the lie from up close before almost all the shots they showed. They also showed way more wind direction graphic and scoreboard. Little stuff like that makes the shots so much more interesting to the guy on the couch. 
My biggest gripe is the amount of “a moment ago” shots they show that are just putts rolling into the hole. I would much prefer to see ball striking than the converted 8 foot putt. 

[MattyO1984]

This week obviously was some kind of joint venture between NBC and Sky Sports. I have got to admit, every time they went from Sky Sports to NBC, I couldn’t help but lose a little interest.

 

I hear gripes here that Sky Sports can be a little informal, some of the guys that they have on (Paul McGinley) can grate a little bit  and I guess that some of the way that the present things might be a little alien to you guys across the Pond but I would take that all day long over the risk of having Brandel Chamblee turn up to surprise everyone. Cara Banks is fine. Duval has great insight but I would rather hear from him as a commentator as opposed to an analyst. Paige had some reasonably good points at times. Brandel is sanctimonious, smug and in love with the sound of himself eulogising over some irrelevant stat that he has spun to suit his own narrative - please, someone just put him in the bin.

[grm24]

3 minutes ago, MattyO1984 said:

This week obviously was some kind of joint venture between NBC and Sky Sports. 

Not surprising as it's all in the same corporate family. Comcast who owns Golf Channel/NBCSN/NBC Universal, etc also wholly owns Sky Sports.

[MattyO1984]

2 minutes ago, grm24 said:

Not surprising as it's all in the same corporate family. Comcast who owns Golf Channel/NBCSN/NBC Universal, etc also wholly owns Sky Sports.

 

Yeah - cost cutting whilst charging Sky viewers a fortune to watch adverts even whilst they are not in break - hello the Nicklaus-Jacklin award brought to you by Aon 😂

[Ferguson]

With the varying formats from day-to-day and match play scoring, I imagine it's not the easiest event to produce.   

 

 

 

[Naptime]

I held the remote at hit the mute button a lot.  Aside from the Rolex ad free hour, it seems more like I was watching an ad stream interrupted by a few golf shots.  I am at this point sick of BMW, car insurers, etc.

[Greg_B]

18 minutes ago, Ferguson said:

With the varying formats from day-to-day and match play scoring, I imagine it's not the easiest event to produce.   

 

 

Well, they have only been doing it for 30 years.

 

It actually ought to be easier to produce most of the time. The first two days there are only 4 matches on the course at any given time, and even on Sunday with 12 matches going that is probably no more than what they have to follow in a major.

 

To me it was obvious that their production budgets had been restricted. I don't know if Sky had their usual little features as @Suits mentioned like the close-ups of the lies of upcoming shots, etc. but we certainly didn't get to see anything like that here.

[MountainKing]

9 hours ago, NJBigFish22 said:

100% agree with you.  There coverage of golf stinks.  At  1 point they came back from a commercial, showed 1 shot then went to the playing through thing.  Ridiculous.  I get during a normal tournament having to show delayed shots, but not when all the action is on 4 or 12 holes.

 

I kept hoping they'd just keep doing the play through thing.  At least with that, I didn't have to hear Azinger. 

[Hawkeye77]

25 minutes ago, MountainKing said:

 

I kept hoping they'd just keep doing the play through thing.  At least with that, I didn't have to hear Azinger. 

Nope, just "Alexa, can you pause time?" 500 times! 

[golfandfishing]

The Ryder Cup somehow going to CBS would absolutely not produce a broadcast on the same level as The Masters like you suggest. CBS on their own is not capable of replicating that on any level. The quality of The Masters broadcast is 100% the result of Augusta National’s involvement, this should be obvious given the absolute garbage CBS produces throughout the rest of the PGA Tour season and the PGA Championship. 

[Ferguson]

52 minutes ago, Greg_B said:

 

Well, they have only been doing it for 30 years.

 

It actually ought to be easier to produce most of the time. The first two days there are only 4 matches on the course at any given time, and even on Sunday with 12 matches going that is probably no more than what they have to follow in a major.

 

To me it was obvious that their production budgets had been restricted. I don't know if Sky had their usual little features as @Suits mentioned like the close-ups of the lies of upcoming shots, etc. but we certainly didn't get to see anything like that here.

 

Re: easier?

Hardly.   It's more challenging to measure or allocate "just enough" resources for an event competing against the NFL.  You also have a mostly golfer TV fanbase that, like me, watched most of it but not all of it.   It was a blowout.  We had a few friends stop by (non-golfers, see the concurrent thread covering this topic) and neither of them understood the format or match play.  

 

Re: Obvious?

Are you saying most production budgets have no limits? 

 

 

[dbleag]

1 hour ago, Naptime said:

I held the remote at hit the mute button a lot.  Aside from the Rolex ad free hour, it seems more like I was watching an ad stream interrupted by a few golf shots.  I am at this point sick of BMW, car insurers, etc.

The Rolex "ad-free" hour was nice, but is telling us every 3-minutes that we're enjoying a Rolex "ad-free" hour not an ad?  😂

Edited September 27, 2021 by dbleag

[dbleag]

All in all, NBC/TGC lucked out with the matches turning out so much in the US's favor as they did.

 

Nevertheless, I agree with all of the above that the telecast was not easy/comfortable/enjoyable to watch. 

 

NBC must be held to a higher quality job in the future.

[golfandfishing]

13 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

Nope, just "Alexa, can you pause time?" 500 times! 

Did that guy get c-blocked all weekend or what?

[MountainKing]

18 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

Nope, just "Alexa, can you pause time?" 500 times! 

 

Somehow, that was an upgrade lol

[Greg_B]

42 minutes ago, Ferguson said:

 

Re: easier?

Hardly.   It's more challenging to measure or allocate "just enough" resources for an event competing against the NFL.  You also have a mostly golfer TV fanbase that, like me, watched most of it but not all of it.   It was a blowout.  We had a few friends stop by (non-golfers, see the concurrent thread covering this topic) and neither of them understood the format or match play.  

 

Re: Obvious?

Are you saying most production budgets have no limits? 

 

 

The voices in your head must be whispering to you again, as I never said that. Nice try though. This was given air time and a profile on par with a major championship. NBC did not choose to give it the same kind of production values. Full stop.

 

As for your point contending that understanding match play is difficult for some, then I would have expected them to devote some time to explaining how it works. I don't recall ever seeing that. My original comment about the lack of all-matches scoring graphics being shown Sunday perhaps added to that. Match play is not difficult to understand once you get to follow along for a while, but not seeing a visual reminder perhaps added to your friends confusion.

 

NBC is not in the Sunday afternoon NFL business. If they are so worried about them competing against that, then perhaps they should not have bought the rights.

[playit]

I am not surprised to see this thread, as I was not pleased watching the show. I was continually confused about what is the score of whatever match they are showing. Yes, they did show it, but not always. Also, I found it ridiculous that some of the graphics were too dang small to read without getting up and going closer to the tv. And heck, I have a 50 inch tv. Lastly, there were far too many ads.

[JaNelson38]

11 hours ago, Greg_B said:

I’m not sure what the TV rights deal for the Ryder Cup looks like, but NBC has had the rights for at least 30 years.  It might be time for the PGA of America to look for a new TV partner. 
 

I found this year’s coverage to be a step below what we have seen in the past. There are always going to be shots either missed outright or shown on delay, especially on Sunday, so my complaint isn’t really about that. It is more of a comment on the overall presentation, from the badly downgraded Live From pregame, to the graphics, to the tired NBC announcers.

 

NBC’s dismantling of the Golf Channel operation over the last 9 months really exposed the costs of cost-cutting this week. The early pregame coverage on GC gave us the likes of Paige MacKenzie and Damon Hack.  I could make some smart comment on how bad they were but the work speaks for itself.  I found it very odd that the early pregame was where they deployed their best expert commentator, David Duval. I don’t know if he has commitments elsewhere with Sky in Europe or whatever, or if he no longer wants to appear along side Chamblee and Leonard, but it struck me as very odd.  Chamblee and Leonard, when they finally made an appearance, convinced me that Chamblee’s air time needs to be scaled back and that Leonard just isn’t suited for the role. Chamblee has worn very thin for me and Leonard just leaves me cold. Others may disagree. 
 

When they were covering actual golf action, I was struck by how inadequate the graphics were.  I could tell where things stood overall because there was a mostly static team scorebug in the lower right all day, but most of the time you didn’t know who was hitting what shot or where that match stood.  There was also very infrequent use of an all-matches summary scoresheet which should appeared far more often, especially on Sunday.  They also seemed to use mostly tower cameras and very few on the ground, so there were very few low-level shots showing green contours or fairway elevations. I can only speculate this is also the result of cost-cutting by Comcast.  
 

Then you had the usual tired NBC announce crew, with Maltbie sounding like he was on oxygen much of the time, the usual Hicks-Azinger inanities, Begay being his usual blah self, and Koch being Koch. All in all, it only seemed like a special event due to the amount of airtime devoted to it, which of course gave them the opportunity to sell more ad time. There was certainly no shortage of those, which must have made the bean counters happy.

 

I can only wonder how a CBS-ESPN co-production like we see at the Masters might have looked. 
 

 

You're not going to have enough time, crew and equipment to follow all 12 matches in a singles match setting.  

 

As far as the lack of ground cameras, I disagree with that completely.  There were lots of ground shots, especially with the featured groups.  Again, you're not going to get 12 ground camera crews for singles matches.  For all the 4-ball and foursomes matches, they each had a crew assigned to them.  In a PGA Tour event, you're really only following two or three groups with any consistency, because that's all you're going to have time for.  And then you fill in with 'highlights' from other groups accordingly.  They applied this strategy with the singles matches.

 

Considering GC was also covering the Champions Tour event this week along with the LPGA event, they were spread quite thin amongst 3 events.

 

A CBS production would look no different as far as commercials go.  Its the most viewed golf event in the US and Europe outside of the majors.  Of course they're going to sell air time.

[Ferguson]

12 minutes ago, Greg_B said:

The voices in your head must be whispering to you again, as I never said that. Nice try though. This was given air time and a profile on par with a major championship. NBC did not choose to give it the same kind of production values. Full stop.

 

As for your point contending that understanding match play is difficult for some, then I would have expected them to devote some time to explaining how it works. I don't recall ever seeing that. My original comment about the lack of all-matches scoring graphics being shown Sunday perhaps added to that. Match play is not difficult to understand once you get to follow along for a while, but not seeing a visual reminder perhaps added to your friends confusion.

 

NBC is not in the Sunday afternoon NFL business. If they are so worried about them competing against that, then perhaps they should not have bought the rights.

 

No voices, just written text.  You come headstrong into the thread claiming "obvious restricted budgets", then claim, "I didn't say that."  

No one gets an open checkbook.  There will always be limits, even at the Augusta Masters.  You expected more, we get it. 

 

And why would people that don't care for something listen to an explanation?

 

Face the facts - you often complain about TV coverage.  I'm suggesting you simply find a different way to get your golf. 

No one forced you to watch the coverage, right? 

 

  

 

 

[Greg_B]

54 minutes ago, golfandfishing said:

The Ryder Cup somehow going to CBS would absolutely not produce a broadcast on the same level as The Masters like you suggest. CBS on their own is not capable of replicating that on any level. The quality of The Masters broadcast is 100% the result of Augusta National’s involvement, this should be obvious given the absolute garbage CBS produces throughout the rest of the PGA Tour season and the PGA Championship. 

 

You may be right contending that we would not get something at a Masters-level. That is certainly a unique case. But I disagree with your your last comment, especially now that NBC/Comcast has eviscerated the budgets for GC and, seemingly, their golf coverage in general. Week to week, non-major broadcasts on CBS are better than those on NBC IMO. The change in CBS Golf producer this year has helped them improve. They still need to upgrade some of their commentators (i.e. replacing Trevor Immelman and one of these days, IBF. Hey, a guy can dream.)

[khalespace]

I was annoyed because most of the time they refused to cover Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa. 

[Greg_B]

2 minutes ago, Ferguson said:

 

No voices, just written text.  You come headstrong into the thread claiming "obvious restricted budgets", then claim, "I didn't say that."  

No one gets an open checkbook.  There will always be limits, even at the Augusta Masters.  You expected more, we get it. 

 

And why would people that don't care for something listen to an explanation?

 

Face the facts - you often complain about TV coverage.  I'm suggesting you simply find a different way to get your golf. 

No one forced you to watch the coverage, right?

 

 

Uhh, sorry to disagree with you, but I *created* this thread. You are the one "coming in headstrong". But then, that's what you do.

 

NBC/Comcast's cutting of golf budgets is a matter of public record. Ask the 400 people let go from Golf Channel and see the bare-bones production facilities that GC now use. Obvious is obvious, except perhaps to you when you are looking to pick an argument.

 

I comment on golf coverage, but unlike many on here, I am not constantly going off about perceived issues with the coverage week to week. Nor do I feel the need to inject myself into every thread with some sort of commentary I believe to be entertaining. I do like to comment from time to time on the goings on at the network level as that is what interests me. As for your last comment, are you suggesting I listen to it on the radio? I might just as well suggest you drop your pearls of wisdom we see on here in the letterbox instead. That would be a real improvement.

[BNGL]

12 hours ago, Greg_B said:

I’m not sure what the TV rights deal for the Ryder Cup looks like, but NBC has had the rights for at least 30 years.  It might be time for the PGA of America to look for a new TV partner. 
 

I found this year’s coverage to be a step below what we have seen in the past. There are always going to be shots either missed outright or shown on delay, especially on Sunday, so my complaint isn’t really about that. It is more of a comment on the overall presentation, from the badly downgraded Live From pregame, to the graphics, to the tired NBC announcers.

 

NBC’s dismantling of the Golf Channel operation over the last 9 months really exposed the costs of cost-cutting this week. The early pregame coverage on GC gave us the likes of Paige MacKenzie and Damon Hack.  I could make some smart comment on how bad they were but the work speaks for itself.  I found it very odd that the early pregame was where they deployed their best expert commentator, David Duval. I don’t know if he has commitments elsewhere with Sky in Europe or whatever, or if he no longer wants to appear along side Chamblee and Leonard, but it struck me as very odd.  Chamblee and Leonard, when they finally made an appearance, convinced me that Chamblee’s air time needs to be scaled back and that Leonard just isn’t suited for the role. Chamblee has worn very thin for me and Leonard just leaves me cold. Others may disagree. 
 

When they were covering actual golf action, I was struck by how inadequate the graphics were.  I could tell where things stood overall because there was a mostly static team scorebug in the lower right all day, but most of the time you didn’t know who was hitting what shot or where that match stood.  There was also very infrequent use of an all-matches summary scoresheet which should appeared far more often, especially on Sunday.  They also seemed to use mostly tower cameras and very few on the ground, so there were very few low-level shots showing green contours or fairway elevations. I can only speculate this is also the result of cost-cutting by Comcast.  
 

Then you had the usual tired NBC announce crew, with Maltbie sounding like he was on oxygen much of the time, the usual Hicks-Azinger inanities, Begay being his usual blah self, and Koch being Koch. All in all, it only seemed like a special event due to the amount of airtime devoted to it, which of course gave them the opportunity to sell more ad time. There was certainly no shortage of those, which must have made the bean counters happy.

 

I can only wonder how a CBS-ESPN co-production like we see at the Masters might have looked. 
 

If Rog’ would quit with the heaters during the rounds that might help his fat Word not allowed

[CasualLie]

NBC/Comcast cutting 400 people from TGC (if that is what it is) is pretty misleading.  Highly successful companies making big profits cut people all of the time and hire at the same time.  Sometimes it is easier to re-allocate budget that way when you need to go in a different direction.  Sometimes teams just are not contributing where you hoped they would, so the whole team is cut.

 

Not defending the evil empire, but it is over-simplification to blame cost-cutting.  I have come to expect at best mediocre coverage from all the networks because they choice of announcers most of the time does not resonate with me, the "extra stories" bore me, and there are not enough golf shots shown.  I have to give even more of a "pass" for RC because it's just 4 matches going on (12 on Sunday), not a lot of players, and a ton of hype / patriotism.  So it's going to suck for the most part.

 

I thought I read somewhere that there were not as many cameras at RC as a tour event, and it looked that way.  Many shots were not as easy to track.  Seemed like top tracer was off a little on Sunday, lot's of missed shots.  Whatever...even though U.S. was up big going into Sunday, and even though there was a minuscule chance of a Euro comeback, I still found the matches with a lot of tension.  I was "glued" to a lot of shots...in disbelief as Scheffler was dismantling Rahm.

 

Now the good news was, thanks to NFL hype, RC does not grab a lot of headlines during the day, so I could DVR and watch later in the afternoon, fast forwarding through a lot of junk.

 

 

[smoky25]

Very poor real-time updating of individual matches. It should have been simple when cutting to a different match to immediately put up a graphic of how the match stood. Instead, when they cut to a match they hadn't shown in 4 holes, you were left wondering was our guy still 1 down.  Just display the score of the match when you cut to it for crying out loud.

[Christosterone]

No one will ever be as good as Johnny…

[Tpfol]

Outcome was fantastic, but overall the viewing experience was pretty awful. DJ going 5-0 was a total afterthought, despite how rare the occurrence. I mean, dang, the whole program tries to spew the importance of USA/Eur pride for the teams, but then give coverage that misses more golf than it shows and has commercial breaks every 5 minutes?

Let ESPN carry it, where you have your choice of which group to watch like the Open.