PGA Tour to experiment with broadcast changes based on ‘fan feedback’

If you’ve found yourself complaining about the state of the PGA Tour’s broadcasts over the last several years, give yourself a pat on the back.

Your goals were never “misguided.” You weren’t “shouting into the void.” You helped to create real, actionable change on the PGA Tour; change that will arrive to Tour broadcasts this fall.

At least, that’s the latest according to Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who gave his latest state-of-the-state press conference on Wednesday at the Tour Championship.

The final event of the PGA Tour regular season was an ideal time to announce a new slate of changes coming to the Tour for the commish. Given Monahan’s unenviable role of reporting no developments (again) in the PGA Tour’s negotiations for peace with the Saudi PIF, a few flashy toys were helpful, if not necessary, in settling an unhappy golf public. And what better topic to announce enhancements for than the quality of the TV broadcasts, which have plagued the Tour for years?

NEWSLETTER

Sign up for GOLF’s Hot Mic Newsletter!

Want exclusive golf media news in your inbox? Sign up for the Hot Mic Newsletter with James Colgan!

SIGN UP

The headline is a new “pilot program” aimed at test-driving some new broadcast enhancements during Golf Channel’s Friday broadcasts from the Tour’s new “fall series.” The program, Monahan said, would rely off of feedback from fans in real-time to offer new ideas, and rate the effectiveness of their suggestions.

“On Thursday, we’ll show fans a traditional broadcast. Then on Friday, the presentation will adopt new features based on fan feedback,” Monahan said. “We’ll then survey fans to test their preferences, and that intel will help us further innovate the broadcasts with our fans more squarely in the driver’s seat.”

At face value, the announcement marks a considerable shift to how the PGA Tour does its business on television, but the reality is a little more complicated. The truth is that stakeholders across the sports world already rely heavily on audience feedback to help generate production decisions; the Tour’s decision just formalizes, and tremendously hastens, those efforts.

The Tour can afford to do this in part because Golf Channel telecasts during the fall season are already some of the smallest audiences of the year, a development expected to continue with the defenestration of the “FedEx Cup Fall” under the new pro golf schedule. If the Tour was hoping only to source feedback from the biggest of the diehards, well, those watching during Thursday and Friday afternoons in the middle of football season would certainly qualify.

“I think what we’ve heard from fans and what we’re working with our partners at Golf Channel to test, a couple of the themes that you may see us address, number one, being able to see more shots and potentially fewer putts,” Monahan said. “You’ll see a number of other broadcast innovations that we’ll continue to test as we go forward.”

The new program comes as questions grow louder surrounding the health of the Tour’s TV products. Ratings were down more than 15 percent for one of the Tour’s TV partners in 2024, an outcome with many possible explanations, among them decreased viewer interest in week-to-week golf in the wake of LIV’s intrusion into the sport. These developments aren’t cause for extreme concern at the PGA Tour, at least not immediately, but they’re a foreboding sign given the scale of the change that has swept through golf in the last several seasons. Efforts to improve the Tour’s broadcasts might not directly correlate to bigger audiences, but there’s little doubt a better viewing product would douse viewers’ recent distaste for the pro game.

Monahan said the Tour will also include feedback from Golf Channel employees as part of the new program. The project’s dates were not immediately available.

James Colgan

Golf.com Editor

James Colgan is a news and features editor at GOLF, writing stories for the website and magazine. He manages the Hot Mic, GOLF’s media vertical, and utilizes his on-camera experience across the brand’s platforms. Prior to joining GOLF, James graduated from Syracuse University, during which time he was a caddie scholarship recipient (and astute looper) on Long Island, where he is from. He can be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.