PGA Tour Seeks More Control Over Media With New Studios Launch

variety.com:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Executives at PGA Tour say they are getting ready for a new era in sports when leagues will need to exercise significantly more control over the content that’s made from the games, matches and tournaments that every media outlet wants to show.

The backer of golf’s most popular events on Wednesday unveiled a new 165,000 square foot production facility, PGA Tour Studios, on its campus in Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida, part of a bid to gain new oversight over thousands of hours of sports content that its top executives believe will only be in more demand in a future dominated by streaming video — and different kinds of media entities that are looking at sports in very different fashion.

The new facility is the first new production entity built by PGA Tour since 1997. “The traditional model was we would do a licensing deal.

We would license our rights to a domestic partner like NBC and CBS. They did all the sports production. What we did is we put on the event, but they went out and they did all in the production,” says Louis Goicouria, PGA Tour’s senior vice president of media, during an interview, adding: “When we go into 2030 and we’re talking to companies like Amazon or Netflix or Apple that do not traditionally produce sports, much less golf, for us to be able to give them a turnkey product is very powerful.” Executives declined to discuss the investment required to launch the new production facility.