I’ve always been a big believer that free to view TV is key to the growth of any sport.
From curling to football and everything in between, the more eye balls you can get on live action or delayed highlights, the better.
I don’t know the details of why it happened but it was a huge disappointment when the live streaming of our recent Scottish Championship finals was cancelled at the last minute.
It was meant to have been on the BBC iplayer.
That was big blow.
For one of Scotland’s most successful team sports to not have their national championships streamed on a big TV channel was pretty disappointing.
It’s not so long ago that even if they were quite late at night, 10 or 11 o’clock, the highlights on a Sunday evening of the Scottish Championships on BBC 1 or BBC 2 were a big thing.
Of course, television has changed so much over the last decade.
But if you go to Canada, you won’t have to pay a penny extra to watch their national championships or the big Grand Slam events.
And, interestingly, TNS put the women’s and men’s championships on YouTube recently, which meant it increased their global reach, with people like me finding it far easier to watch.
What a difference that made.
Over here, if it’s free and people are told about it, it’s basic maths that viewing figures will go up and you get all the benefits that go with that.
Even in good times – especially in good times, actually – the country’s biggest sport should be showcased to everybody, not just to those who can afford to pay extra for subscription TV.
I would bet that most of the major football-playing nations will have their country’s games free to air.
We should absolutely be the same.
The Players Championship like to be known as ‘the fifth major’.
And a 50th anniversary is a great opportunity to give the TPC a real buzz.
But instead, all the attention is on who’s not at Sawgrass rather than who is.
The PGA Tour’s flagship event is missing its 2022 winner, Cameron Smith and two of the four reigning major champions, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm.
That’s a bad look.
There’s no doubt that the animosity has been taken out of the LIV Golf vs PGA Tour debate in recent months.
But I can’t be alone in thinking noise around regular tour golf – for both of them – is getting quieter and quieter.
Rory McIlroy, as he so often does, hit the nail on the head when he raised the prospect of the general sports fan – maybe even golf fan – “tuning in four weeks of the year for the majors”.
You could add the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup to that but the point he makes is a very worrying one.
If, or when, golf gets to a place where all the big players are at the big events, will it be too late to re-engage armchair viewers who have lost interest?
Conversation