CBS leadership ‘loved’ Justin Thomas’ explosive golf TV letter

On Tuesday morning Justin Thomas delivered an unusual message to his PGA Tour counterparts, imploring players to give more “access and insight” to PGA Tour telecasts in a two-page letter distributed to the membership.

And on Tuesday afternoon, CBS Sports delivered an unusual message in return.

“We loved what we read,” CBS Sports president David Berson told GOLF.com. “We’re fans of it. We’ve been pushing for it for a long time. We love that JT is willing to put his neck out there and take a leadership position.”

Berson, who succeeded legendary CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus in April, was effusive in his praise of Thomas’ letter, offering the kind of explicit endorsement from a network executive typically reserved for only a handful of golf headlines each year. Perhaps the setting helped: Berson’s words came as CBS entered final preparations for the start of its 2025 season at the Farmers Insurance Open on Wednesday.

“He sees how other sports have innovated. He sees how golf is innovated, and by the way, we’ve done more than most,” Berson said. “As Jim [Nantz] just said, innovation is really, really hard to do in golf, and JT sees an opportunity here.”

Thomas’ letter was the latest sign of change in golf television, fueling a storyline that has clouded the start of the 2025 golf season. The issue is an audience exodus driven by the Saudi intrusion, and the numbers are bleak. The PGA Tour lost nearly one-fifth of its average audience size on CBS and NBC in 2024 (down more than 15 percent from the year prior), a decline far outpacing other sports, even if the Tour’s numbers are 10 times as large as its opponents at LIV.

Executives for both the Tour and the networks have insisted they aren’t concerned by the audience developments, but their actions indicate otherwise. In the waning months of 2024, the Tour launched a pilot program to experiment with new broadcast changes in real-time and directly source audience feedback.

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Thomas referenced the results of the pilot program in his letter to membership, pointing out that “on-course personality” was the highest-ranked driver of interest among golf fans in the coveted 18-34 demographic, and suggesting that his Tour counterparts look inward to brainstorm solutions to improve the TV product that might work with them.

“I’m not asking anybody to be somebody they aren’t,” Thomas wrote. “Instead, just be open to possibilities and changes.”

The lion’s share of audience fatigue is driven by golf’s dilution in an era with two tours and only five star-filled weeks per year, but those are not the only issues with the Tour product. Rather, they are like lighter fluid poured over the intrinsic issues addressed in Thomas’ letter: a prevailing attitude of media apathy and self-interest among players that has undermined the overall entertainment value of golf.

The upside of increased access is obvious — more interest leads to more viewers, which leads to more money — but Thomas is a powerful voice in this context because of his experience with the opposite. Back in 2019, NBC hot mics caught Thomas uttering a homophobic slur after a missed putt, a scandal that resulted in the two-time major champ losing a handful of his biggest sponsors. The symbolism in his plea for players to lean in wasn’t lost on golf’s Tour membership.

“The more I think about it, the more I feel us giving more access and insight can make a WORLD of difference,” Thomas wrote. “While we may (at least I know I do) think it’s not that important or interesting, our fans do.”

It will not be hard for Thomas to align his incentives with the networks. As Berson, the CBS chief, pointed out, Thomas is one of several pros who recently became partial owners of the Tour. Much like Berson, the better Thomas’ product performs, the better his investment.

“They’re now equity owners,” Berson said. “It’s interesting how when you suddenly have a piece of it, you have a slightly different perspective on the sport. Instead of using [innovation] as a disadvantage because people complain about the pace, it’s an advantage in that we can insert more of it into the actual telecast.”

Thomas’ involvement in TV matters comes as golf’s latest TV experiment enters a crucial stretch in the calendar. After two strong opening weeks, the TGL entered the meat of its first season with Thomas and the Atlanta Drive starring in the action on Tuesday evening. The conversation around the primetime, simulator golf league has been mixed, but it has proved a powerful training ground for several golf television innovations, like mid-round interviews and a shot clock.

CBS Golf lead producer Sellers Shy has been carefully watching the reaction. Shy is an innovator in his own right, rolling out a series of changes that have quickly become full-time fixtures of golf TV in his three years on the job. As just the third person to hold the lead producer role at CBS in the last 60 years, Shy is a keen golf historian. Thomas’ message, he says, is rare.

“It’s twofold,” Shy said. “First, to have JT, who carries a big voice out on Tour, to have him take a stand. And then for all the future stars to say ‘we’ll listen to that, and we’ll read that, and we’ll get on board.’ With the weight that JT’s voice carries, I think you’ll see more players get on board.”