After a brief flirtation with the media rights market, the USGA realized its best move was to double down on its current relationship, signing a 6-year extension with NBC Universal and Versant that carries the network through 2032. According to Puck‘s John Ourand, the deal will have NBC paying in the “neighborhood” of the $93 million annual fee it signed with Fox Sports at the beginning of its last deal in 2013, though the exact nature of the fees and the breakdown between Versant (owner of Golf Channel and USA Network, among others) and NBC Universal remained uncertain at the time of publication.
The new deal marks a major development for each of the three parties involved, particularly after NBC and the USGA agreed to let the exclusive negotiating window expire earlier this year, opening the door for a handful of competitors to make serious pitches to the governing body. So, what should you know from the next chapter of this relationship? Let’s break down five things.
5. Staying Together
NBC has been in the driver’s seat to win this USGA rights bid for a couple of months, but this was hardly a sure thing. The USGA had interest from ESPN and, according to Puck, Netflix also made a strong push.
For the USGA, there have always been considerations beyond media rights dollars. The governing body is committed to its initiative to grow the game, and those efforts include showcasing each of its USGA Championships in front of considerable audiences. The decision to stay with NBC reflects the intrinsic audience value that linear TV still provides, and the benefit that familiarity plays in delivering on the USGA’s underlying mission.
Don’t discredit the role collaboration played in the eventual decision to re-sign with the USGA, either. NBC and the USGA worked to cut down TV commercials at the U.S. Open and expand the broadcast window and scope at the U.S. Women’s Open in 2024 and 2025 — to say nothing of providing the USGA with an off-ramp from the fledgling Fox deal in ’20 — and those goodwill gestures were not lost on USGA brass.
4. Fox Finality
There was always some lingering weirdness about the USGA’s last TV deal. While Fox put forth an A-rated telecast, there were concerns about ROI from the second Fox signed the 12-year, $1.1 billion pact in 2013. NBC’s return to the fold in 2020 provided a graceful off-ramp, but the networks brokered a sweetheart deal for NBC to take the final six years of the agreement. That left some awkwardness for NBC and the USGA during the last few years, particularly as NBC worked through some financial considerations of its own as it restructured its broadcast.
For a few months after the exclusive negotiating window expired, some in the industry whispered that the USGA would have to take a significant pay cut on its next TV deal to make up for the Fox morass — a fact that USGA CEO Mike Whan dismissed directly in his U.S. Open state of the state.
“Obviously, we’re committed to pretty significant investments back into the game, and one of the benefits of that investment is a good TV partner,” Whan said. “But we’re going to look for somebody that can deliver at the levels or better than we’re delivering now, and through that partnership, [a partner who] enables us not just to tell the U.S. Open story or the U.S. Women’s Open story, but some of these incredible amateur stories as well.”
Now, with the previous deal firmly off the books and the USGA’s investment locked up through the beginning of the next decade, each of the parties can move forward with a clean slate.
3. First-Timers
An unusual offshoot of the USGA deal is the role played by Versant, the new cable company recently spun off from Comcast that includes USA Network and Golf Channel. While the structure of the new USGA deal is more or less the same as the previous deal — USA Network and Golf Channel will act as cable subsidiaries for certain USGA events and early-week U.S. Open coverage, just as they did in the past — the deal marked the first major rights agreement for Versant since the company’s formation.
The familiar structure of the new agreement likely greased the skids for the negotiation, but the lawyers for each side were likely very careful to make sure negotiations happened independently and in good faith, lest they run afoul of U.S. antitrust law (regulators pay close attention to companies in the aftermath of spinoffs). In the end, the new deal gives an additional hour to NBC on Thursday and Friday afternoon at the U.S. Open, early-week coverage of the U.S. and U.S. Women’s to USA Network, and Golf Channel the U.S. Senior Open and eight other USGA events.
2. Term Limits
The six-year deal represents a modest shift down in the term of pro golf TV rights contracts, where (generally speaking) networks like longer-term and governing bodies like shorter-term. A lot of that is likely owed to the upheaval in the sports TV business, where TV deals seem to multiply in value every few months. For the USGA, another 12-year agreement might have eaten into their revenue projections if they missed another quantum leap in the value of sports TV rights.
Some of the shift may be owed to the upheaval in the golf business, too. It wasn’t long ago that NBC and CBS signed dual 10-year TV rights agreements in 2020, only to see stars like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm walk out the door for a competitive product just a handful of years later. With the PGA Tour deal up in 2030, the 6-year pact gives NBC an off-ramp if they need it. Thankfully, there’s no indication that’s the case: Ratings have rebounded on the PGA Tour, and the enthusiasm around the Tour product is at its highest level in years. Still, with an extra dose of caution, it’s easy to see why 6 years felt like a reasonable term.
1. Big Bets
NBC eventually came back around to the U.S. Open for a simple reason: It is the second-biggest tournament in golf, and golf continues to be a worthy investment. The agreement gives NBC a flagship golf event for each of the next six years, and after executive producer Sam Flood’s reset, the network appears to be headed in the right direction.
“We saw what happened when the USGA came back to NBC [after a short-lived stint on FOX] — we saw how the USGA got elevated again to where it belongs as the premier events involved,” Flood told GOLF in June. “That’s what our company’s about, and that’s what our production team does. The business side is, I’m in the fun side of the business. The business guys can do the business, but from a production perspective, we know we make everything we touch better.”
