On Tuesday’s Fore Play podcast from Barstool Sports, it was announced that the company will be providing live broadcast coverage of the NV5 Invitational from Glenview, IL streaming on Barstool.TV from July 27 – July 30, 2023. The coverage will last for three hours each day.
A deal between the tournament and Barstool began with a discussion on Fore Play. The hosts wanted to see expanded coverage of golf tours around the world that weren’t the PGA.
“We wish we could watch more Korn Ferry Tour and understand the stories, so we’re just doing it,” podcast co-host Sam “Riggs” Bozoian said. “It’s going to be incredibly fun. I’m very nervous. It’s going to be nerve-racking.”
The current plan for the broadcast will be to have Bozoian, Jake Marsh and one additional person in the broadcast booth, which will be located in the main tower. Dan Rapaport, who addressed the news on Tuesday’s edition of the podcast, will roam around the course and bring his insight and expertise to viewers. Trent Ryan and Frankie Borrelli will also be on the ground with a camera and microphone, bringing a unique perspective to the tour. Kirk Minihane will also be part of the broadcast, along with a variety of other Barstool Sports personalities.
“We speak a lot about how Corn Ferry Tour and the grind and the struggle and that side of golf doesn’t get enough coverage,” Bozoian said. “It doesn’t get enough coverage from us… We’re going to broadcast it; we’re going to highlight it.”
“We talk a lot about complaints that we have about coverage, so we’re going to try to fix it all ourselves,” Rapaport added. “We have some really, really exciting things planned beyond just your normal three hours of coverage where we talk about shots. We’re going to show off these guys’ personalities. We’re going to do some fun things that we’ve wanted to be done in broadcasts before that we haven’t been able to get our message across because we haven’t had the levers of control.”
Bozoian expressed hesitation regarding going through with the plan to broadcast the NV5 Invitational, and he knows it is going to take an immense amount of hard work and dedication to pull it off. Nonetheless, he and his colleagues with the podcast know broadcasting live sporting events has been a step Barstool Sports as a company has taken, specifically over the last calendar year.
The company broadcast a college basketball invitational, a college football bowl game and continues to produce compelling and engaging content across multiple platforms, garnering a sizable following. Now, it looks to take the next step by making history with this latest endeavor – presenting a golf tournament through its streaming platform en masse.
“You need a certain amount of almost cockiness to believe that you can actually just [say], ‘Oh yeah, we’re just going to broadcast a live golf tournament, no problem,’” Bozoian said. “I think I’m humble enough to realize that that ain’t easy, and we’re going to have to put an amazing amount of work into this.”
