The announcement of the PGA Tour, DP Tour and LIV Golf merger on Tuesday morning was a major surprise to not only fans and golfers themselves, but also to PGA media partners.
Reports from Front Office Sports indicate that NBC, Golf Channel, CBS and ESPN were all blindsided when the news broke.
“We are still learning more about the PGA Tour-LIV-DP World Tour announcement and look forward to discussing the announcement and its implications with our partners,” an NBC Sports spokesperson said.
While the key points of the merger are an end to ongoing lawsuits over the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and peace among the three tours, details of how the media landscape will be affected by the merger are unclear.
For the remainder of the 2023 season, it appears nothing is going to change. The PGA events will continue to air across their four partner networks and their platforms, while LIV will carry on airing the final two rounds of their 2023 tournaments live on The CW.
NBC and CBS are paying $700 million annually for the rights to PGA Tour events, while ESPN pays $75 million to be the home of PGA Tour Live. The Worldwide Leader also has exclusive deals with Augusta National Golf Club to carry the first two rounds of The Masters each spring, while having a similar deal for the PGA Championship.
