You know what they say: if you don’t like the company at one of the big TV partners of Golf, wait five minutes.
Of course we speak (somewhat) Tongue in the cheek. The Golf TV activities have not only been one of the most stable environments in sport in the last decade, the network partners have also been some of the most stable companies in sport. The partners of the PGA Tour at CBS, NBC, ESPN and Golf Channel have changed in recent decades in recent decades, but in the large boiler of the media company they are the image of the consistency companies under the mainly stable ownership, mainly stable profit results.
Until the summer of 2025. While the dust settled at the last major championship of the 825 golf season, the Scuttlebutt only only started on a handful of the biggest movements for Golf’s TV Partners in the past decade. One by one, each of the most important partners of Golf quietly explained the parameters for a great shift in their way of affairs or life (with the remarkable exception of Liv’s partners at Fox Sports, whose heel changes would deal with Barrstool-Sports, I would neither “silent” nor “Major” in the wider schedule of their company)
Now that the golf season is declining and the FedEx Cup play-offs are still waiting for the horizon, we let each of those partners attack and explain a little more about the changes in the neighborhood, starting with the most high-profile shift of the bunch: CBS.
4 golf -tv networks that undergo major changes in 2025
1. CBS
If you are a fan of Certain Late-Night Television ComedyshowsYou may have heard about the biggest change that comes to CBS and his parent network, Paramount. After a 2-1 mood of the Federal Trade Commission last Thursday (and many months of Salacious Headlines about negotiations between owner Shari Redstone and the White House), Paramount and CBS were officially taken over by Skydance, the Film-en-TV-Production empathy that is owned by David Ellison).
Skydance paid $ 8 billion to the acquisition, and Ellison then spoke about a call with investors about the forms of CBS and Paramount to serve as a motorcycle for the modern media ecosystem combining Skydance’s success as a tech-forward production house with paramount’s legendary intellectual reach. Practically, the Skydance acquisition makes it better equipped to compete with deep pocket streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon, who have used huge amounts of cash and much deeper technical know-how to stream traditional media companies in the race.
Understand Why Skydance has bought CBS and Paramount, you have to understand the battlefield on which the streaming wars are currently being fought.
- In a corner you have Netflix, the Belle of the Ball, which achieves more money and more content on a better technical pile than any media company ever. Netflix has more subscribers than most remaining streamers together, and every time Ted Sarandos Niest, it adds a few billion dollars to his market hood. But how does Netflix use that insane benefit? With thousands of micro-oriented singles, but little or no, wide adjacent home runs. In other words, Netflix tries not to win the war with the atomic bomb, but with Napalm.
- In a different angle you have the rest of New-Tech: your apples and amazons, which spend almost as much on a tech stack almost as well as those of Netflix, but they have found to deliver blockbusters, cannot be gamed or algorithm to exist. They have hit singles and home runs … but also have one ton from whiffs. In other words, their bombs are effective, but they still have not learned GPS.
- And then, in the trenches, you have your old Hollywood-Barrons: your peacocks and HBOs and-je-je paramounts, who have spent fortunes building in general terrible technology, but have the institutional know-how and intellectual property to make their content touch on average And For power. This group, the old guard, has been hit because streaming has shifted from Hollywood to Tech, so much so that they have routinely obtained their own hit (The office, grabetc.) To the Tech streamers just to lose fewer Money in streaming – a practice that has contributed to losing the old guard more Money when streaming in the long term. These guys fall large bombs and small, but they still come out how to prevent them from blowing up their own planes while they do it.
If you are a pessimist, you believe that the old guard is on its way to the wooden chipper as soon as the technology has finished optimizing any bureaucratic bloat and inefficiency. If you are an optimist, you believe that the old guard still has the chance to compete (if not winning) in the streaming wars … If it can be transformed to maintain his great strength for creative content and to lose his great liability for horrible technology and leg -headed operational decisions.
In the meantime you may have discovered that David Ellison of Skydance is an optimist. By buying Paramount and CBS, Ellison gambles that he can use his technical background to use Paramount’s IP and the audience of CBS and create a real streaming competitor that exists between Old-Hollywood and New-Tech. It is a daring bet and a considerable organizational change for Old-Hollywood CBS but it reflects Ellison’s core optimism about the role that CBS can play in the future of media, with CBS sports in the middle of the puzzle.
All That is a long way to say that CBS Sports remains critical Important piece of the larger Skydance activities. The value of the CBS sports name, both as a money maker and a public generator, will be crucial for the efforts of Skydance to transform the company while retaining the power of the public. If Skydance can benefit from the built -in balance benefits of CBS Sports, while the enormous audience from the sports department to streaming and new content is being urged, they can have their cake and also eat it.
It is a big gamble, but make no mistake, the Golf Properties of CBS are in the middle of it. The entire calculus shifts without sport.
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2. Golf canal
Many saw writing on the Wall when Comcast announced the establishment of a new spin-off company-store with the name Versant-that the vast majority of his decreasing but-still-winnetitive cableactiva would cost. Comcast/NBC may like golf canal – hell, they could Love Golf canal – But now it was time for the Golf Canal to continue.
For Comcast/NBC, the decision was strategic: cable TV dies slowly and it was logical for Comcast to turn off its cable assets, while those assets were still profitable. For Golf Channel, the decision was a rare win-win: Comcast/NBC was much too great to spend a lot of time by carefully modernizing and switching a small cable channel such as golf channel for the streaming age. Although Golf Channel still attracted a big win and PGA Tour public, the network could use the power of his company to position the future (under a new, beautiful business monolith).
Now, while the golf season is changing into trap, that transition is well on its way, with the company logo of Versant even appearing on Rory’s golf bag during the open championship at Royal Portush. Golf Canal will retain much of the same look and talent as before, and the new parent company will also be led by a familiar face: Golf-Lover (and old NBC Sports Exec) Mark Lazarus.
It is difficult to say exactly how the strategy can change for a golf channel under new ownership. (Could it be running to running a hybrid digital/temporary employment company, benefit from his Tour broadcasting rights to double short video content? Can it turn back to something that looks like traditional traditional broadcast company of Golf Channel in the days before moving to Stamford? KNAPP and New LPGA CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG CRAIG?) Lottie Woad’s first LPGA Win on CNBC in a spontaneous way On Sunday afternoon.
These are the kind of efficiency that Versant can now concentrate on with a clear head, and with Woad on Sunday, Golffans came out the clear winners.
3. NBC
The other half of this incredibly amicable disintegration, NBC, has questions to consider in the world after the golf channel. First, according to a report last week The Wall Street JournalNBC would like to look again to restart in the world channel world, the restart of the NBC Sports Network (or something) when pursuing a place between NBC and Peacock to accommodate his many hours of live sports coverage.
For NBC, the decision would have a major advantage in the short term, making a new option for cable bundlerers including the NBA of the network, the Olympic Games, Indycar, Horse Racing and Golf Rights, while protecting the disadvantage of the network to lose Money for sport should not gain Peacock’s growth fast enough. From where I am, it seems like a no-brainer decision to groove a fastball for people who are still struggling with a shift to streaming. Peacock will always be there when the cable days are ready.
4. ESPN
ESPN announced the establishment of a new platform that calls it ‘ESPN”Earlier this summer. This was, to burn out media reporters due to streamer names such as” Oonu “and” Goober “, highly appreciated. It was also deeply deliberately.
The “new” ESPN, a direct-to-consumer, a $ 30 subscription per month, represents ESPN’s bet for the future. It is a comprehensive range that fans can buy to get ESPN and only ESPN and all From ESPN, when they want it.
The goal for the network is to put on string cutters who still like live sports, but that are not interested in buying a cable package to view them. With the ESPN DTC app, those fans can get everything that a normal viewer would receive with their cable account for about half the price. Streaming options, such as those available on ESPN+, will be included in the new offer, which gives fans the opportunity to look, for example 100 hours of PGA Tour Live in the same app that they consume ESPN’s College Football broadcasts and between commercials in ESPN’s studio shows.
For ESPN, the DTC platform is a chance to view in a world after cable -TV. And although $ 30/month may sound steep, for sports enthusiasts who have already cut the cord, it can represent the perfect type of bargain. There is only one way to find out.
;)
James Colgan
Golf.com -edor
James Colgan is a news and plays editor at Golf, who writes stories for the website and the magazine. He manages the hot mic, golf’s media vertical and uses his experience on the camera on the brand platforms. Before he came to Golf, James graduated from Syracuse University, during which time he was a Caddy Scholarship receiver (and astute looper) on Long Island, where he comes from. He can be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.
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