CBS’s longstanding partnership with the Masters (rightly) deserves praise as golf TV’s most prominent handshake deal, but it’s certainly not the only An.
NBC’s partnership with the Ryder Cup has lasted three decades, and on Monday afternoon the network and the PGA of America announced it would move on to a fourth, announcing a media rights extension that will extend through the 2033 Ryder Cup at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.
The partnership expansion – which included a companion agreement with USA Sports, the current owners/operators of Golf Channel – extends the PGA of America’s longstanding partnership with NBC, the network that played a significant role in building the Ryder Cup from one of golf’s proudest exhibitions to a commercial and economic behemoth capable of two of golf’s major governing bodies, the PGA of America and the DP World Tour.
Few golf fans know that the Ryder Cup owes a debt of gratitude to the golfing friends of Major League Baseball and its network partners at NBC for injecting a jolt of energy and financial viability into the event. After all, it was former MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti who opened the door for the Ryder Cup on NBC by splitting from the network in the winter of 1988 – and it was NBC who seized the new opportunity by signing a smart Ryder Cup deal in 1990, paving the way for the famous War on the coast to capture the hearts and minds of golf fans across the country, dramatically increasing the economic impact of the Cup.
If GOLF.com A newcomer to Dick Ebersol’s NBC Sports department, first profiled in 2023, he was the first network executive to see the Ryder Cup’s potential as a TV venture. His name was Jon Miller, and he sensed an opportunity in NBC’s golf coverage. At the time, the network had a lot of PGA Tour broadcasts, but no major championships. While not a “major” in the traditional sense of the word, the Ryder Cup provided many of the components that made for compelling golf (and sports) television: two heated rivals, a pesky group of American underdogs, and a vaunted collection of European villains who had won three consecutive editions of the Cup.
The cup Also had something compelling for NBC: a shortage of traditional TV partners capable of NBC’s broad cultural impact. The potential partnership benefited both sides of the negotiating table: a new TV property for Ebersol’s (suddenly beleaguered) sports department, and a new TV partner for the PGA of America.
Ebersol loved Miller’s idea, and it didn’t take long for the contract to be in ink. When the American team won in dramatic fashion the following fall at Kiawah Island, the Cup was a sporting sensation and NBC’s agreement was written ink into stone.
While NBC’s domain on the Cup may not be considered as ironclad or as expansive as CBS’s on the Masters (which will play a major role) seventh decade in 2026), the network and the PGA of America have maintained a close relationship in the decades since that first Ryder Cup. While the rights to the Ryder Cup could go anywhere – especially as a one-off event with enormous commercial potential – it is a testament to the strength of the relationship and the residual goodwill from that first leap in 1990 that NBC remains the partner of choice.
For NBC, the announcement offers an interesting insight into the latest form of the network’s golf partnerships, which have come under increasing scrutiny as Peacock continues to add sports programming to its truckload. NBC’s growth strategy in the streaming age appears to be based on the power of sports television rights, which have proven to be one of the few consistent vectors of attention in an increasingly fragmented media economy — and the explosion of new rights to NBC (including, ironically, the return of Major League Baseball) has led some to question the long-term viability of golf on the network.
The PGA of America deal gives NBC the rights to the Cup through 2033, one year after NBC’s existing deal with the USGA, which will provide U.S. Open coverage through 2032, and three years after the network’s existing deal with the PGA Tour, which ends in 2030.
#PGA #America #NBC #extended #media #rights #agreement