--PGA Extends Deal with Turner Sports, Tennis Channel Taps NeuLion for New Portal
The PGA of America and Turner Sports announced Thursday that they have extended their broadcasting and interactive media agreements covering the PGA Championship, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, and the PGA.com Web site through 2019. Among other things, the extended deal will see Turner's Cartoon Network Enterprises arm serving as the PGA's licensing agent for the youth market, and will see Turner and the PGA collaborating on a number of interactive/social media initiatives designed to increase the PGA's brand recognition among key audiences and to introduce new, younger audiences to learning, playing and following golf.
Among the extended partnership's interactive media-related elements:
- Turner will continue to manage the PGA's official Web site, PGA.com, and be responsible for its advertising sales, as well as for new mobile offerings and applications.
- Turner will be responsible for developing an "enhanced PGA.com community," where users will be able to connect with friends, family, other golfers and PGA professionals to organize rounds of golf, schedule lessons, track their playing stats or plan golf vacations.
- Turner and the PGA will explore the development of a "virtual learning experience" where users will be able to interact with a PGA professional online, in order to receive game tips, analysis and feedback.
"The PGA of America, Turner Sports and Time Warner have been longtime partners in presenting state-of-the-art digital media coverage of the best in championship golf to millions of fans, elevating the stature of our more than 28,000 men and women PGA professionals," PGA of America CEO, Joe Steranka, said in a prepared statement. "While Turner will continue to showcase the PGA's tradition of dramatic championships, we're especially excited about new initiatives in the company's licensing division and the creation of social media platforms that will help us make the game relevant and interesting to the next generation of golfers."
In other news at the intersection of sports and interactive media: Tennis Channel and Neulion have launched a free-to-view broadband video portal dubbed Tennis Channel TV (tennis-channel.tv). The portal features both live and on-demand video, including match coverage, highlights, interviews and archive content. According to the companies, the portal's video player--which offered live streaming of last month's French Open championship--allows users to watch live matches on up to five courts simultaneously, access archived matches and other on-demand content, conduct searches, and interact with other users through chat. Neulion's technology supports advertising insertion and pre-roll ads in order to monetize the portal, the companies say (note: sponsors include Capital One). "Tennis Channel's mission has always been to bring as much tennis as possible to fans, wherever they may be, and NeuLion helps us deliver that promise online with a digital quality that's second to none," Robyn Miller, Tennis Channel's SVP of marketing, said in a prepared statement. "Our Web video activity during the French Open was the highest in network history--with the video player driving 30% of our traffic and more than 2 million streams, and viewers averaging 17 minutes of video time--and we're excited to partner with them for other competitions." According to the companies, Tennis Channel TV will provide coverage of the US Open, Australian Open, and Wimbledon championships, in addition to the French Open.
