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BBC Secures Rights to Broadcast PGA Championship

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Recently, it was reported that golf fans in the United Kingdom and Ireland would not be able to watch the PGA Championship later this month. Now, however, a solution has been hatched by the U.K. programming.

Fans will now be able to watch the last major championship of the year after BBC came to an agreement with the PGA of America for the exclusive viewing rights in their broadcast area. The rights to show the PGA Championship in the U.K. had previously belonged to Sky Sports before their contract had run out.

This will be the first time that BBC has had rights to a PGA golf event in several years. PGA of America Chief Commercial Officer, Jeff Price, said they made the change to reach a more broad audience. “It was a multi-year deal that was up,” Price said, “Ultimately one of the key things for us is scale of distribution and obviously with all the new platforms that consumers are ­engaging with, we want to make sure we reach all of them.

A general of the BBC sign at BBC Broadcasting House at Portland Place…

A general of the BBC sign at BBC Broadcasting House at Portland Place on July 19, 2017 in London, England. The BBC will publish the pay of its top earning employees today as part of the corporation’s… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

While BBC gained the rights to broadcast the PGA Championship across the United Kingdom, that will be the only major golf event that the station will have a live broadcast of. All other major championships, as well as other PGA TOUR and European Tour events, will continue to be with the Sky Sports Network.

By taking a major championship away from Sky Sports, BBC seems to have rekindled a golf broadcasting rivalry. This is the first time that a tournament has switched networks in multiple years, after Sky Sports took events from BBC. The rivalry is already heating up, with St. Andrews’ Chief Executive, Martin Slumbers, bashing the BBC and how they cover sporting events, believing Sky is the better option by far.

British and Irish fans have to be relieved that they will be able to watch the PGA Championship but it will be interesting to see if this fight for golf broadcasts between Sky Sports and the BBC gets any more intense in the coming months.


Cover Image via Flickr

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