In this day and age of always-on coverage it seems incredulous that the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am has such a backwards coverage plan. In addition to our already-noted lack of any online streaming coverage, the TV broadcast on Sunday started with live coverage on the Golf Channel — and then just as things started heating up, there was a half-hour blackout. Unbelieveable.
Though I understand that programming schedules need to be set well in advance of the actual tournament, Sunday’s by-chance heavyweight pairing of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson — simply two of the best golfers, ever — should have prompted either the Golf Channel (owned by NBC) or CBS to pre-empt whatever was going on between 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time and Noon to show Phil and Tiger trying for eagles on No. 6.
It’s a minor blip that will be forgotten but perhaps a good lesson for other events down the line — don’t leave yourself the victim of your own schedules or planning. A good online streaming strategy would go a long way to keeping the number of fans who are going to be lost for a half-hour today.
The delay is now 40 minutes and counting, because CBS is staying with a Big Ten hoops game that is going past the scheduled golf start. What a massive fail for golf fans today. A match for the ages on one of the world’s great courses… and we are watching Michigan and Illinois trade timeouts.
Argh now 17 minutes overage… Unbelievable
Here’s Stephanie Wie with a link to how many people the Golf Channel and CBS p’od…
http://www.weiunderpar.com/post/numbers-dont-lie-tiger-and-phil-move-the-needle
That was pretty crazy. Well, don’t forget what is up next – the Mayakoba Golf Classic on the beautiful Riviera Maya in Mexico will be airing Feb 22-26. See Greg Norman, Johnson Wagner and Nick Price among others. Check out the website for more information, details and news. http://bit.ly/ze2c0t