NEW YORK — Discovery and the PGA Tour today announced a strategic alliance aimed at creating a multiplatform home for golf that will present fans around the world with access to exciting moments, players and championships.
“The long-term partnership between the PGA Tour and Discovery will create the new global home of golf, including delivering over 2,000 hours of live content year-round and this prestigious sport’s greatest moments, stories and athletes,” said David Zaslav, president and CEO, of Discovery.
The 12-year relationship, which begins next year, includes multiplatform live rights outside the United States, to all PGA Tour media properties, which account for about 2,000 hours of content per year, according to a joint announcement. Those properties include six tours operating under the PGA Tour umbrella and about 150 tournaments each year, including The Players Championship, the FedExCup Playoffs and the Presidents Cup.
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Discovery will spend more than $2 billion over 12 years to license PGA Tour international media rights and build a global OTT platform outside the United States. The alliance also covers linear rights in 220 markets and territories, it said.
“Following our successful first Olympic Games in PyeongChang, Discovery will contribute its strong global distribution and promotional infrastructure, in-market relationships, global sports expertise with direct-to-consumer platforms and brands to create a valuable new long-term home of golf offering in every market outside the U.S.,” said Zaslav.
The alliance will build a dedicated PGA Tour-branded OTT video streaming service, leveraging Discovery’s direct-to-consumer product and platform expertise, to be home to the Eurosport Player.
Discovery also will broadcast the PGA Tour on its pay-TV and free-to-air channels as well as digital and short-form platforms. It will work with PGA Tour to capture access to the action and leverage the non-live and library rights for all media platforms.
“This is an exciting next step for the PGA Tour, which presents a tremendous opportunity to accelerate and expand our media business outside the United States, better service our international broadcast partners, and drive fan growth with a deeply experienced strategic global partner,” said Jay Monahan, commissioner, PGA Tour.
More information is available on the PGA Tour website.
