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Twitter is holding discussions to acquire the UK digital streaming rights to the 2017 US PGA Championship, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Financial Times.
Securing the PGA Championship rights would be the first live-streamed major golf tournament for Twitter — it has only previously streamed smaller PGA golf tournaments.
The discussions are a blow to British broadcaster Sky, which has exclusively aired the event for the past 10 years. Additionally, the loss of rights present a hit as Sky recently announced the launch of a dedicated golf channel, and claimed itself as the “home of golf” in the announcement.
Here’s why the discussions being held between Twitter and the PGA are important:
- Twitter continues a year of its aggressive push to acquire sports content. In June, the company signed deals with the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) to stream 19 games, and the Canadian Football League to stream a weekly live show. Twitter can monetize this content through in-stream ads, which are ads run during live streamed events.
- This isn’t the only struggle Sky is facing with sports broadcasting. The Premier League, England's top soccer league, suffered the biggest decline in viewership on Sky TV in at least seven years, Financial Times reported earlier in June. This is not surprising as consumers continue to cut the cord in favor of digital platforms to consume video content.
- The potential reach of digital platforms could be what is luring the tournament away from Sky. PGA of America executive Jeff Price stated scale of distribution and reaching consumers through new platforms were areas of focus. This could signal that Price and PGA of America didn’t believe Sky's reach would be as effective as a platform like Twitter's, in reaching their targeted demographic. For reference, UK TV audience numbers for the Sky broadcasted final round of The Open Championship last year reached a high of 1 million. Twitter boasts 328 million monthly active users, with roughly 16 million being in the UK. It received between 2 million and 3.1 million viewers during its NFL games streamed last season. In the end, the PGA may look to sell rights to multiple digital platforms — like Facebook, YouTube, and Snap — as bigger reach ultimately makes the tournament more attractive to advertisers.
The causes behind the decline of live sports viewership are varied and complex. In addition to cyclical issues at play, sports programming is falling prey to the wealth of new content produced by the rise of new media platforms.
And as more and more TV viewers cut the cord, live sports content itself is moving off the TV screen and onto other devices.
Robert Elder, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on the digital disruption of live sports that:
- Assesses the evolving live sports landscape.
- Examines how ESPN's business model is threatened by the decline of live sports.
- Profiles the promising new players in the space.
- Looks at what's next for legacy broadcasters.
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