Q&A: New Media at the PGA Tour- December 2003  

Paul Johnson, vice-president of new media for the PGA Tour

In the latest article in a series of questions and answers with heads of the new media/interactive divisions of major US sports properties, Rachael Church, editor of Sport and Technology, spoke to Paul Johnson, vice president of new media at the PGA Tour.

What is the role of the PGA Tour New Media Division?

"We generally cover everything that's not old media, although radio falls within the group too. We focus on new platforms, new content development and new products. We also have the new enterprises piece within new media. So if the Tour is interested in newer businesses, we are constantly researching those opportunities. For example, our consumer database business sits inside of new media."

How have you been using technology to attract new fans to golf?

"There's a fundamental difference in our sport that gives us a great opportunity to serve the fans. The biggest thing is that a typical tournament is played over four days, 500 acres and players play concurrently for 10 hours each day. Two or three hours depending on the event are on television each day - 40 hours of competition of which 10 hours is on television. So right there is the biggest opportunity for PGA Tour in terms of following the action that can't be seen on television. We bring technology to bear in trying to address that opportunity. We also have an initiative called Shot Link that collects the exact location of every single shot in a golf tournament to within inches. Every course is mapped and every golf ball mapped where it lands so we have a myriad of information that creates live scoring but also goes much deeper. Shot Link's first year of implementation has been 2003 although the product has been in development for three or four years. It creates a wealth of information that allows us to deliver information to the golf fan in many ways, the first way being integration in the telecast allowing commentators to use statistics that historically weren't available before."

Have you introduced any other new technologies to enhance golf for the spectator?

"One of the recently tested uses of new technology was to overlay some data on top of the video that fans were looking at. An analogy has been drawn with the first and 10 line in [American] football. We did the same thing in golf and call it Virtual Caddying where graphics can be put on top of the visual green. Shot Charts were also used earlier in the year showing dots of where shots were actually hit and where players made birdies and bogies. So we have seen the introduction of quite heavy-technology enhancements to the game."

Are such enhancements typically developed by the PGA Tour?

Tour Cast

Are you using such deep data on your website as well and in your wireless technologies?

"Yes we are. Our vision is to put the Shot Link data engine out across multiple platforms. It's already out on television, it's out on pgatour.com - a form of it powers our live scoring. It also powers an application called Tour Cast which is a graphic representation of a golf course and will animate players' shots on a graphic of the hole that you are looking at. This complements the use of video - each has different uses. Tour Cast does not have a video component but gets a lot of traffic from outside the telecast window. We also see a lot of traffic within the telecast window because we assume a lot of households are looking at their television and computer at the same time. You can't beat the telecast for telling the story, but this is a nice complement. We use the same data to power a WAP side where you can not only get leaderboard and other statistics but also get what we call text play-by-play of each golfer. So if you follow Tiger Woods, it'll tell you what he's doing shot by shot. It works great on a Palm or a device with that kind of screen, although it's a little more difficult on a cellphone."

Is uptake of the WAP service encouraging thus far and do you charge for it?

"Uptake is pretty good. It's clearly targeted at a couple of audiences - the hardcore fan that is displaced, perhaps at an airport, or anybody with a favourite player. The mobile service is free - a registration service. There is a subscription service on pgatour.com to get the Tour Cast application and some video and audio elements and that's $9.95 per month or an annual rate of $59.95."

Is the traffic on your site largely from a male audience and has the success of Annika Sorenstam increased female interest in golf?

"It's interesting. Our site demographics compare favourably with any high-end demographic - well-educated, high-income, often vice-president level. Online it's still predominantly male - 80%. However, we have seen very strong growth in the female segment of our audience although it is growing off a small percentage. Since 1998, women as a segment has grown 240%, which is impressive and we see an attendance at tournaments of around 35% which makes sense as it is a family activity. There's been a lot of discussion around Annika playing the PGA Tour this year and it's been great. Our traffic went up a lot during her particular event - the Colonial - actually it was off the charts. It did a couple of things - it definitely attracted the regular golf audience in a big way and it did cross over and attract some people who may otherwise not have tuned in. It has helped women's golf and it has helped men's golf."

How do you make money from pagtour.com apart from subscriptions?

"It has been a sponsorship-driven business primarily and the website has always been profitable from the beginning which is a positive financial metric. We introduced the subscription products in 2003 and that diversified the revenue a little bit and we do see that growing significantly over time. We also have grown the e-commerce stream quite a bit this year. Sponsorship will always be the biggest earner though in my opinion as the website demographic is so powerful and attractive to sponsors. We have an interesting combination of sponsors on the site who are partners of the PGA Tour and external ones through our partnership with SportsLine - they go out to the rest of the world and sell additional sponsorship and advertising for the site."

Do you have any image rights issues with players on the Tour?

Which technology will have the greatest impact on the PGA Tour in the future?

"The Shot Link application will open up a lot of doors for us in the future as we will have all this data that we can exploit on all the platforms. That's my number one in the long term. In the short to medium term, high definition will be very powerful - probably more powerful for us than any other sport because it will provide a very clear image of a golf ball and a golf course. That will be fantastic for our sport, there's no question of that. Ultimately interactive television, wherever it happens, it will also be powerful for us as our sport has more going on than can ever possibly be covered in a telecast. To me, because of the sheer wealth of information, either the television platform or the internet platform, or both if they converge, offer great promise for us."

The next Q&A will feature Keith Ritter, President of NHL Interactive Cyber Enterprises.

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