Sky secures USGA extension, but is it set to lose DP World Tour and Ryder Cup?

After a sensational season of USGA Championships across the men's, women's and amateur games, the USGA and Sky have today announced a new deal for Sky to be the broadcaster of all USGA Championships to the UK and Ireland audience until 2030. This extension takes the partnership between Sky and the USGA through 40 years, with Sky Sports first showing the US Open in 1991, as Payne Stewart defeated Scott Simpson at Hazeltine National.

Sky and the United States Golf Association (USGA) have announced a five-year broadcast extension that will see Sky Sports and NOW remain the exclusive home of the U.S. Open Championship in the UK and Ireland until the end of 2030, the press release read.

Continuing on, the press release stated that 'The new partnership includes the next five editions of both the U.S. Open, the third of the four men’s major championships, and the U.S. Women’s Open, the oldest of the LPGA Tour’s five majors. Sky Sports will continue to show live coverage of the U.S Amateur Championship and U.S Women's Amateur Championship, the U.S Senior Open, and the prestigious Curtis Cup match between the United States and Great Britain and Ireland'.

The release concluded by saying 'Sky Sports is the home of golf in the UK and Ireland, showcasing the sports’ biggest moments all year round, including all four men’s majors and all five women’s majors exclusively live. Fans can also enjoy coverage of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LPGA Tour, and Ladies European Tour, alongside team events such as the Solheim Cup and this year’s highly anticipated Ryder Cup in September', but for how much longer?

A new deal for the DP World Tour in the USA and UK and Ireland has yet to be announced, and as I speculated on earlier this year, the DP World Tour may look to refresh itself with a new broadcast partnership with a partner better suited to reach their target demographic.

Aside from the likes of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, Genesis Scottish Open, BMW PGA Championship and maybe the Irish Open, Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and DP World Tour Championship, the audiences for the DP World Tour are small and getting smaller. Sky's priority for quite some time has been the PGA TOUR, and a move to a new broadcast partner could see the tour relaunch itself in many ways.

This could also mean the end of the Ryder Cup on Sky.

This September marks 30 years of Sky showing the Ryder Cup, and they haven't just shown it, they have invested in it, and helped make it the worldwide spectacular that we know and love today. 34 years ago, when Europe and the United States battled in the 'War on the Shore' at Kiawah Island, BBC's Ryder Cup coverage schedule looked like this:

Friday

BBC 1 - 1.50pm-2.15pm including live coverage of a horse race

BBC 2 - 2.15pm - 3.50pm including live coverage of 4 horse races

BBC 2 - 8.30pm-10.30pm

BBC 2 - 11.15pm-Midnight

4 hours 15 minutes coverage across 4 transmissions and 2 channels

Saturday

BBC 1 - 12.15pm as part of Grandstand, including approximately 30 minutes live coverage

BBC 2 - 3.25pm - 5.25pm

BBC 2 - 8.05pm - 11pm

5 hours 25 minutes across 3 transmissions and 2 channels

Sunday

BBC 2 - 1.25pm as part of Sunday Grandstand at 1.30pm (15 minutes) and 4pm, coverage interrupted by live coverage of the F1 Spanish Grand Prix

Approximately 4 hours live coverage

Total live coverage across BBC 1 and BBC 2 for the entire Ryder Cup - 13 hours, 40 minutes

This would be the final US hosted Ryder Cup which BBC would broadcast, 4 years later when the matches were played at Oak Hill in New York, it was Sky Sports which held the UK rights, and they gave the event the treatment it deserved. For the very first time, the entire event was broadcast live, from start to finish. 30 years on they will do the same, at Bethpage State Park, some 363 miles south east of Oak Hill, and broadcast a minimum of 30 hours live coverage of their 15th Ryder Cup.

This coverage will not be interrupted by horse racing, the news or the weather, and we won't have to chop and change channels to find it, with it all available on Sky Sports Golf and Sky Sports Main Event, and between 1995 and 2016 the event was given the big time treatment, positioned on Sky Sports 1, even knocking Super Sunday off the channel on the final day.

The Ryder Cup is now huge, and big business, and it means a tremendous amount to the European Tour Group - it effectively is their major championship, and it reaps the group significant financial benefits. For that reason the Tour itself is packaged with the Ryder Cup. It can be argued now though that because of the size, scale and appeal of the Ryder Cup maybe the broadcast rights for the tour and the Ryder Cup should be separated.

The European Tour Group could do a deal for the tour with DAZN, a global sports broadcaster and streaming service, and hold a bidding contest for rights to the Ryder Cup as a stand alone event. It is certainly going to be interesting to see if there is an announcement regarding a new broadcast deal in the weeks leading up to the 2025 matches at Bethpage.

SHANK Media, written by Matt Hooper