April 11, 2024

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Despite the rain falling in Augusta, the Masters should start at some point today, and we’re breaking down the tournament’s unique broadcasting traditions. … We have a big guest on the Front Office Sports Today [[link removed]] podcast [[link removed]]: Deion Sanders dishes on all things college football—and makes a big accusation about the NFL. … NIL strategies may be coming to the Olympics. … And one Masters rookie is still learning how to balance his growing schedule.

— Eric Fisher [[link removed]] and David Rumsey [[link removed]]

The Masters’ Broadcasters Take What They Can Get [[link removed]]

Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports

The Masters tees off Thursday (weather permitting), commencing golf’s first major championship of the year, and the tournament many consider to be the most fun to watch. Limited commercials, blooming azaleas, robust streaming options, and the soothing voice of Jim Nantz. What’s not to love?

Yes, the Masters on TV (and online, as well as on the app) is awesome. In fact, it’s so good that Augusta National doesn’t even have to offer the same wall-to-wall coverage during its early rounds that other golf majors do for viewers to be impressed. ESPN would no doubt love to show off a main broadcast feed from the first tee shot onward at Augusta, like it’s done at the PGA Championship on ESPN+, and like NBC Sports has done for the U.S. Open and Open Championship.

But during the first two rounds, ESPN’s coverage begins at 3 p.m. ET, after up to seven hours of featured holes, featured groups, and customized groups will have been available to stream via ESPN+, Paramount+, and the Masters app. Every shot is indeed available, just not in the same fashion as other majors.

This is not a complaint about the broadcast approach (which some fans might even prefer), but more an observation of the unique way Augusta National operates, which is nothing new. It wasn’t until 2002 that CBS was allowed to show all 18 holes of the final round. As recently as ’19, the Masters app and website were the only platforms to watch early-round action in the morning and early afternoon.

And for the record, ESPN is not complaining, either. “We respect the Masters and its traditions—it’s what makes it so unique,” a company spokesperson tells Front Office Sports. Scott Van Pelt, the network’s longtime golf host, is literally just happy to be there. “We’re not kidding when we say we’ll come on TV at whatever time the club would like us to come on,” he says.

One Step at a Time

Once the weekend hits, CBS gets free reign for its broadcast. But Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports who this month is stepping down after nearly three decades at the helm, says he never could have anticipated how in-depth his network’s Masters efforts would be one day. “We could have kept our coverage in 1997 the same for the next 27 years and people would have thought it was still the best golf tournament coverage in this country,” he says. In addition to more coverage hours, CBS has also added elements to its broadcast that Augusta was once opposed to such as walking reporters and drone cameras.

That special relationship has existed since 1956, and it is unlike any other in sports media. “I was basically responsible for negotiating one-year agreements with Augusta, which was the tradition that I inherited and the one that I passed along,” former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson, who left the network two years before McManus took over, tells FOS.

Augusta National has so much control of the broadcast thanks to the unwavering backing of its global sponsors—currently AT&T, IBM, and Mercedes—the only brands that get commercial time during the Masters. “They have a long-standing, treasured relationship with the sponsors,” Pilson explains. “In many cases, the CEO of the sponsoring company just happens to be a member of the club.”

New-Age Traditions

But even for those exclusive companies, Augusta’s boundaries aren’t pushed willy-nilly. “They’re probably one of the more progressive partners in terms of experimentation,” says Noah Syken, the vice president of sports and entertainment at IBM. “But they’re probably also one of the more conservative partners in terms of rolling things out to production.”

IBM, the longest-tenured sponsor, helps power the always-popular [[link removed]] Masters app, a key part of the tournament’s streaming offerings. This week, upgrades include hole insights for golf addicts delivering data like how likely a player is to hit the green and adding a Spanish option to the app’s voice-over function that narrates golf shots using artificial intelligence.

Some of that needed six or seven years of testing before being rolled out, due to Augusta’s methodical approach. But IBM, like Augusta’s broadcast partners, isn’t complaining—it is the Masters, after all. Ahead of the tournament, Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley summed up the philosophy perfectly: “We certainly want to progress, we want to try new things, we want to continue our mission to reach out and to grow the game,” he said. “But at the same time, I think we have to be cognizant of the fact that part of the magic of this place is those traditions and the mystique.”

Now, for the best golfers in the world, it’s time to hit the links. And for everyone not lucky enough to score a Masters ticket, it’s time to turn on those screens.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY Deion Sanders: NFL Teams Manipulate Draft Positions

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Deion Sanders shook up the college football world in his first year at the helm of the Colorado Buffaloes, and he’s only just getting started. Coach Prime joined the Front Office Sports Today [[link removed]] podcast [[link removed]] to discuss the state of college football and how, he says, NFL teams manipulate the draft behind the scenes.

On Nick Saban’s claim that college football is now about how much you can pay a player, not how well you can develop them

He’s accurate when it comes to a multitude of people. I don’t attract that type of player; I attract the type of player that wants to be great, that understands he has a window of opportunity, and he has to have a commitment to excellence. There are players who are playing for a bag, which, growing up in the environment, you can’t blame them. If you’re going to give up a bag, you’re going to have players playing for a bag. So I do understand it. I may not condone that as your focus, because I’ve always thought if you just focus on being great, the bag is gonna find you.

On the transfer portal

It’s just like somebody on a job on a 9-to-5 and you quit for an opportunity somewhere else. This is like you getting into the portal. If it’s good for the everyday man, I think it’s good for the collegiate athlete as well.

On how NFL teams manipulate players’ draft positions

You have guys that are slated to go and slot it to go at this number pick. Randomly, something comes out that they flunked their drug tests, or they have this type of injury, or they were seen with this and wildly, their draft grade drops later in the round, or even the next round. How does that happen? How does that mysteriously come out right before the draft? That’s even more harsh [than players refusing to sign with teams], because now you’re affecting someone’s livelihood, and you’re putting a tremendous rumor on somebody that may not even be true. So that’s done every year. The reason I know is that I worked the draft for about 10 to 12 years straight. I know that to be true.

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Money for Medals: Olympics Prize Payout Signals New Era for Athletes [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to the name, image, and likeness era of Olympic sports—sort of.

World Athletics, the governing body for track and field, said [[link removed]] Wednesday it will award $50,000 to each gold medalist at the upcoming Summer Games in Paris, part of a $2.4 million total prize pool covering 48 events. The prize money will then be extended to winners of silver and bronze medals at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, dramatically reversing more than a century of history establishing most Olympic athletes as amateurs. This also makes World Athletics the first international federation to offer Olympics prize money.

“I think it is important we start somewhere and make sure some of the revenues generated by our athletes at the Olympic Games are directly returned to those who make the Games the global spectacle that it is,” said Sebastian Coe, World Athletics president and himself a former champion middle-distance runner.

That concept of returning some revenue to the athletes—after decades of deliberately not doing so—is precisely what is now at play in college sports, where the traditional definition of amateurism is rapidly changing [[link removed]].

Now, World Athletics’ move will likely put pressure on national governing bodies in other sports to respond in some fashion. Currently, the athlete funding landscape for Olympic athletes is something of a free-for-all, with individual national governing bodies and Olympic committees, other government entities, and corporate sponsors distributing funds based on their own discretion.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, for example, paid a $37,500 stipend to each gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, $22,500 for silver, and $15,000 for bronze in its Operation Gold program. But that was a country-specific decision, while the World Athletics one will be applied globally.

Even in some Olympic sports that have long featured professionals—such as basketball, ice hockey, golf, and tennis—athletes have often competed without any guarantee of compensation. But the Coe-led program now brings the Olympics a bit closer to many other parts of the sports industry.

“My view of the world has changed,” he said. “It’s really important that, where possible, we create a sport that is financially viable for our competitors. This is the beginning of that.”

LOUD AND CLEAR Life Skills

Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

“Time management.”

—Ludvig Åberg (above), who makes his Masters debut Thursday, on the biggest challenge of his young professional career. Since concluding his collegiate career at Texas Tech last summer, Åberg was selected to the European Ryder Cup team, won a PGA Tour event, and has made almost $7 million in prize money. “There’s a lot more on my plate that I didn’t have last year,” the No. 9–ranked golfer in the world said when FOS asked about his journey as a pro Tuesday evening in Augusta. Åberg was at an event for one of his sponsors, Travelers, further showcasing his point about balancing endeavors on and off the course as he was preparing to compete in his first major championship.

TIME CAPSULE April 11, 1921: Live Sports Hits Airwaves

Arizona Department of Gaming

On this day 103 years ago: Pittsburgh radio station KDKA broadcast a live boxing match between Johnny Ray (above, left) and Johnny Dundee (above, right), marking the first voice airing of a live sports event. Baseball, in many respects, was the first big sport on the radio, and the first game on KDKA is often celebrated. This boxing match beat that by nearly four months. But while prior uses of radio and telegraph technology allowed for delayed, mechanical reproductions of games, this match featured a live play-by-play account from Florent Gibson, sports editor of the Pittsburgh Daily Post.

Other sports, including football, quickly followed onto the radio airwaves, beginning a deep connection between broadcasters and fans that exists to this day. Once television began to reach mass distribution, sports similarly flocked to that medium. But what is now estimated [[link removed]] by S&P Global Market Intelligence to be a nearly $30 billion annual rights market in the U.S. for sports carries a direct lineage back to that humble boxing match at Pittsburgh’s Motor Square Garden.

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