Golf coverage

[Michael_ Gee]

The list of my friends and acquaintances who have become former golf writers in 2008 keeps growing. Newspapers, as a body, have decided that golf is one sport they don't need to cover on a regular basis as long as Doug Ferguson is alive.
I don't get it. The cost-benefit analysis does not compute. Golf is admittedly a niche sport, but that niche is inhabited by, on the whole, well-to-do men, a demographic advertisers lust for. Hell, most newspaper major advertisers PLAY golf.
Costs are minimal compared to other sports. Four major tournaments a year, all at sites selected well in advance, meaning air travel as cheap as can be expected, even to Great Britain. All the rest, the nuts and bolts that really matter, are as local as the cheapest suit could desire.
PLUS, it's the sport with the best-known and most popular athlete extant.
DOUBLE PLUS. Golf fans have someplace else to go if they think your coverage sucks. There are many, many periodicals devoted to the sport. Most of them seem to contain a lot of ads, too.
So granting the premise the paper can't afford to cover everything, (Which I don't) why cut this?

 

[Lugnuts]

Because most die-hard golf fans spend their free time playing golf and don't have time to read a newspaper?

 

[pressmurphy]

Costs are minimal compared to other sports. Four major tournaments a year, all at sites selected well in advance, meaning air travel as cheap as can be expected, even to Great Britain. All the rest, the nuts and bolts that really matter, are as local as the cheapest suit could desire.
PLUS, it's the sport with the best-known and most popular athlete extant.
DOUBLE PLUS. Golf fans have someplace else to go if they think your coverage sucks. There are many, many periodicals devoted to the sport. Most of them seem to contain a lot of ads, too.

Aside from the airfare, you're also covering hotel costs -- which I assure you won't be discounted, and for which you'll likely have to pay for a seven-day minimum stay even if your guy only sleeps there for four. Maybe the writer gets by without a rental car, but he still has to eat. Food plus lodging for the four tourneys (for which there may be one or two local connections at the most for many papers, especially in the rust belt) will exceed $5,000.

If it comes down to spending that much on golf or being sure that we can send a reporter/columnist/photog team to the first two weekends of NCAA hoops to cover Nearby U., I'll take basketball every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

[SF_Express]

If it comes down to spending that much on golf or being sure that we can send a reporter/columnist/photog team to the first two weekends of NCAA hoops to cover Nearby U., I'll take basketball every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Well, the idea would be that there's an economic incentive to cover golf, not take away from the other.

It remains big for us, but it's a whole different kind of deal.

 

[pressmurphy]

If it comes down to spending that much on golf or being sure that we can send a reporter/columnist/photog team to the first two weekends of NCAA hoops to cover Nearby U., I'll take basketball every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Well, the idea would be that there's an economic incentive to cover golf, not take away from the other.

It remains big for us, but it's a whole different kind of deal.

I think the only "economic incentive" to factor into the decision-making process is whether coverage of **local** golf will attract more advertising from local courses and the ancillary categories (sporting goods retailers and manufacturers, bars and restaurants, phsyical therapists, etc.).

I don't think you can move the needle financially on national professional coverage by substituting your own writer for AP or another wire service. The costs associated with traveling would put almost all small and mid-sized papers into a pretty deep hole. Even some of the bigger papers might not turn enough incremental revenue to make it worthwhile, I'm afraid.

 

[Moondoggy]

And maybe they just decided that golf is generally boring, unless Tiger in the the tournament. Even then you'll get the same information that Doug Ferguson does.

 

[SixToe]

Golf, tennis and outdoors activities are three things that can be covered on the "hyper-local" angle so many managers want to see today.

Eliminating high expenses to cover the British Open or scale back PGA Tour coverage makes financial sense. Eliminating the writers who know about these things intimately and have a readership does not make sense.

 

[hondo]

food costs are minimal at the U.S. Open, PGA and Masters, since you can eat breakfast and lunch there. The PGA usually has 2-3 social functions each night the week of the tournament, so there's no expense there, if you go to the parties. The Masters beefed up their food for the media this year (they don't just throw out the sandwiches any more).

But the USGA and PGA of America soak you on hotels. There's never on-site parking any longer, so to get one of the shuttles to the course, you have to stay at one of the media hotels, and any more it's $250 or more a night. You can always stay off-site and drive to the media hotel to catch a shuttle, but then you'd have to rent a car.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

Golf, tennis and outdoors activities are three things that can be covered on the "hyper-local" angle so many managers want to see today.

Oh, you can cover these things hyper-locally, all right.

It's just that nobody will give a ****.

I know golf readers don't come close to the numbers in the marquee sports. But the golf readers are the advertisers' wet dreams, and newspapers have screwed this one up.

Surprise, surprise.

 

[joe_schmoe]

And besides, Doug does a great job with it. He's one of the few AP writers that I think does quality work at least 95 percent of the time

 

[hondo]

And the main reason golf gets cut: it's not football.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Hondo, I think golf is being cut because a lot of Republicans like to play it and the liberal media elite is out to screw them at every turn and deprive them of every one of their pleasures in life.

 

[TwoGloves]

One of our guys suggested we don't cover an AJGA event in town because it's at a hectic time. I told him that would be ridiculous since the people who follow that stuff are the ones who still buy the paper.

 

[hondo]

Hondo, I think golf is being cut because a lot of Republicans like to play it and the liberal media elite is out to screw them at every turn and deprive them of every one of their pleasures in life.

The ones cutting the travel budgets for golf writers are the Republican publishers.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Hondo, I think golf is being cut because a lot of Republicans like to play it and the liberal media elite is out to screw them at every turn and deprive them of every one of their pleasures in life.

The ones cutting the travel budgets for golf writers are the Republican publishers.

And with one fell swoop you dismiss the massive left-wing conspiracy.

 

[SF_Express]

Hondo, I think golf is being cut because a lot of Republicans like to play it and the liberal media elite is out to screw them at every turn and deprive them of every one of their pleasures in life.

The ones cutting the travel budgets for golf writers are the Republican publishers.

And with one fell swoop you dismiss the massive left-wing consipiracy.

Frankly (no pun intended), I thought you were on to something.

 

[clutchcargo]

I am an avid, good golfer and love covering the sport, as I have for years, but it's a waste of time and money for newspapers to send writers to events other than local tour events (if you have them) and the masters and U.S. Open maybe.

But when Tiger Woods is playing and he's the whole story and access to him away from the podium is nonexistent, what good is it going to do having your own writer there? What in his or her copy is going to compell readers to read them and not Doug Ferguson or Mike Lopersti or whomever?

All such a golf beat is good for is rewarding a good writer who has paid the dues, but that kind of thinking doesn't cut it in these days of slashed staffs and sliced budgets. It's a luxury.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

If it comes down to spending that much on golf or being sure that we can send a reporter/columnist/photog team to the first two weekends of NCAA hoops to cover Nearby U., I'll take basketball every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Well, the idea would be that there's an economic incentive to cover golf, not take away from the other.

It remains big for us, but it's a whole different kind of deal.

Golf readers spend lots of money.

Risky cutbacks.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

If it comes down to spending that much on golf or being sure that we can send a reporter/columnist/photog team to the first two weekends of NCAA hoops to cover Nearby U., I'll take basketball every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Well, the idea would be that there's an economic incentive to cover golf, not take away from the other.

It remains big for us, but it's a whole different kind of deal.

Golf readers spend lots of money.

Risky cutbacks.

You're not ignoring the story, you're using AP coverage. And, as someone said above, when everyone is working from the same single shot at Tiger Woods, does it make that much difference who writes the story?

 

[Sam Craig]

I don't, of course, like to see good writers lose their jobs, but this is one time the newspaper execs might have it right. In tough economic times, it is very expensive to travel and in golf, if you're lucky you might have one or two ''home tournaments.'' And it's a long season, longer than baseball and it's like sending the baseball writer on the road for spring from spring training through the World Series and then some.

Our golf writer covers the local golf scene, among other duties, and covers the PGA whenever there is something close. We do, however, give decent space for golf, especially the major tournaments. Of course, we're a mid-size and never had a writer travel, although he might have gone to the Masters at times.

In general, there might be better ways for that money to be spent. Of course, whether or not that money is being spent wisely is another matter.