Interesting development.

The LPGA announced last week a 10-year TV deal with Golf Channel.

According to an article in Golf Week, this deal makes the tour the first stand-alone women’s sports organization to receive a rights fee agreement for domestic broadcast coverage.

“We’re not going to talk about any of the details about that,” Carolyn Bivens (LPGA commissioner, pictured above) said, “but it is ground-breaking.”

They’re not sure on specifics of the deal, but they do know that individual television production costs will increase for most events due to the structure of the new deal.

According to Golf Week, beginning in 2010, Golf Channel will provide fans virtual one-stop shopping for domestic events. It will broadcast start-to-finish coverage of most domestic events, including one major championship, and international feeds of LPGA global events.

In addition, Golf Channel will show early-round coverage of tournaments that will have weekend coverage on other networks. It also will continue to broadcast the Solheim Cup.

According to The Sports Business Journal (SBJ), it’s leaving tournament operators wondering whether or not they will get much ROI.

However, Golf Week quoted Paula Creamer, LPGA pro golfer, as thrilled.

““To be able to be on a network week in, week out is very important. It’s good for the game of women’s golf,” said Creamer.

According to Jon Show at SBJ,

“Events now pay in the low to mid-six figures to cover production costs under separate five-year deals with ESPN and Golf Channel. Two-thirds of domestic LPGA events pay about $250,000 for production on Golf Channel, while the others on ESPN pay $350,000 or more.”

I’m not incredibly knowledgeable about the golf industry, so if you have any valuable details to add to these, please feel free to comment.

In particular, I’m interested in hearing what this means (if anything) for the league.

• Filed Under:  
• Sports, TV

• Tags:
• Golf
• espn
• Marketing and Advertising
• Sports Headlines
• Sports Programs
• 10-year deal
• Carolyn Bivens
• championships
• LPGA
• LPGA commissioner
• LPGA domestic events
• Paula Creamer
• ROI
• Solheim Cup
• Sports Business Journal
• The Golf Channel
• Womens Golf

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