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CBS Sports is upping the ante for its golf coverage this weekend in the network’s first crack at broadcasting the entirety of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Since the FedEx Cup started in 2007, the final playoff events have been broadcast by NBC Sports. Moving forward, CBS and NBC will rotate coverage years — an arrangement along the lines of the NFL’s heralded multipartner approach — giving the PGA Tour more media exposure for its season-concluding events.
“We’ve wanted the [whole] playoffs for a long time,” CBS Sports lead golf producer Sellers Shy told Front Office Sports. The PGA Tour is reportedly receiving $700 million annually from CBS, NBC, and ESPN under its current contract that began in 2022 and runs through 2030.
“We felt unfulfilled in previous years because it would just abruptly end,” Shy said of past seasons that would crown a champion on rival network NBC. “We felt strongly that we wanted to finish it off at the Tour Championship.”
The final round of last year’s season-ending event from Atlanta averaged 3.62 million viewers on NBC.
However, uncertainties remain as to what kind of impact the PGA Tour’s partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will have on the playoffs in coming years. “It’s still a little gray with the future,” Shy admitted. “But in the end, we’re going to have the playoffs more than just this year.”
The action is already underway in Memphis at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. CBS will have third- and final-round coverage on Saturday (3-6 p.m. ET) and Sunday (2-6 p.m. ET), and will also air next week’s BMW Championship in Chicago and then the Tour Championship in Atlanta.
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