Kostis: "The PGA Tour doesn't give a rat’s ass about the quality of the telecast. They don’t care about the quality of the viewer experience."
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Longtime CBS golf announcer Peter Kostis has joined Chris Solomon on this week’s No Laying Up podcast (embed below). He makes several frank statements about the PGA Tour’s role in his firing, the quality of broadcasts and the future when they gain more control over production. (I finally had to pause though I hear the rest on Patrick Reed is also going to be blog worthy tomorrow).
As always I urge you to listen, but for the sake of documentation, quotes as I jotted them down during this stunning listen.
—On his non-renewal last fall from CBS. “I don’t think there was a plan in place. They had not signed other announcers. prior to not renewing Gary’s and my option years. So I don’t think there was a plan in place.”
—On who drove his non-renewal: “I honestly think, and this is my opinion, and it’s been corroborated by some anonymous inside sources, that media likes to use these days, that it was the tour that told CBS to get younger, I think the Tour had an issue with me not being a cheerleader, I think they had an issue with Gary sometimes…
He goes on to tell a story about a classic McCord quip regarding the silliness of golf that was not comprehended by the folks in Tour HQ.
Then issues this: “They wanted the announce crew to get younger, so the younger players could better relate to the players and vice versa. I don’t agree with that in any way, shape or form.”
—On his call with CBS Sports head Sean McManus: “I asked Sean McManus, why he was doing it, was it something I did or didn’t do. He said ‘Things had gotten a bit stale and we wanted to go in a new direction.’ He denies it now but that was the exact quote and that’s what he told Gary as well.”
—Majors are off-limits. Kostis tells of interview a player on his first win, and noting that it came with two years of job security and a Masters invitation. “I got a call the next day from New York, they had gotten a call from the Commissioner, that he had won 500 FedExCup points and didn’t want me talking about majors.” He then mentions he did it again in another interview. “I did it again, because they told me not to do it, if you notice toward the middle of last year, I stopped doing interviews with the winners. They shifted it over to Amanda.
It was me being told I wasn’t listening correctly.”
—On where things are headed. “The Tour wants more control over what’s being said. I think they want more cheerleaders on the telecasts. More people that are going to “promote the Tour’s product,” you know which, we’re bridging into the stuff that people are really upset about: the quality of the telecast: I’ll say this, from the bottom of my heart, I believe this, no one in management of a network, or leadership of the PGA Tour, give’s a rat’s ass about the quality of the telecast. They don’t care about the quality of the viewer experience. They don’t care about anything other than promotion.”
—”When the Tour keeps up and upping the rights fees, CBS has to get the money back somehow, hence, a gajilion commercials. The Tour goes to the Korn Ferry Tour, we’re going to give you pops, FedEx ex number of times…
“So they use the telecast to pay off, if you will, people who bring money into the tour. It clutters up the telecast to no end.”
And…
”They are interested in the marketing of the product, not the quality of the product.”
—On the next model. “The word on the street, there is not going to be a CBS compound, NBC compound, but an Olympics world feed” and then later says, “Imagine what’s going to have to happen on the telecast…I’m not one feeling good about the tour taking over more control.”
—On Rights fee influences. “As long as the cost of the rights keep going up and up and up, you’re going to see less and less golf.” And he said, “everything’s driven by cash.”
—$25 Million!? “Rumors that the FedExCup winner is going to get $25 million.”
—Gambling. “Everything is going to revolve around gambling” in the PGA Tour’s future models for revenue growth.
—One monitor vs. two. Kostis explains how it works for CBS vs. NBC announcers and suggests it’s “disingenuous” of NBC announcers who call shots on tape as if they are seeing them live.
