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Woods a bit rich

Three commercial networks decline the asking price for the Australian Masters because of is $3M price tag.

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woodsWorld champion golfer Tiger Woods will play in the Australian Masters at Kingston Heath in Melbourne in November, but fans will have to settle for coverage on pay-TV, most likely FOX Sports after Free to Air networks deemed a $3m price tag was too expensive.

Nine CEO David Gyngell said: “There’s no doubt Tiger is a superstar but they are trying to sell the deal to cover the tournament for the next three years. Tiger is only signed up for the first year. If we could have done a one-year deal it would be a different story.

“None of the stations have got the sort of money (managing group) IMG are asking for. It would be good value with Tiger this November, but golf is hard work for advertising revenue.”

Source: news.com.au

13 Responses

  1. Hilarious – I don’t a Golf Tournament has polled over 300,000 viewers in years, so yeah $3 million is pretty steep and good on the networks for knocking them back – hopefully we can see some reality at the next round of AFL rights as well (that’s next year right?)

  3. Golf is boring. Thats why the ratings and the crowds have been declining. I have doughts whether a one tournament appearance by tiger woods will ever lift the ratings of golf. Maybe to atract viewers the format needs to be shortened to make it less boring. It worked for cricket (50 overs to 20 overs) and its highly posible golf can do it to.

  4. I was under the assumption that Ten/One had the sole rights to the Australian PGA Tour?
    I don’t think a four day event like this (despite Tiger being there) is worth $3 million though.

  5. Who cares, it’s only Golf! wouldn’t watch it, with or without Eldrick Woods. Good on the networks for knocking back that ridiculus price tag, I remember he was a flop the last time he came out here, he wasn’t interested in winning some lame Aussie tornament and he won’t be this time either.

  8. This is just a case of the managing group getting greedy!!
    They are probably trying to make back the money they will have paid to Tiger as an “appearance fee” (which i think is a joke btw!!… why would you pay someone to appear and then have a chance to make more money in prizemoney… its like everyone that buys a lotto ticket gets a million dollars and then if u actually have the winning numbers you get another million).

    I dont blame the FTA networks for knocking it back…. they can use the money on much better things

  9. Burt, Fox Sports wouldn’t pay $3m, they’ll basically be given the tournament for a much smaller fee after the commercial networks declined.

  10. Fox Sports themselves would lose money if they have to pay 3 mill, as not enough of their subscribers are golf enthusiasts, plus they’d have to offer it
    on a pay per view deal.

  12. It will be a tragedy if we can only watch the Australian Masters on pay-TV. Woods’ appearance is the tournament’s best chance to raise its appeal again after years of decreasing ratings on Channel Seven.

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