BBC wins PGA Championship rights

BBC has fended off the likes of BT Sport and Twitter to win the rights to next month’s PGA Championship.

Last week, it was revealed by the Guardian that Sky Sports had lost the rights to the final major of the year, which came just days after the broadcasting giant announced its own channel dedicated to golf.

“We had a good partnership with Sky but the 2017 US PGA Championship will not be on Sky,” the PGA of America’s chief commercial officer, Jeff Price, told the Guardian.

“It was a multi-year deal that was up. Ultimately one of the key things for us is scale of distribution and obviously with all the new platforms that consumers are engaging with, we want to make sure we reach all of them.”

That, therefore, made the BBC the perfect fit for the PGA of America, who were impressed by scale of the broadcaster’s website and social media and of course, given the fact that it is free-to-air.

According to the Telegraph, this will not be a one-off either, but a multi-year deal, with the PGA of America taking the financial hit to ensure it will be the most watched of any of the four majors.

However, it does clash with the World Athletics Championships in London, meaning golf will be on the red button until the conclusion of the athletics at 10.30pm.

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