Turner Tees Up Multiplatform Coverage of PGA

Written by Steve Donohue

Tuesday, August 11. 2009 at 12:30 PM EDT Post a comment

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Turner Sports is turning to social media to drive its coverage of this week's PGA Championship, allowing golf fans to vote on which pros it will follow during its live Webcast and ordering all on-air and online talent on TNT and PGA.com to file frequent Twitter Inc. updates from Hazeltine National Golf Club.

Turner is producing four video feeds on PGA.com from the tournament and is also selling a $1.99 iPhone app that will deliver live video from the course in Minnesota. As a result, viewers without access to a television Thursday and Friday won't have a hard time keeping up on the battles among Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and other pros.

While any wireless phone owner will be able to track the leaderboard on PGA.com's mobile site, only AT&T subscribers with Apple's iPhone will be able to watch the live video simulcast, if they buy the $1.99 app in the iTunes store.

"We're not being religious about it," Matt Hong, Turner Sports VP and general manager of sports digital, said when asked why he chose to deliver live video to the iPhone, leaving owners of other smartphones high and dry. "It is the most advanced platform," he added.

Turner signed ING to sponsor the iPhone App. And for its live and on-demand coverage of the championship on PGA.com, Turner booked American Airlines and Mercedes-Benz as sponsors. It's the first year that the ad inventory on PGA.com -- a site the network manages for the PGA -- has sold out, Turner said.

PGA.com will feature four separate video feeds. In addition to a live simulcast of TNT's coverage, the site will follow one marquee group of golfers during all four rounds of the tournament. Viewers can vote on PGA.com on which golfers will be featured during the first two rounds on Thursday and Friday.

One of the video feeds on the site will focus entirely on the four Par 3 holes at Hazeltine -- holes No. 4, 8, 13, and 17. The fourth video feed, called "Inside the Ropes," will feature on-demand videos containing analysis from PGA pro Michael Breed and Hazeltine head pro Mike Schultz.

Turner signed Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) to provide live streaming video on PGA.com and for the iPhone app.

When sports TV programmers first began expanding their coverage to the Web, some on-air talent resisted participating in online coverage, which they believed reached too small an audience to make it worth their effort. But with Turner and other sports programmers generating sizable audiences for their online coverage -- and social networks like Twitter becoming more and more popular with viewers -- more on-air talent are embracing the Web.

"Our talent has been adept at adopting and embracing some of these digital platforms," Hong said. "All of our on-air talent is going to tweet from the event."

On TV, TNT plans to carry six hours of coverage on Thursday and Friday, from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET. CBS will take over for weekend coverage, broadcasting the event from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET on Saturday and Sunday.