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Discovery and PGA Tour team up on GOLFTV streaming service
Discovery and the PGA Tour have announced a new OTT service called GOLFTV, which will be a hub for golf coverage outside of the US. GOLFTV will offer more than 2,000 hours of live content each year and will cover around 150 tournaments. Down the line, Discovery might also bring analysis, equipment reviews, course reviews and travel to GOLFTV, Variety reports.
Facebook will air live PGA Tour coverage on its Watch tab
One of the ways that Facebook has been highlighting its Watch tab is through exclusive streaming deals with sports leagues. Now, the PGA Tour joins the roster of sports that will air coverage on Facebook exclusively. Live competition coverage of eight tournaments in the 2018–2019 season will stream exclusively on Facebook.
PGA Tour taps Intel for VR coverage of six upcoming tournaments
Intel has been powering virtual reality sports viewing for some time now. The chip maker has enabled VR for the Olympics, Major League Baseball and the National Football League, and has taken virtual reality to the golf course with the PGA. It's this last partnership in the news now, with Intel and the PGA Tour organization connecting to produce and distribute live VR and 360 video at six upcoming PGA events starting with the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta from September 21st to the 24th. It will continue VR coverage at the Presidents Cup at the Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City from September 28th through October 1st.
Twitter’s live NFL news and analysis show premieres tonight
Twitter's new NFL live show #NFLBlitz premieres tonight on the league's @NFL account. Last year, Twitter held the rights for the NFL's Thursday night games, but Amazon snagged those streaming rights this season in a deal believed to have rung in around $50 million. Instead, the platform is getting a 30-minute long news and analysis show that will air Monday to Thursday every week through to the Super Bowl.
PGA Tour will livestream a single iconic hole in VR
Golf officials are building out their 4K broadcasts and even starting to livestream smaller events in VR, but the sport's biggest tournaments are taking awhile to try out the new broadcasting tech. After testing the waters with a handful of virtual reality videos exploring its Phoenix Open course last year, the PGA Tour is livestreaming its upcoming The Players Championship in VR. Let's hope you like the vantage from TPC Sawgrass' penultimate fairway: Cameras are only recording the Florida course's iconic 17th hole.
Samsung's Gear VR can now take golf fans on the PGA Tour
It's a little hard to believe that something called the "Waste Management Phoenix Open" is one of the biggest events in golf, but hey — now you don't need to shell out tons of cash to explore the event's signature course. All it takes is a Samsung Gear VR, a compatible phone and the PGA's new Tour VR app to take a closer look at some sweet club-on-ball action.
EA Sports is divorcing Tiger Woods, teases next-gen PGA game
EA Sports' 15-year relationship with PGA Tour cover athlete Tiger Woods has ended. In a post on the company's blog, Vice President and General Manager of Golf Daryl Holt said that the split was a mutual decision and wished Woods continued success. While this isn't on the scale of, say, separating the Madden name from the firm's NFL games, it's another part of the overall shift going on not only within EA Sports, but EA as a whole. Even without a poster boy, the company is still very much making PGA-licensed games. If you need proof, take a look at the work-in-progress screenshot up above and bask in the warmth of that next-gen sunshine. The firm posted a side-by-side comparison shot, pitting current hardware against what we'll be playing on in the future, and the difference is almost startling enough to make us say, "Tiger who?"
Sony's 2011 PGA Tour event to be shot in 3D
Ok, this isn't quite the 3D sporting event we were expecting next after the BCS Championship and World Cup soccer, but the more we think about it, the more Sony and the PGA's plans to shoot the 2011 Sony Open in 3D makes sense. Golf on an HDTV is an absolutely beautiful sight, and the ability of 3D to let us see from the golfer to the ends of the fairways in Hawaii and keep everything in focus should not be underestimated. Of course, that's more than a year away, and Sony is planning to test out its 3D equipment at the upcoming 2010 event first. We'll see if any networks are ready to broadcast this PGA Tour Stop in the best quality available by that time -- or if the British Open is at least in HD.
PGA pushing HD
One of the major draws for HD content is sports, and even if golf isn't your game, you've got to admire the beauty of some of the courses. PGA Tour Productions wants to make that HDTV of yours seem like a window onto their events, and is renovating one of their Florida production studios to make it happen. Everything in the facility is getting the HD-upgrade, and it's not cheap. But you've got to spend money to make money, and HD investments at the studio have already reaped rewards. For example, production that previously took 18 months to complete was done in 8 weeks on the new video, graphics and audio hardware. The facility's VP and production manager, Clark Fivek, summed up what every HD enthusiast knows in his gut (and wallet) when he said, "You're always in the upgrade process."
