GOLFNEWS.CO.UK
KEITH PELLEY | MAY 2017 [25]
■ THE EUROPEAN TOUR HAS EXPERIMENTED WITH A NUMBER OF NEW FORMATS TO ATTRACT NEW AUDIENCES, INCLUDING THE HERO CHALLENGE AT THE BRITISH MASTERS (FAR LEFT), AND LAST MONTH'S GOLFSIXES (CENTRE), WHILE THE 'LITTLE INTERVIEWS' ON THE TOUR'S SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS HAVE ADDED A BIT OF MUCH-NEEDED FUN TO PROCEEDINGS
real privilege to have the opportunity to build on the legacy of John Jacobs, Ken Schofield and George O’Grady,” he says. “Sport has been a big part of my life; so to work within golf is a dream come true.” As someone who has worked closely alongside athletes in both baseball and football during his career, Pelley is acutely aware that it is important that the interests of the players are at the forefront of every decision he makes. “The players are the magic, the recipe for success, and their passion and personality for the game is unmatched anywhere else in the world,” he says. “I definitely have a ’players first’ philosophy. The European Tour has so much potential globally, with diversity that no other tour can match, and I see my job as turning that potential into a reality.” There’s no denying that Pelley took the helm at the European Tour during one of the most difficult periods in its history. With its players pushed and pulled in all directions, and a schedule that relies increasingly on long-haul trips to South Africa and the Far East for large chunks of the season, it’s easy to see why the Tour needed to find the right man for the job to fight the European Tour’s corner in an increasingly competitive global golfing marketplace.
featured a host of less traditional golfing elements, including loud music, floodlights, flamethrowers, a raucous crowd and, in addition to the tour pros – including ‘Beef’ Johnston and eventual tournament winner Alex Noren – a collection of ‘celebrity’ golfers were involved, including Brian McFadden, Kevin Pietersen and Piers Morgan. The one-hour event, which was broadcast live on Sky, as well as on the European Tour's various media channels, was largely hailed a success, with over 2,000 fans turning out on a cold Tuesday evening in October. The concept is being rolled out again this season, although a detailed schedule has yet to be released. Pelley is also on a mission to find alternatives to the tedium of 72-hole strokeplay events in order to make tour golf more palatable to viewers. In February, the European Tour's annual four-day tournament in Perth was renamed the World Super 6. This saw the tournament altered to become 54 holes of strokeplay, followed by six-hole match play on the final day, and a specially constructed 93-yard 'Knockout Hole' in case of a sudden death play-off. To this viewer, it seemed a little confusing, and will certainly need tweaking, but Pelley is confident that they are on the right path. "Right now there is a narrative for change in the game, a desire to make it quicker, more exciting," he says. "I do believe that the traditional 72-hole tournament will always be a critical part of our game, but at the same time I believe that if you're not prepared to try and improve your product, and to strive to reach a different demographic, to reach a larger audience, then you risk the chance of falling behind." Giving purists further reason to choke on their pipes, Pelley is fond of referring to the business he runs as ‘an entertainment content company where golf is our platform’. His band of entertainers are, of course, the players, who so far have been broadly accepting of his desire for change and the need for their personalities to be ramped up. So they've cheerily taken part in online japes taken from traditional light entertainment formats, such as the 'Little Interviews' conducted by a precocious nine year old called Billy, and the 'Awkward Reporter' – an actor doing spoof interviews with unwitting victims. All of this is available to be viewed on the European Tour's own YouTube channel. "Our players are incredibly skilled, but they're also great characters and if you can bring their personality together with that skill, bring it to a younger audience or perhaps a different audience that haven't had a chance to experience our great game, then I think you're on the right track," says Pelley. "It's all about widening the audience and widening the engagement for our game." And just last month, golf fans in the Home Counties were treated to the innovation that was GolfSixes, a team match play event that pitted 16 two-man pairings representing countries from all over the world to play a series of six-hole matches. Billed as golf’s answer to Twenty20 cricket, around 9,500 spectators turned up over the weekend of May 6-7 to witness the event, which, despite unseasonably cold weather, drew a warm response from all those that took part and attended. Despite failing to attract a headline sponsor, Pelley is convinced that it’s not the last time we’ll be hearing about GolfSixes. "The reasons GolfSixes has an opportunity to be successful are twofold," says Pelley. "One is it has the chance to create that patriotism and passion that you see at the Ryder Cup. That, combined with the six-hole format, which was something that kept coming back in our research. We looked at doing something with nine holes, different skills competitions, but what is important is that you always have to maintain the integrity of the game. That's why we went with a traditional format – it was match play, but it was six-hole match play." During GolfSixes, players were encouraged to interact with fans and wore microphones so that their conversations with their caddies could be heard. "The next evolution of sport is audio," says Pelley. "One day people won't be able to understand why, if a player is talking to another player or to his caddie, they can't hear what he's saying. The way the millennial generation is consuming content is completely different, it's more interactive than passive, and we have to adjust and adapt to that.” A lot of post-event research is now being carried to see if GolfSixes has a future, but in the meantime, Pelley is looking at other ways to turn golf around. He's concerned about what he calls the ‘Thursday/Friday challenge’, by which he means the first two days of a 72-hole tournament when nothing particularly exciting happens. "We need to energise Thursdays and Fridays," he says. "That's something we're going to be going over in the coming months." And there's more. "It would be terrific to have players wearing heart monitors, to see if their heart rate goes up when they've got a six-foot putt!" It's not such a ridiculous idea. The technology is certainly there. And, as he says: "Sport and content will go to where the consumers demand. Now people want to watch what they want, when they want, and on what platform they want. And if they don't get that, then they're going to go away."
SPORT AND CONTENT WILL GO TO WHERE THE CONSUMERS DEMAND. NOW PEOPLE WANT TO WATCH WHAT THEY WANT, WHEN THEY WANT, AND ON WHAT PLATFORM THEY WANT. AND IF THEY DON'T GET THAT, THEN THEY'RE GOING TO GO AWAY And Pelley certainly wasted no time in putting his personal stamp on the job, which he took up in June 2015. One of his first edicts was a rare and timely flexing of the European Tour’s muscles over tournament scheduling. With last year’s WGC Bridgestone Invitational clashing with the French Open, one of the European Tour’s flagship events, the Tour withdrew its sanctioning of the Bridgestone, resulting in all money earned from the tournament being ignored for purposes of the Race to Dubai and the 2016 Ryder Cup. It was a bold move by Pelley, and one that certainly ruffled a few feathers on the other side of the pond, but it laid a marker in the sand that players needed to show support for their ‘home’ tour or suffer the consequences. Fighting a war on two fronts is never easy, but Pelley decided to go all out in his next strategic move, which saw the European Tour announce a partnership with the Asian Tour, which, among other things, resulted in an increase in the number of co-sanctioned events. With fewer spots available to European Tour players, and also domestic players in the countries where these events were held, it wasn’t an entirely popular move, but Pelley saw it was an essential move in creating a global alternative to the PGA Tour. Ensuring Europe’s top players pay homage to their home tour is arguably the most important issue on Pelley’s agenda. In order to do this, prize funds have to go up, and one of his most important statements in that direction has been the creation of the new Roles Series, a collection of seven events, starting with this month’s BMW PGA Championship, that guarantee prize funds of $7 million, and are designed to entice top European players to play in Europe. With McIlroy, Rose and Stenson all in the field at Wentworth, it looks to have had some effect, but whether that will continue for the rest of the season, especially at previously low-key events such as the Italian Open, remains to be seen, although by withdrawing Ryder Cup points from competing events staged anywhere else in the world, there is no doubt where a players’ loyalty should lie if they want to be considered a committed European Tour member. On the flip side, Pelley has been nothing if not accommodating for those that chose to base themselves in America. In March, the European Tour changed its membership regulations for the 2018 season, with players now only required to compete in four events outside the Majors and World Golf Championships in order to keep their card. Last season that number was five. Next on the Pelley agenda also been to address the need to make the European Tour a more watchable spectator and TV sport, and in turn, make it more attractive to sponsors. A few months into the job, he took a few baby steps in that direction by allowing Sky Sports presenters to chat with players during competitive rounds at the 2015 British Masters at Woburn, while at the KLM Open last June, fans were offered the chance to take on the professionals on a par-three hole during an actual championship round, with prizes for those who 'Beat the Pro'. While hardily ground breaking, it seems that Pelley was just warming up. One evening last October saw eight players competing in the inaugural 'Hero Challenge' at The Grove, two days before the 2016 British Masters. The par-three contest