7 minute read
LIV Golf
The first LIV Golf Invitational took place in London in June
Inside LIV Golf’s broadcast plans with chief media officer Will Staeger
BY GEORGE BEVIR
FIRST PUBLISHED 28 JUNE 2022 L IV Golf chief media officer Will Staeger likens the new golf tournament’s efforts to freshen up coverage of the sport to the approach adopted by UFC or WWE.
“We are reinventing the coverage style and aspiring to forge a new way of covering golf,” he tells SVG Europe.
“Our goal is to balance the concerns of the core golf fan, and to bring in new audiences under the tent as well to help golf grow and golf viewership. We’ve read the complaints from viewers about the incumbent coverage. Complaints about things like the number of commercial breaks and the amount of golf shown, so we want a fast pace. I saw one article that compared about 25 minutes of coverage between us and an incumbent; we had 60-plus shots and they had 30 shots in their coverage.
The new eight-event LIV Golf pro tour has created something of a rift in the golf world, with the PGA suspending some players who have joined the breakaway tour. It has also drawn criticism because of its financial backing by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The inaugural event of the invitational series, which took place in London earlier this month, saw Charl Schwartzel win $4,000,000 from a total $20,000,000 purse for the individual competition. The second stage of the tour will take place in Portland later this week, from 30 June to 2 July. It then moves to Bedminster in July, Boston and then Chicago in September, Bangkok and Jeddah in October, culminating in the season-ending team championship in Miami at the end of October.
In control
“On the production side, we wanted to control the coverage narrative. And the best way to do that was to handle our own production rather than have broadcast network production units coming in and covering it their way,” says Staeger. “We always wanted to build an internal production team in order to make sure we are delivering on the innovations that we aspire to.”
Staeger speaks of some tight turnaround times, citing a 90-day period during which the team was assembled and production partners signed up.
A key member of the production team is David Hill, former chairman of Fox Sports and a friend of golfer and LIV Golf chief executive Greg Norman, who has taken on the role of production consultant.
Senior vice president of global production is James Watson, who has produced worldwide championships including the Australian Open Golf, Australian Open Tennis and ICC Cricket World Cups, while Steve Beim, a nine-time Emmy award winner, serves as live event coverage director and executive producer. Creative director is Will Newell, a live event specialist who has delivered promotional and on-air assets for the Olympics and major sports leagues throughout the world.
WILL STAEGER, LIV GOLF
Additionally, Clark Pierce is managing most of LIV Golf’s vendors, which includes NEP. The outside broadcast firm is providing key production facilities, which in London consisted of fly packs and cubicles but will switch to more of a traditional production truck setup for the Portland event and following stages in the US.
In terms of format, arguably the biggest difference to other tournaments is the use of a shotgun start, which involves all 48 players on the course at the same time teeing off from different holes. That means play concludes earlier than other tournaments, resulting in a more “compact” viewing schedule. “So instead of nine or 10 hours of coverage, it’s four and a half or five,” says Staeger.
With so much action taking place at the same time, the leaderboard pylon is intended to provide some clarity for viewers, displaying strokes as well as information such as the number of holes left to play.
“The key storyline is where are we in this tournament as well as the season, and so counting the number of holes remaining to play becomes key. The leaderboard pylon has both the team and individual standings,” he explains. Champion Data has been tasked with compiling, amalgamating and delivering the data for the leaderboard and onscreen statistics.
“The way we approached things generally was to look at how the heritage events covered golf, and to bring up production commitment at that sort of level, from a camera standpoint, from an audio standpoint, from a graphic standpoint, from a personnel standpoint, and really follow best practices. The aim is to cover this sport at a faster pace, but still respect the core golf fan.”
That meant for the London event the use of over 50 cameras, 60 mics, 16 camera towers and two drones.
Live means live
Staeger says the leaderboard is one of a dozen tools designed to keep viewers informed, with more to be deployed over the course of the season.
“The leaderboard pylon is one of the first key elements in that equation. We also have a feature called ‘Don’t Blink’. We have taken one of the marketing slogans and turned it into a way of being honest and informative with the viewer. So that leaderboard pylon is live and it’s telling you within a fraction of a second what has happened around the course. So we are not going back and rewinding shots that were captured with another camera on another hole and playing them as though they are live; we’re always live.
“When we need to catch up and show other shots, we run a ‘Don’t Blink’ segment. We have an ISO editing unit creating those replays and we’ll show three or four
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key shots in a row. Our commentary team tells viewers that we’re catching up, and we run that a few times every half an hour. So we’re both following the current action, mostly around the leaders and then catching up on any big moves. It’s not dissimilar to Formula One, where you’re following the leaders around the track, but there might have been a pass back in 12th place. We wanted to be honest with the viewer and say if it’s not live.”
In addition, a graphic to indicate the level of difficulty of the next three or four holes aims to help viewers understand whether a competitor is about to go on a run. “We’ve sampled it a couple times,” says Staeger. “It’s commentator driven, with a graphic on the lower third based on a scale of zero to five that lets you know the shot degree of difficulty as our announcers perceive it.” The ‘degree of difficulty’ graphic was used in a limited way during the first event in London but will be used across more holes, starting in Portland.
The way audio is captured and delivered is also likely to evolve as the tour progresses. “We will refine the way we are delivering access to the players and the caddies and experiment with some unique microphone placements that bring you closer to the action,” says Staeger.
“With golf, there’s an athleticism and a level of controlled violence when players are striking a ball and sending it 300 yards down the fairway, and we want to capture that and give the viewer the feeling that they are there. We will take lessons from other sports and have more natural sound in more places along the course, across the length of every hole, not just at the tee or on the green.”
As the tournament progresses, Staeger says the level of access to players and caddies should also increase.
“We’re both the league and the production unit, so there’s not a separate network asking for coverage and that’s important from a trust standpoint; we’re all in this together and we have no interest in covering some flowery language that the players don’t want broadcast any more than we do. They understand that, and we’re all on brand.”
A shotgun start means all 48 players are on the course at the same time teeing off from different holes
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