GolfWatch, which has a 10-year contract with the PGA
Tour and provides special viewing access, "hospitality
pavilions" and "skybox oases" at Tour events, made its
second stop at the Buick Classic yesterday. In his column,
Dave Anderson of the N.Y. TIMES calls it "another
corporatization of sports." Anderson writes that GolfWatch
patrons, who pay $1,500 for the amenity, "do get an
unrestricted view of fairway shots," but their special lane
"begins well down the fairway from the tee and usually ends
well short of the green." GolfWatch President Barry Brokaw:
"And we are never going to surround tees and greens."
GolfWatch grossed over $1.2M from sales of 850 tickets at
the latest event, with the PGA Tour and the Buick Classic
getting an "undisclosed percentage" of the gross and a
"rights fee." Brokaw: "I can see us selling 1,500 tickets
at a tournament, maybe 2,000 someday. But never as many as
5,000. That would kill the concept." Anderson concludes
his column by writing, "[A]t a time when Tiger Woods's
precocious presence should be helping erase golf's image as
an elitist sport, GolfWatch is adding to that elitist image.
It's more luxury pox than luxury box" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/20).
