The PGA Tour beginning at this week's first FedExCup playoff event, The Barclays, is "taking its live leaderboards to digital billboards on the side of heavily trafficked highways across the country," according to Michael Smith of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The leaderboard from the event will be "broadcast across parts of the country on CBS Outdoor digital billboards." The boards will have "real-time, up-to-the-minute scores and prominently feature the event’s title sponsor." The Tour has "experimented with live leaderboards on billboards a few times previously in local markets, but this is the first time a playoff event has been featured, and it represents the most extensive effort across the CBS Outdoor billboard nationally." The Tour will use 36 digital billboards "in and around Jersey City, where the tournament is played at Liberty National." Leaderboards also will be "in other major markets across the country as well, including Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Phoenix and Tampa." PGA Tour Exec VP & Chief Global Communications Officer Ty Votaw said, "It's not something we're looking to do every week, but we will look to match up CBS' availability with select events." Smith notes "at least part of the CBS Outdoor fee is being traded for with hospitality" at Tour events (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 8/19 issue).
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: GOLFCHANNEL.com's Rex Hoggard wrote there is an “up side” for both the European and PGA Tours if a "mega-merger occurred." The "financially challenged European Tour would be reinvigorated by the Tour’s deep pockets," and PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and the Tour would "get a stronger foothold in Asia and a piece of the Ryder Cup, which is jointly owned by the PGA of America and European Tour." But the “down side” of such a move would also be "significant, including a loss of identity for the European circuit and the probability that there would be fewer playing opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic" (GOLFCHANNEL.com, 8/16).
