NBC earned a 1.8 overnight rating for live Sunday coverage of the Ryder Cup from 7:00am-1:00pm ET, a figure that is down from recent Ryder Cup telecasts from Europe. The U.S. team was down big headed into Sunday and the Europeans clinched the win by 11:30am ET. Comparable Sunday coverage in ’10, which was affected by a rain delay, drew a 2.4 overnight rating from 8:00am-1:00pm from Celtic Manor in Wales. The '10 event ended up having to finish singles matches on the following Monday. Yesterday's live coverage was also down sharply from a 2.7 overnight for the ’06 event at the K Club in Ireland, which also featured a European blowout win. Meanwhile, NBC drew a 1.7 overnight for live coverage on Saturday from 7:00am-12:45pm, down from ‘10 (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
PLAYING A PROVISIONAL? GOLFWEEK's Martin Kaufmann wrote Golf Channel's "Alternate Shot" coverage, which aired opposite
NBC's coverage over the weekend, "is new, and it's not quite clear what it should be or what purpose it fills." Golf Channel producer Brandt Packer said that ESPN's “Megacast"
during the BCS National Championship game "was an inspiration when Golf Channel first starting developing the idea in January." Packer said that the original idea was to "have a collection of former Ryder Cup captains in studio, but several of them were playing in this week’s Champions Tour event, and others were in Scotland for the Ryder Cup." He added that Golf Channel also "was hamstrung by 'affiliate concerns;' the goal was 'to push eyeballs over to
NBC' rather than showing the same feed." Kaufmann noted live action "took a backseat to storytelling and reminiscing." There was a "small panel with streaming coverage of the Ryder Cup," but the "focus was on the analysts." Live coverage on Saturday "often took up no more than one-sixth of the screen, sometimes less, with a much larger panel focused on the analysts or interview subjects." It also "didn’t help" that analysts Lanny Wadkins, David Duval and Justin Leonard "weren’t terribly compelling figures." Wadkins is "never an easy listen, but he's energetic and occasionally opinionated." However, is he "really the guy around whom you want to build an eight and a half hour show?" Meanwhile, Duval and Leonard are "nice guys, good players in their primes, but not the sort of guys who will make you want to wake up at 3 a.m." (
GOLFWEEK.com, 9/27). GOLFDIGEST.com's John Strege wrote, "Why, if one is interested in watching the Ryder Cup, would they opt not to watch the Ryder Cup, instead choosing to view a continual analysis of it?" Watching Wadkins, Duval and Leonard "watching the competition and commenting on it isn’t particularly compelling" (
GOLFDIGEST.com, 9/27).
NEEDING TO HEAD TO THE RANGE: GOLFWEEK's Kaufmann wrote NBC "stopping its coverage to show a leaderboard" during yesterday's singles matches "is an anachronism." Kaufmann: "My recollection is that NBC introduced the 'Ten-minute ticker' for football nearly 20 years ago, allowing viewers to watch live action and also keep track of scores." That is something golf needs, and "no event more so than the Ryder Cup." Viewers go "long stretches without seeing some matches," so at least "keep them informed as to what is going on" (GOLFWEEK.com, 9/28). Meanwhile, Kaufmann wrote there was "no flow" to Friday's coverage on Golf Channel, and the commercial breaks were "coming fast and furious." The net seemed to "place more value on its announcers than the players." The net also "loses track of matches for extended periods" (GOLFWEEK.com, 9/26). YAHOO SPORTS' Brian Murphy wrote Darren Clarke's "enjoyable turn on NBC with Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller saw him clearly outpoint the Americans" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 9/28).
