Menu
Media

Fox Sports defends coverage of U.S. Open after criticism

Fox Sports’ production compound at Chambers Bay golf course featured a bevy of smiles, handshakes and hugs following the network’s inaugural coverage of the U.S. Open on the night of Sunday, June 21.

Even before Fox’s coverage went off-air, its top executives — including 21st Century Fox President and CEO Chase Carey and Fox Sports President Eric Shanks — were energized. They knew the Open’s close finish would help the tournament’s TV ratings. By the time announcers Joe Buck and Greg Norman signed off the telecast and joined the crew, conversations had turned into congratulations about one of the most thrilling finishes in U.S. Open history.

The celebratory mood stood in direct contrast to what was happening on social media at the time, as Facebook and Twitter users — and even golfer Billy Horschel — lampooned Fox’s production. They heavily criticized everything from its on-air talent to its technical glitches to its coverage of play. Fox’s post-tournament show was especially attacked, with social media critics carping about overly banal interviews and too little analysis.

So despite being on a high, Fox executives braced for the backlash that inevitably came. Over the next two days, various media outlets called the production “a train wreck,” “a disgrace” and “a disaster.”

For some in golf circles, the performance confirmed the fears they first had when Fox signed its 12-year deal for about $100 million annually. Golf production is hard, and without the rights to produce regular PGA Tour events in the run-up to the U.S. Open, the network was going to have to work out its kinks during the country’s national tournament. Even with a full year to prepare, there’s no replacement for producing live telecasts.

In their first public comments since the U.S. Open, Fox Sports and U.S. Golf Association executives expressed confidence that Fox’s production will improve at next year’s U.S. Open in Oakmont, Pa. John Entz, Fox Sports president of production and executive producer, acknowledged some mistakes in an exclusive interview with SportsBusiness Journal but said he was pleased overall with how Fox produced the tournament.

“We had 700 people working together for the first time,” Entz said. “As any rational person could imagine, there’s going to be some bumps in the road when that happens, especially when your first true show is a show that size. You’re going to have a steep learning curve.”

USGA executive Sarah Hirshland said the association was happy with the telecast, which averaged 3.5 million viewers over four days, including a Sunday prime-time average of 8.7 million viewers, marking Fox’s largest Sunday night audience since an NFL playoff game in early January. Hirshland said she noticed improvements in production quality from Thursday’s opening round to Sunday’s finale.

“Certainly there is always room to get better,” said Hirshland, USGA’s senior managing director of business affairs. “We are pleased to be going on the air yet again with them for the U.S. Senior Open [this past weekend] and the Women’s Open [next month]. That kind of repetition and experience, with all of us working together, will continue to make us better.”

The question of how Fox will improve is one that was being asked by a golf community concerned that Fox holds U.S. Open rights for the next 11 years. With no other big men’s tournaments on its schedule, it’s difficult to see how the network can get enough reps to improve its technical glitches and on-air chemistry in time for next year’s U.S. Open.

Other than a few events this summer, like the U.S. Senior Open and the U.S. Women’s Open, Fox does not have the rights to professional golf tournaments. NBC and CBS share the PGA Tour’s rights until 2021.

“The bottom line: This crew is going to be under the gun every year and won’t have the benefit of doing 20 events a year and getting better,” Entz acknowledged. “There’s no doubt that we would benefit from having more events in the lead-up to something as big as the U.S. Open.”

Both the USGA and Fox say they expected the criticism that came from outlets like The New York Times (a “poor debut” with “numerous unforced errors”) and USA Today’s For The Win (“awful and inexperienced”).

“We hear feedback every year — positive, neutral and negative,” Hirshland said. “That is not new. … The feedback was consistent with what we got in the past. We don’t feel like there was anything atypical about it.”

But the criticism seemed more prevalent and harsher this year, much of it amplified by social media and blogs. Many anticipated a stronger debut from a network that has a history of big-event production.

Still, Entz found much of the criticism to be unfair.

“For someone like [The New York Times] to come in and say, ‘Here’s all the things that went wrong. You need to get better at this,’ it’s like, ‘Oh, really? You think? You thought we were going to be perfect on our first show, which happens to be the size of the Super Bowl?’ Being realistic would go a little way for people that are out looking for blood.

“The part of the criticism that does bother us a little bit is that we felt that people were going in looking for it, and over the course of that many hours of TV, they were going to find things that they didn’t like or things that went wrong.”

Entz said he laughed at the gripe that on-air analyst Norman, in particular, should have spoken more or been more insightful, saying that most TV viewers complain that announcers talk too much. Given some of the conversations Fox’s mikes picked up on the course’s fairways and greens, Entz said Fox’s announcers were told to use a “less-is-more” strategy.

“We made it clear to our guys all week — especially on Sunday — that we wanted the natural sound to tell the story,” Entz said. “Our announcers knew going in that our goal was to have less of the announcers speak and more of the natural sound carry the moment.”

Several critics quibbled with that strategy, considering the presence of a figure in the booth like Norman, someone who could uniquely empathize with Dustin Johnson’s missed putts on 18. Norman lost several major championships in similar, painstaking ways.

Entz said Fox has a good idea about what it needs to improve, citing chemistry among the announcers as one area — though he did not single out specific on-air announcers or examples. He also referred to some technical glitches, such as when Fox Sports 1 could not put the scoreboard on screen during its coverage, as an area that will improve.

Entz would not discuss in detail the post-tournament coverage, saying he preferred to review it a few more times before commenting, but he did allow that it was “pretty chaotic.”

“We will learn from it,” he said. “We had multiple trucks going, we had multiple feeds going, we had people doing things for the first time. We will get better at it.”

Entz said he was proud of the way Buck handled the lead announcer duties. He also referenced the show’s audio, put in place by lead audio mixer Joe Carpenter, which Entz said picked up interesting on-course conversations.

And he took pains to mention the nearly 700 Fox staffers who worked long hours to produce more U.S. Open golf coverage than any network before.

“Was it perfect? Absolutely not. Do we need to improve in some areas? Absolutely,” Entz said. “But at the end of the day, this was not something that was going to be easy. We knew that going in. And we felt really proud with what we ended up with.”

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2015/06/29/Media/Fox-US-Open.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2015/06/29/Media/Fox-US-Open.aspx

CLOSE