Fox Sports and USGA execs in their first public comments since the U.S. Open "expressed confidence that Fox’s production will improve at next year’s U.S. Open in Oakmont," according to Ourand & Lombardo in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Fox Sports Exec VP/Production John Entz "acknowledged some mistakes." But he said that he was "pleased overall with how Fox produced the tournament." Entz: "We had 700 people working together for the first time. 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." Entz added, "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.” USGA Senior Managing Dir of Business Affairs Sarah Hirshland said that the organization "was happy with the telecast, which averaged 3.5 million viewers over four days." Hirshland said that she "noticed improvements in production quality from Thursday’s opening round to Sunday’s finale." Ourand & Lombardo note the question of how the net 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 is "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" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 6/29 issue).
SENIOR DAY: Fox drew a 0.8 overnight rating for the final round of the U.S. Senior Open yesterday, flat compared to NBC's figure for the event last year. Those figures are tied for the third-lowest overnight for the event on record (figures date back to '01). Last year's U.S. Senior Open aired in mid-July. Fox' rating for third-round coverage also tied for the third-lowest Saturday overnight for the event on record (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). Golfer Billy Horschel wrote on his Twitter feed, "Watching the U.S. Senior Open and I think @BradFaxon is the best announcer @FOXSports has but one of the best right now in the game of golf!"
EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY: Golf World’s Geoff Shackelford talked about the golf media coverage of the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay and said, "Everybody had really awesome images. ... The stuff that was inside the pages was pretty good. There was outstanding writing. This was a major that really resonated with people, both good and bad things, controversy, great stuff, emotions. Some of the writers and reflections, really several days later, showed sometimes maybe with this media coverage, we're so now into the now and the immediate. But when you have an event like this, or even this year's Masters, it’s nice to step back a few days later and read what people are saying after having reflected for a few days” (“Morning Drive,” Golf Channel, 6/29).
