Over this past weekend THE PLAYERS Championship took place and it had a lot of people talking, not just because it was arguably the best tournament of the year so far, but because the commercials were extremely limited for those watching.
One of the main issues that you come across when watching golf tournaments on television is how often they have commercials during it. It really takes away from what is going on and oftentimes they come just when things are getting interesting. It also allows viewers to fall behind on what they are watching. When the tournament goes to commercial break, people are missing out on love shots that are happening, which then leads people to see the shots after they have already happened.
Sometimes it will go into a split screen on the television with golf being on one side and the commercial playing on the other side which is better than a full commercial playing on the screen, but also kind of stinks because you can’t hear what is happening on the golf side. The golf side of the screen is also a smaller viewing of what is going on, which also makes it less enjoyable to watch as well.
What THE PLAYERS did differently for their tournament this past week, was that they limited commercials during play time. They only showed a maximum of two commercials when they went to a break. This was a key marketing factor when they were branding for their tournament because they knew this would bring in more viewers for it. This has definitely paid off for them because they maximized the amount of golf that viewers were able to watch and lessened the commercials.
The only downfall to this when watching was that it was just the same two commercials over and over when it went to a break. It was one that included Justin Rose and one that included Colin Morikawa and Shooter McGavin which was a spin on Happy Gilmore. As the time went on it got kind of boring and or annoying watching them over and over whenever it went to a commercial break, but nonetheless it was very refreshing to be able to watch a lot more golf and a lot less ads and commercials.
I believe that this is how it should be when it comes to watching golf events. Less and less people watch when there are a lot of ads, because it loses their interest with how often they occur. Oftentimes people are missing out on major moments when the T.V. goes to commercial breaks and then replays them afterwards. THE PLAYERS has taken a big step in this and has shown others that it is possible to still have ads, but not as many, to allow fans and viewers to watch more golf.
