Golf Channel, the sport-specific US broadcast network owned by Versant, has bolstered its media rights portfolio through a new multi-year extension with the DP World Tour competition.
This agreement sees Golf Channel remain the exclusive US broadcaster of the DP World Tour through the current 2026 season and beyond.
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The network will cover every DP World Tour event throughout the deal, amounting to almost 600 hours of coverage each year, starting with this weekend’s Dubai Invitational.
Golf Channel has aired DP World Tour coverage since the network’s establishment in 1995, starting with that year’s Dubai Desert Classic, when the competition was known as the European Tour.
Since Golf Channel’s acquisition by media giant NBCUniversal in 2011, European Tour interest grew in the states, and in 2012 the channel hit a peak reach of 85 million households in the US, although as of 2023 that number had fallen to 59 million, and may yet fall further still as the effects of cord cutting in the US remains a prominent trend in the country’s TV landscape.
Now that Golf Channel is among the networks spun off by NBCUniversal into the Versant business unit, which also includes the USA Network, it remains to be seen how coverage will be affected, but the golf-specific channel holds a strong portfolio of rights that can attract golf fans.
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By GlobalDataBesides the DP World Tour, Golf Channel also provides coverage of the elite PGA and LPGA Tours, and various other prominent events organized by the USGA, such as the US Open, US Women’s Open, US Senior Open, and more.
