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PGA Tour expands Twitter agreement, to air 140 hours of free broadcast in 2019

January 07, 2019
TOUR Championship - Final Round

Tim Bradbury

In late December the PGA Tour announced it was doubling the amount of broadcast coverage through its popular PGA Tour Live subscription. Turns out that won't be the only expanded presentation for the upcoming campaign.

On Monday the tour announced it had renewed an agreement with Twitter to distribute 140 hours of free live competition through the social media app.

“The evolution of our streaming partnership with Twitter over the past three years has led to extraordinary feedback from our fans globally,” said Rick Anderson, chief media officer of the PGA Tour. “We continue to reach an ever-growing young, diverse and loyal audience allowing us to expand and improve the product with live programming, real time highlights and video-on-demand content.”

The multi-year deal will allow users to stream the first 60-to-90 minutes of morning coverage during all four rounds of a tournament from 28 events. Last year, the tour only aired Thursday and Friday competition on the platform.

Viewers will also have a say in who they are watching, as the tour is launching "Fan Vote Fridays," giving them the ballot to choose one of the two featured groups groups during the second-round broadcast.

“We’re thrilled to grow our lighthouse collaboration with the PGA Tour, bringing even more content to passionate golf fans around the globe,” said Kay Madati, vice president and global head of content partnerships at Twitter. “We saw tremendous excitement and growth in 2018 around golf conversation and sponsor enthusiasm for PGA Tour content on Twitter. This year, we will reach and continue to serve highly engaged golf fans every day throughout the PGA Tour season by pairing those conversations with live programming and real-time highlights, all in one place on our platform.”

The Twitter coverage will begin at the Desert Classic (formerly the CareerBuilder Challenge) on January 17. The broadcast will be available globally via @PGATOUR, with promotional support and additional content via @GOLFTV, the PGA TOUR’s newly launched media partnership with Discovery.