Good Good criticizes the classic “miss” of the creator of the PGA Tour

Welcome back to another extended edition of Hot Mic Newsletter, GOLF’s weekly installment covering all things golf media from me, James Colgan. The subject of this week’s newsletter is an enlightening interview between Good Good Golf and the Colin and Samir Show. As always, if you want to be the first to receive exclusive insights like these directly from me, click link here to subscribe to our free send the newsletter. But first, we work the lines on Comcast’s latest earnings call.

NOT SO FAST
I’ve avoided writing much about the first PGA Tour The classic creator — a nine-hole, made-for-TV outing at the Tour Championship — mainly because I haven’t found a satisfactory answer to the most important question: why?

What business case was the PGA Tour using to justify broadcasting? And why would influencers hand over their production rights—essentially the main reason for their brand’s success—to Peacock/NBC? Without understanding the answers to these questions, it felt wrong to be openly critical of the product.

In a recent interview with Popular YouTube channel, Show Colin and Samirhowever, the Good Good team offered a pointed critique of their own.

“I MISSED WHAT MADE US SPECIAL”
Clark and the Good Good gang argued that Creator Classic fell short of delivering an authentic viewer experience.

“It was missing what made us special,” Clark said.

“The fight is that mix (of the traditional golf broadcast style and the YouTube broadcast style),” said Max Putnam, a Good Good creative producer. “We talk about how you can bring more personality to it, but it’s something we want to keep working on. That’s something I noticed during Creator Classic as well, I want to see a Cart Cam, I want to hear them talk.”

“You have to mic it up,” Clark said. “Everybody should have a microphone.”

Classic creator finished giving pretty strong numbers for the PGA Tour, including its biggest subscriber growth day ever, and nearly 2 million views. But it just wasn’t very interesting, mostly failing to deliver the kind of entertainment value that drives viewers to tournament broadcasts OR Good Good Videos.

Thankfully, there’s room to experiment and improve from here on out. One just hopes that the powers that be don’t allow ‘good enough’ to be the enemy of great.

BULLETIN

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ALTERNATE OPTIONS
As for what good broadcast television might look like in the future?

“You’re also missing the engagement that you can have with a live broadcast,” said Putnam, the producer. “There’s one part that can be really interesting, is the real-time engagement with the audience. It’s something that could be big.”

“It’s a big work in progress, but one of the issues was we didn’t know when we were talking on camera, we didn’t know when the Cart Cam was on.”

PALUA MEDIA RIGHTS AGREEMENT?
Clark also provided something I hadn’t heard reported elsewhere: that Peacock signed a rights deal with Good Good to broadcast each of the band’s live events.

“They’re doing our events,” Clark said. “The live events that we broadcast go to Peacock as well as YouTube.”

This is the first piece of influencer distribution rights I’ve seen sold in the modern world of sports media — and it speaks to both sides’ efforts to expand their audience. It’s also reason to be optimistic that future creators’ classic versions will improve from an entertainment standpoint.

“I think if we’re smart about it, we can bridge the gap between (YouTube) golf content and traditional golf,” Clark said.

That’s a lofty goal, and if we’re being honest, a desire that may not be shared by much of the golfing audience. But since so much of the industry is obsessed with evolution, I think it’s only fair that professional golf looks to steal something from YouTube. With Bryson DeChambeau, we’ve already seen some of what that might look like.

To watch Good Good’s entire interview with the Colin and Samir Show, which I highly recommend, check out the link below.

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