‘The Skins Game’ will return to TV in 2025 in a deal with the Pro Shop

Once upon a time, golf owned a small but prominent part of the holiday season sports calendar with a series called Game Skins.

The idea wasn’t particularly new — a made-for-TV game pitted some of the top stars on the PGA Tour — but it Was of value. At a time of year when people got together and got off work, the original Game Skins had a Black Friday broadcast that became mainstream viewing for golf fans, making it a low-risk way for the Tour to add a few more shekels to the media rights deals that make up most of its his annual income.

Game Skins was officially canceled in 2008 after LG dropped out as title sponsor. At the time, PGA Tour officials chalked up the failure to a ratings cut. A decade later, Hollywood producer and longtime co-conspirator Phil Mickelson Bryan Zuriff revived the ideapitting Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson against each other for an obscene amount of money in an event he called The match. The idea was not particularly liked by the Tour, which did not own the broadcast rights to the event and thus lost the event’s revenue potential, but the Tour gave its players a waiver to compete in the event (which has continued every year since then) meaning the event would not compete directly with PGA Tour broadcasts.

Now, however, the PGA Tour is back in the driver’s seat. On Thursday morning, the PGA Tour and golf media startup Pro Shop announced plans to revive Game Skins with a match on Black Friday 2025. The Tour, a minority owner of the Pro Shop, will own the rights to the event but will hand over distribution to the Pro Shop, which will work with another one media boutique, Propagate Media, to deliver the made-for-TV event to audiences.

“Reimagining an iconic event like The Skins Game in a retro-modern way that engages today’s sports fans is exactly why the PGA Tour has partnered with the Pro Shop,” said Chris Wandell, a Tour executive and Pro board member. Shop, in a release. “We look forward to seeing how the newest iteration of the of Game Skins unfolds as Pro Shop and Propagate identify the cast, format and creative approach.”

Primarily, the news marks the latest effort by the Tour to revitalize its media footprint in the LIV era, a strategic shift leading to Tour investments such as the Pro Shop, a Tour-affiliated media outlet; the Creator Classic, a made-for-television impact event; and the new PGA Tour Studios, a multimillion-dollar twin to the Tour’s major global headquarters. Central to much of this change is the idea of ​​control; Tour believes its media business is best served by maintaining ownership from concept to distribution. The return of Game Skins in particular marks a notable blow to the tour in a rare corner of golf television without the Tour’s corporate footprint.

The timing of Thursday’s announcement is notable at best, arriving just days before another PGA Tour made-for-TV golf event it doesn’t own, Crypto.com showdown. Copingwhich will pit two PGA Tour players (Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy) against two LIV players (Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka), looks to be the first in a new iteration of events aimed at reuniting players from warring tournaments of golf. Like other events match series, is owned by Zuriff and Warner Bros. Discoverywhich pays a “release of rights” fee (reportedly around $1 million) to the tournament and an appearance fee to each of the players involved.

Tour’s minority ownership of the Pro Shop, which was co-founded by Chad Mumm, the producer behind the popular Netflix Full motion series, gives both parties the freedom to dream up a vision for it Game Skins distinct from the rest of its television offerings. Propagate has worked extensively with broadcasters such as AppleTV, Netflix and Max, and is currently in studio work on an upcoming AppleTV golf comedy show with Owen Wilson.