DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710080668

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

TV IS RIDING THE WAVE OF GOLF'S POPULARITY

When the PGA Tour doubled the ante for its television rights beginning in 1999 - the new deal calls for six networks to fork over a combined $400 million over four years - it was the prime indicator that golf is booming.

If anyone at the six networks - CBS, NBC, ABC, USA Network, ESPN and The Golf Channel - was shocked by the 100 percent increase in rights fees, they aren't letting on.

``The sport is so healthy and sellable that it works on a lot of levels,'' said Rob Correa, CBS vice president of programming. ``The PGA Tour took advantage of a hot market. I have no complaints about how it was done or what was asked.

``There's no doubt Tiger Woods and the other young golfers on tour are attracting a new set. The demographics of the golf audience are going to continue to expand.''

And with that, the advertising dollar will expand as well.

``Business is strong,'' said Ed Markee of NBC Sports, who added that it was against network policy to make public its fees for a 30-second spot on golf telecasts. ``More people are playing golf, and new people are playing golf. The game has become more accessible to varying groups of people. The manufacturers are taking advantage of it to sell their products they advertise.

``We won't know for a while just how much of effect players like Tiger Woods and Justin Leonard and Phil Michelson will have, whether they'll encourage a new group of people who play and watch. But the prospects are there.''

Correa, likewise, sees no problems selling commercial time.

Tournament sponsors such as Michelob, Buick, AT&T, MCI, Kemper and FedEx make up over a third of the advertising dollars that go into golf telecasts. Equipment companies - clubs, balls and shoes - make up over half.

And golf's third category of advertiser - reserved normally for financial services - is rapidly growing.

The increase in TV rights is expected to double the purse structure of the PGA Tour. Tour officials fully expect the average purse to surpass $3 million by the turn of the century.

``Someone will get a winner's check for $500,000 every week,'' said Hughes Norton of International Management Group shortly after the deal was announced. IMG handles, among others, the business dealings for Woods. ``Third place will be worth more than $200,000 a week.

``Think about what that can mean in terms of attracting young athletes to this sport. Kids are going to look at these numbers and say, `Hey, maybe I should look at golf.' You may not feel the impact of this until 2010, but it's going to happen.''

It would be easy to point to the ``Tiger Factor'' as the main reason for this huge jump in TV rights fees, but that would be misleading.

``This deal had been in the works for 18 months,'' said Scott Hoch, defending champion of The Michelob Championship at Kingsmill, which begins Thursday. ``Tiger's influence wasn't felt. The next time around, who knows where these numbers will go.''

If Tiger is as good for golf as everyone says, then he's great for TV.

CBS, which will telecast the weekend rounds of the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill, has experienced the undeniable effect of Tigermania. In April, Woods won The Masters in record-setting fashion, both on the golf course and in the Nielsen ratings as CBS scored a 14.1 share, a 53 percent increase over the 1996 Masters that featured Nick Faldo beating Greg Norman on the final day.

``At the time, we knew (Tiger) was popular, but nobody thought he'd get a 14.1,'' Correa said. ``It was his coronation and people watched. The next day, I heard people on the street saying, `I never watch golf, but I watched that.' That rating was the equivalent of a prime-time NBA Finals.''

Woods also affected dramatic increases in TV ratings in the other events he won on CBS, the MasterCard Colonial and Motorola Western Open.

Under the new deal, CBS will telecast weekend coverage of 17 events per year, making it the leader in that category. And that doesn't include CBS's contract through 2005 with the PGA Championship, which is run by the PGA of America and not the PGA Tour.

``We're extremely happy that we're still No. 1 in golf,'' Correa said.

Golf ratings across the board are at an all-time high of 3.6 share, beating the previous high-water mark of 3.4 in 1995. The 3.6 share is a 29 percent increase over last year.

As part of the new deal, live coverage of every round on the PGA Tour schedule will be televised in 1999. The deal also calls for an increase in coverage hours from 353 hours this season to 413-plus hours in the first year of the new contract.

``The strength of these new agreements will carry the PGA Tour to a new level in the 21st century,'' PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said. ``We believe golf is at the beginning of an unprecedented growth cycle, and these new agreements will help us manage that growth in a positive way for everyone involved in the game.''

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