BBC Loses The Masters - 'A Generation Of Golfers Will Be Lost Forever'

The BBC will not show live coverage of the Masters next year - here's what our Senior Content Editor thinks...

BBC Loses The Masters - 'A Generation Of Golfers Will Be Lost Forever'

It was recently confirmed that the BBC has lost its live coverage of the final two rounds of the Masters, meaning that, as far as we know, the only live golf that will be shown on terrestrial TV next year will be from the Tokyo Olympics.

Golf Monthly Senior Content Editor Tom Clarke had his say on the matter on this week's Golf Monthly Clubhouse Podcast (conversation starts at 27mins).

Here's what he had to say...

It's going to be a huge disappointment for an awful lot of people.

We know how many people watch that coverage from all our web stats and stuff like that.

It’s going to affect the next generation of golfers.

I keep on saying this, that the more golf gets taken away from the peoples’ potential eyeballs, ie youngsters who are watching golf for the first time and want to get into golf, there is a chance that we are going to lose these people from the game forever.

They’re going to have the Olympics which is going to be on during the night.

Next year for golf is massive, I’m really looking forward to it – four Majors, the Olympics, Ryder Cup in America as well.

It’s gonna be amazing, it’s gonna be great. The golf is going to be outstanding.

This year Tiger Woods won the Masters, huge audiences watched it on that Sunday afternoon, we know that. Millions of people watched it.

Next year if Tiger Woods wins the Masters there will not even be a million people tuned in, that is the thing that is really gonna hurt golf.

It has got to be looked at.

These things have got to be protected otherwise the game of golf is going to be more and more niche and we’re going to lose more and more players and that is going to mean golf clubs shutting down and things like that.

It is a really tricky situation to be in at the moment because the game can’t afford to lose out on the money that the pay-per-view sports broadcasters give them, but is that worth it compared to the amount of people that will be lost to the game?

We’d love to know your thoughts about the BBC losing the masters and let us know if and or how you’ll be watching it.

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