Rich though it may be, the PGA Tour does not have a bottomless pit of money and it will greatly miss the generosity of Setanta, which agreed a reported five-year, $103 million deal for the rights to broadcast certain American golf tournaments - but not some of the really big ones - in the UK from 2007 onwards.
Now Setanta has gone off air, the search is on to find a replacement broadcaster. "We are aggressively exploring all options to ensure the PGA Tour will continue to be made available in the UK,'' a spokesman said today
I like that "aggressively", though some might think "humbly" would be a more fitting adverb given the negotiating position the tour now finds itself in.
Pedantry being one of the few refuges of the mightily embarrassed, tour officials have been quick to point out to the Guardian golf blog they haven't "lost" the money from the collapse of Setanta because they never received the money in the first place. This is accurate, although only in the most narrowly semantic interpretation of the facts.
What the tour will "lose" is the difference between what remained on the Setanta contract (three years at $20+ million, assuming the size of the original deal was accurately reported) and what a replacement broadcaster will pay over the same time period. ESPN, EuroSport and Sky (which was very annoyed to lose the contract to Setanta the last time around) are among those being courted by the PGA Tour.
Whoever wins, it can be safely assumed that the price will be very significantly below what Setanta paid, leaving the PGA Tour facing a very significant loss indeed.
