Sky and golf.tv: What the heck are you doing?

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Just when you thought you got access to the best golf broadcasting service, you realize it’s still not the way it should be. It would be so easy though.

I was a long-time Sky subscriber. Already when it was Premiere and then later Sky, I paid a fortune in monthly fees to get to watch some golf. I was never interested in other sports than golf, so I paid it for the weekly tournament on the Euro tour and on the PGA tour. That was the time when I haven’t had a family and plenty of time.

The years went by and it truly annoyed me how much Sky charged for the sports package and that you a) need a set top box, and b) are contracted for two years with no chance to get treated like a valued customer. In order to benefit from some reductions you had to cancel the subscription and wait for the call with the offer.

So from a pure contractual standpoint I hated Sky from the beginning. But the golf was too good to be neglected. Then came the daughter and with her next to no chance at all to watch some golf on the weekend; neither the Euro tour in the afternoon and truth be told, nor the PGA tour at night.

There we have another problem with Sky, it’s all live. And while this is nice to have, what I’d really appreciated back then would have been a streaming functionality at your time of choice. I quit watching golf eventually and just bought one of the daily or week passes for Sky Ticket. That allowed me to at least watch some of the majors.

Continue reading Sky and golf.tv: What the heck are you doing?

Live TV golf back in the game

Posted on by Alexander Rose

After weeks and months of absence, pro golf is back on tour, back on telly and back in our hearts. It was about time, if you’d ask me.

2020 is a crazy year. It has been so far and seems to continue to make its way into history books on so many levels. Life, as we know it, came to a halt and so many beautiful factors of daily things were taken away from every one of us—including golf.

Not only was golf forbidden to play, it was of course also for the professionals, hence there was no live TV coverage for such a long time.

But that changed now. With the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club we have the first of pro event back in live TV. The PGA Tour being first out there, made a good effort with teasing the crowd in social media, as this tournament will–as all the others to come in the near future–be played under some new circumstances: Played without spectators, to start with.

I haven’t had much time to sit in front of the TV lately myself with this new COVID-19 home-office and child-care situation, but I seriously support the idea to bring pro golf back into play and back onto the screen.

I love my golf.tv subscription and can’t wait to see some of the events kicking in here on this side of the Atlantic, starting with a so-called “UK Swing” with six consecutive events in the UK, as announced by Keith Pelley, European Tour commissioner. Please read here.

GOLF.TV – the one big thing golf fans waited for

Posted on by Alexander Rose

For the last years during which I refrained from paying pathetically high subscription fees for Sky, I paid from time to time a week ticket for Sky Ticket, which is basically the stripped-down version of Sky for those who want to pay-per-view.

It was easy to do, easy to use and I bought such week ticket usually for the bigger tournaments such as majors, when I thought I had time to sit down and watch some golf. That’s not given during the day with a 2-year old toddler which is supposed to only watch one episode of Peppa Pig a day.

I seriously dislike Sky for all what they are doing, for their price policy, their stupid apps and all business decisions they take. In 2019 however, as an infrequent Sky Ticket user, I was offered a multi-month subscription free of charge. ‘Why’ you will ask would they do that. Well it’s the football break in Europe that time and I reckon they fired out free subscriptions as a Marketing gig. If they’d be smart enough they would have checked that I never watched a single football match and sticked to golf only.

Clearly I didn’t complain and was able to watch the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open and The Open Championship for no charge at all.

After that period I dropped out of Sky Ticket again and was kind of relieved to be honest, even tough I had no chance to watch golf anymore.

Then I finally found golf’s broadcasting holy grail and since then love every minute of that experience. Let me explain why.

Continue reading GOLF.TV – the one big thing golf fans waited for