Big hit or big miss?
Until recently I’d never been affected by ‘FOMO’ – Fear Of Missing Out – defined as “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts on social media”. But during Open week I had it bad.
For several reasons I couldn’t be in Portrush and early in the week became increasingly despondent as my social media streams were flooded with Open-related content and my phone buzzed away with notifications from the Golf Monthly Whatsapp Open group, discussing which player was next up in the media centre, what stories to pursue and, even more distressingly, times and places to rendezvous for a pint of Guinness.
To help reconcile my feelings of loss, I took up residence on my sofa from 6.30am on Thursday until 7pm on Sunday. I watched more TV coverage of The Open this year than in the past five combined! It was a fantastic championship that produced a worthy winner in Shane Lowry and showed the world what a superb golf course Royal Portrush is and just how passionate Irish golf fans are.
Watching from the sofa rather than in the media centre or on the links made me think long and hard about the perceived negative impact of golf’s greatest Major no longer being on terrestrial TV. I’ve nailed my colours firmly to the mast on this before, supporting The R&A’S decision to move to a broadcaster that works hard to make coverage of The Open as exciting as possible. Watching Sky’s excellent programming, packed with innovation and designed to engage not only golf fans but wider sports fans, my opinion has only been reinforced.
There’s no doubt that fewer people are able to watch The Open in the way they once could, but times – and the way people consume media, especially the under30s – have changed. More of us now engage with our passions via social media, online news sources and other digital content, so although the viewing audience as measured by the number of people watching a live TV broadcast will be nowhere near what it was ten years ago, the number following The Open and engaging with golf has skyrocketed. That can only be good for the game.
I know there will be differing views on this hot topic and would be interested to hear how you followed the tournament this year, and whether or not you feel that Sky having the broadcasting rights is limiting the potential for The Open to help grow our sport.