More Evidence Sports Have Lost Their Way

The firewood should be stacked. The liquor cabinet stocked. The Rolfing memes loaded. And the picks made. We should all be readying ourselves for the great January tradition that is sitting by the fire with a drink in a dimly-lit den in some frozen American locale watching primetime golf. Kapalua had found its place, both on the PGA Tour with its stars, and with Tour fans, who came to love it as the traditional exercise of enthusiasm for a new season. I am sad it is not happening this week, the Tour pulling the Sentry plug back in early fall (perhaps prematurely on September 16) as the course browned out amidst a local water dispute.

There are signs, rumors, and rumblings that it may never happen again. The private equity soldiers are at the gates now. Sharks now swim the moat surrounding the Global Home, and innovation, change, and returns on investment will be demanded. Will Kapalua be forever chopped off in a new scarcity era that eliminates two Hawaii events and starts the season later in the year?

There’s a counter that the enthusiasm for the start of a new season will always be there…because it is the start of a new season. It might be even greater if you’re put on ice for a little longer and have to wait for it some more. It can be at an even more cost-effective and capitalized spot than the middle of the Pacific. Don’t be recalcitrant, unable to let go of what you have and love now. 

The problem is that fans aren’t asking for this one to be tossed. Rather it’s become quite cherished. This is the consensus from the Tour’s most engaged fans, who are also its most engaged critics and are well aware of some tournaments that could be tossed from the schedule. Sorry if this one is not as efficient as can be, but it will be missed greatly this week and in the future if wiped altogether. Why take away something people have come to enjoy and identify with? It’s another signal for me that the markers driving sports discourse and decision-making are imbalanced. 

This week has brought great pomp and praise for the television ratings for the Rose Bowl. Many sports media figures have marveled at this number, preaching – bordering on a lecture! – about a rating. The great rating the game delivered is proof of a quality product. What a cynical, hollow way to look at the value of a game. It’s affirmation for the TV executives increasingly running the sports. They may view it all through this cynical lens, but not because they are cynical (though they may be), but because it’s their job and they seem to be good at it. 

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The rating should be a late appendix, not the final verdict. Instead it feels reversed if you read, watch, and listen this week. That football game sucked. It will be most remembered for the Curt Cignetti memes and the three-hour celebrations of a beleaguered Indiana fanbase, which have been great to watch. The story is amazing. That actual game, for the impartial fan, was not. But it had a big number! These TV executives know what they're doing! 

Can we start to fight back against this a little more? So what?! What does that even mean? Watch the games. The better game was the FCS final Monday night, a miracle of a sporting event with tragedy, comedy, drama, and a bunch of white receivers, including one named Taco Dowler, pulling off unthinkable plays. The product’s value can’t just be distilled down to the post-mortem balance sheet and ratings score settling. 

But we march more and more in that direction, sometimes to the detriment of an event that is already accepted as a good product. Kapalua, an event that, aside from a few international players who don’t want to travel, has found a way to work for all. It may now be toast.

I’m not naive. I read about rights deals and ratings and the future of media and sports business as much as anyone. I can’t believe there’s as much interest as there is in the subject and as much media to consume on it as there is. I enjoy this stuff, even if this content is pretty boring with little originality or worth aside from some fleeting palace intrigue. But it starts to dominate the conversation and future planning, not the games. 

I think we’re overdosing on it. The Rose Bowl ratings reaction and the fact we’re supposed to take and accept the loss of Kapalua as a possible improvement are examples. We’re overcorrecting, adopting the language of PE hounds and executives who gauge a great game or season by different metrics. That’s their job, but we don’t have to accept those metrics. 

It’s all been a bummer this week. 

The PGA Tour’s Brian Rolapp era will bring about some great changes and product progress. Evolution is good. Money matters, and there’s no reason to be bothered by that. It’s what animates pro sports, whether you’re clutching your pearls about it or not. Kapalua, however, is a tournament that was not suffering from fatigue, weak brand identity, or fan ambivalence. No one would confuse it with the biggest tournament of the year, but it had become a cherished tradition for golf fans, and it’s an event no one was really asking to go away. It’s one of the few events on the PGA Tour schedule that should not have to justify its existence in a boardroom.

Here’s hoping this is a one-year hiatus because when TV ratings and money overwhelmingly dictate product development and direction, you risk jumping on a hamster wheel that loses the point of what all of this is about in the first place. You risk your entire purpose becoming a perpetual paper chase, which becomes nearly the product itself, thinking more about the rating or future business of the games vs. the game itself. You risk not building anything real at all.