Smylie Kaufman laughs with Keith Mitchell from the ‘Happy Hour’ set on Players Championship Friday.
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It was not exhausting to search out the very best seat in the home on Players Championship Friday. It was, in fact, on the island inexperienced seventeenth, surrounded by some 10,000 or so followers. But in contrast to all the opposite seats inside the sector on 17, this seat was inside the ropes, with a pristine view of the motion, sporting a trio of custom-designed administrators’ chairs angled the proper distance away from the tee field to permit for the wagering, trash-talking and bantering that makes watching the seventeenth in particular person considered one of golf’s important fan experiences.
These didn’t really feel just like the environs for watching community golf tv, which for final a number of a long time has remained a bastion of nerdy formality in sports activities TV. But this was no regular golf telecast.
Rather, it was the scene from the set of Happy Hour, NBC’s new Friday afternoon golf TV creation starring Smylie Kaufman and a rotating forged of the PGA Tour’s star gamers. Every Friday, Kaufman leads the community’s night PGA Tour protection from the bottom on this touring set, narrating the motion from that week’s best-known setting for an hour or extra.
Happy Hour Smylie carries a straightforward mixture of avuncularity and Southern Cool, and his frequent skewerings alongside the present’s friends — PGA Tour stars who’re additionally competing in that week’s occasion — go away the present feeling unbuttoned and distinct. The level is to make NBC’s broadcast sound extra Pat McAfee than Curt Byrum, and watching from the Players Championship, it was straightforward to see NBC head of manufacturing Sam Flood’s imaginative and prescient for the present come to life.
You’re studying an prolonged sampling of the Hot Mic Newsletter, the place at the moment Kaufman was gracious sufficient to affix us to debate the imaginative and prescient for the Happy Hour, and what that portends for the way forward for golf TV at this crucial juncture within the professional recreation. (To obtain unique golf media updates like this one from me, James Colgan, click on the hyperlink right here or the tab under to subscribe.)
HAPPY … HOUR
The vicious criticism endured by NBC’s golf protection over the past 24 months has been largely deserving, however the successes of the previous couple of weeks shouldn’t be ignored. Like Smylie’s Happy Hour, which has turned one of many bleakest chunks of the weekly golf schedule (Friday afternoons) into legitimately entertaining tv.Â
ORIGIN STORY
As Smylie tells it, his launch into the Happy Hour format got here from NBC’s (good) intuition to spruce up its Friday afternoon protection initially of the shape-shifting 2024. The lack of lead analyst Paul Azinger and the addition of analyst hopeful Kevin Kisner gave the community two analysts with deep relationships within the professional recreation — and Kisner and Kaufman’s straightforward banter (together with in a single transient however memorable stretch a couple of pair of hand-warmers) inspired NBC executives to strive a test-run on the WM Phoenix Open.
“Well it started [at the Phoenix Open] because they wanted to have somebody on the ground there,” Kaufman stated. “They eventually settled in on me doing it. I don’t know which alternate I was or what, but I was happy to do it. Then I think after that week, they realized that [Kevin Kisner and I] had some chemistry together and decided to put a brand behind it.”
STAR-STUDDED
The format locations Smylie proper within the coronary heart of the motion. Utilizing a makeshift studio on that week’s signature gap, he’s in a position to chat with gamers, giggle alongside good buddy Kevin Kisner, and usually be, in his phrases, “a good Southern Boy.”
It’s an incredible format for Kaufman, who’s a very intriguing mixture of well-connected and simple to love — but it surely’s additionally an incredible format for NBC at a time when the dialog is about making golf on TV much less stale.
“It gives me the opportunity to show my personality — having players come on, getting some insight about how the golf course is playing, and also giving them an opportunity to show their personality as well as improve the TV product for us,” Kaufman stated.
LOOKING AHEAD
Happy Hour may very well be the following large factor in golf TV, but when it’s not, I used to be shocked to be taught that Kaufman sees all method of cross-applicable abilities.
“I think it’s helped me become a better interviewer and a better listener,” he stated. “I think also learning how to be a traditional holes guy, which is basically what this is, along with being an interviewer and monitoring the action and throwing it to commercial breaks at times — it’s just a lot of hats to wear, but it’s something that I feel like I’m capable of doing with more and more reps. Just grateful for the opportunity to showcase.”
WHY IT MATTERS
While Happy Hour is a enjoyable experiment, at stake within the large image right here is at least the way forward for golf on tv. For the PGA Tour, sprucing the telecast format and discovering methods to juice engagement with an even bigger viewers is maybe the one most precious key to making sure the game can engender a major return on funding from billions in potential fairness funding from the SSG and PIF. The cash will assist easy over a rocky final 24 months with gamers, however the reality is that will probably be short-lived with no comparable funding to assist stem the tide of an growing older (and fading) fanbase.
Happy Hour is only one effort to that finish, but it surely’s a notable one for what it represents: a willingness to innovate and shift the business product to fulfill the wants of shoppers. Like most different golf TV improvements, its success will ultimately be beholden to the willingness of the sport’s stars to take part recurrently and actively, but it surely’s exhausting to knock the method right here.
And the seating association is fairly candy, too.
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