PGA TOUR Partners With Xumo for Big-Screen Experience Targeting the casual fan, the free channel offers streamed and on-demand content By Troy Dreier, Contributor, Streaming & Digital
Monday, March 26, 2018 - 11:02 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
PGA TOUR is adding one more option to its digital efforts: a recently launched Xumo channel. Xumo offers streaming channels to TV viewers and currently has placement on LG, Hisense, Sharp, Vizio, and Panasonic sets. PGA TOUR's channel provides a combined streaming/on-demand experience: turn it on, and there's already content playing, so viewers don't need to make a choice right away. But there's also an on-demand library of curated content, if they want to go looking. The channel is free and could help transition casual fans into paying customers.
The PGA TOUR's Xumo channel is intended to get casual fans interested enough to become subscribers.
Not everybody has access to cable, explains Chris Wandell, VP, media business development, PGA TOUR. When we think about trying to serve fans who might have cut the cord or might never have subscribed to cable, this a way that we can reach them, convert them into PGA TOUR fans, and either get them to subscribe to PGA TOUR Live or get them to go buy a cable subscription so they can watch our best content on the Golf Channel.
There's live content on the Xumo channel, and lots of it. Fans will typically see three or four hours of featured-hole coverage every Thursday and Friday. One day last week, for example, the channel showed a drivable par 4 at Austin Country Club during match play as well as a concurrent hole. Viewers saw every group that went through from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET.
For that coverage, PGA TOUR doesn't just set up a remote camera and film everything from a bird's-eye view: this is fully produced video, comparable to standard television output in terms of talent, features, and graphics. It's captured by multiple cameras and streamed in HD. The Xumo channel doesn't carry any exclusive content but will have roughly 200 hours per year of featured-hole coverage.
The channel's on-demand library is organized by content type, offering highlights, previews, features, and interviews. It should have about 100 videos at any time, with content cycling in and out to keep the library fresh. Fans can check it to find highlights they missed from the past few days.
Although this is the PGA TOUR's first curated-TV experience, the organization is no novice to streaming. On Twitter, it will stream 75-80 hours of free exclusive content from 31 events this year. Each Thursday and Friday, it streams the first two holes of competition coverage for featured groups. That's a slice of the TOUR's subscription service, which streams coverage of two concurrent groups making the rounds at Match Play. Fans who want more are directed to PGA TOUR Live, where they can get an annual subscription for $39.99.
In addition to live content, the Xumo channel will offer on-demand highlights, previews, features, and interviews.
This is the second year of the TOUR's deal with Twitter. Wandell says it has been a fantastic partner. The TOUR even streams virtual reality to Twitter: It placed eight VR cameras on the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale, and the produced stream went to Twitter exclusively. It also streamed VR from the Waste Management Phoenix Open and will offer more events later this year.
PGA TOUR isn't trying to appeal to any particular demographic with its Xumo channel, since people of every age are buying connected TVs. Instead, the goal is to capture eyeballs and convert casual fans to subscribers. But is being Channel 750 on the vast Xumo platform a good way to get noticed? Although Xumo declines to comment on how many active users the PGA TOUR channel could expect, CEO Colin Petrie-Norris notes that the platform has penetration in 80% of the smart-TV market.
We are accessible in over 20 million households, with about 10% activation rate, he says. Within the Xumo platform, there are ample audience-development opportunities and promotional placements that can be leveraged to aid channel discovery. We work with each of our channel partners to surface these opportunities and help grow their audiences.
Coverage on the PGA TOUR channel is captured by an in-house crew - talent, camera operators, a graphics team - and the organization's own satellite truck. The signal is relayed to its production facility in St. Augustine, FL, where a team produces the video feed. That feed goes to BAMTech in New York City, the organization's partner for app development, streaming, and encoding. BAMTech streams the video to Xumo and other platforms.
Xumo's big attraction for the PGA TOUR was its impressive time-spent-watching metric. Big-screen viewing entices people to sit and watch longer.
What we're trying to do there is expand our reach into the living room for people who wouldn't otherwise be consuming as much of our VOD content or our featured-hole coverage, Wandell says. Our goal really is to get the great content that we produce every single day and every single week on to that big screen, as opposed to a PC, a tablet, or a mobile device.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
PGA TOUR Partners With Xumo for Big-Screen Experience Targeting the casual fan, the free channel offers streamed and on-demand content By Troy Dreier, Contributor, Streaming & Digital 
