The World Golf Awards for the year 2023 were announced recently. The event recognizes brands and entities running businesses in the golf world, such as golf clubs, hotels, and resorts. The list includes the category of golf broadcaster as well. 

This year’s winner under the World’s Best Golf TV Channel category was not much of a shocker. The past year’s winner, who telecasted the highly esteemed Solheim Cup this year, disappointed the audience big time. The British channel has lost its coveted position to an American TV Channel this year. The Solheim Cup’s allegedly poor coverage, which disappointed not only the fans but the LPGA Stars such as Nelly Korda as well, might have played a part. 

NBC Golf’s glory goes Sky-high 

Three channels were nominated for this category in the current year, including NBC Golf. The other two channels were BT Sports Golf Channel and Sky Sports Golf. Sky Sports was the previous year’s winner of the award.

NBC Golf and Sky Sports Golf are the primary rivals in the golf broadcasting scene. Looking at records, in 2018 and 2019, Sky Sports won the World’s Best Golf Channel award. In the next two years, NBC stole that honor. Again, in 2022, Sky Sports took over the position, only to lose it again this year. 

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The two channels have put combined efforts to telecast the major golf events that span across the Atlantic in the past few years. In events that attract an audience from both the US and Europe, the two networks split the broadcasting rights region-wise. NBC holds rights over the US broadcast, and Sky networks take over Europe.

The Solheim Cup and the Ryder Cup are good examples of such events. This year, both events happened back to back, and they both happened in Europe as well. This is probably where things went wrong for the Sky network. 

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The British giant with a $233 million market cap received a lot of backlash for its allegedly poor coverage of the Solheim Cup this year. 

What happened at the Solheim Cup? 

The Solheim Cup coverage of Sky Sports was highly criticized this year. English Golfer Matt Fitzpatrick wrote online that it’s “comfortably the worst customer service” he has ever dealt with. 

The Solheim Cup had other complaints regarding the event’s management as well. However, the coverage issues took center stage. Fans got into an outburst and expressed their disappointment. 

The reactions complained about missing out on plenty of shots due to a barrage of advertisements. They had issues with the commentary as well, which one fan found omnipresent and overly analytical. There were complaints about the sound quality too.

Looks like Sky Sports has to fight hard to fix its shortcomings and win back its crown. 

Watch this story | Emerging From Solheim Cup Shadows, Nelly Korda’s Heartwarming Re-entry Draws Her Hiatus to a Close