Free-to-air or pay-TV? This debate on the most beneficial form of broadcast coverage for sport got another airing in the UK this week, after Sky wrested live rights for golf's Open Championship away from the BBC, starting in 2017.

The smart answer to the question is probably, "Both"; this, after all, is what the most popular sporting attractions seem to manage.

Take football: live Premier League coverage has taken the pay-TV route in the competition's domestic market, with the outcome of a new auction, yielding more colossal sums, expected imminently as I write.

But World Cup matches remain free-to-air for UK viewers; and the BBC's Match of the Day top-flight highlights programme is a broadcasting institution.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which sets great store in Olympic coverage being made available to as many people as possible on a free-to-air basis, has meanwhile reacted to the fast-developing digital media landscape by agreeing gatekeeper deals across all platforms while insisting that free-to-air coverage remains an important part of the mix.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, it is worth underlining that most sport played in the world has next to no value as content for mainstream broadcasters.

This is one of the reasons why the IOC is now investing heavily in a media channel which should help to increase exposure for many sports beyond the narrow confines of their quadrennial Olympic Games programmes, when the magic dust sprinkled by the five rings logo multiplies their appeal for an all too limited period.

An Olympic Television Channel is to be launched after delegates at December's IOC Session in Monte Carlo unanimously backed plans ©IOC



This week's golf deal reminded me of comments made to me last July by an expert who has studied golf markets for three decades.

Alluding specifically to the UK, Stephen Proctor of Sports Marketing Surveys Inc opined that free-to-air coverage of golf was now "very, very low".

While pay-TV programming offered excellent coverage, it was, he said, "preaching to the converted".

Given that participation rates in Great Britain, the sport's most mature market, have been falling in recent times, you might be forgiven for questioning the wisdom of the Open deal on the grounds that, while it produces jam today, it could trigger an acceleration in this participation decline.

Bear in mind that a Sports Marketing Surveys Inc study I looked at last summer put the average age of "avid" golfers, defined as adults playing at least once a week on a full-length course in Britain, at 63.

I suppose there are three answers to that:

First, the availability of the Open Championship live on free-to-air television has not stopped the decline from setting in.

Second, it will still be possible to follow the event free-to-air via a two-hour daily highlights programme, as well as the BBC's excellent live radio coverage.

From 2017 British viewers will no longer be able to watch The Open, won by world number one Rory McIlroy in 2014, on free-to-air television ©Getty Images



One should also point out that the meagre menu of live golf action available to free-to-air viewers in the UK is soon to be augmented by the revival of Olympic golf.

This might happen only once every four years from Rio 2016, but it is an innovation whose impact is well worth monitoring, not least because the women's competition will probably get as much coverage as the men's in countries with live medal prospects.

Third, and I think most importantly, it seems logical to surmise that the net effect of this week's deal on participation in the sport is likely to depend on how much extra money the Royal and Ancient (R&A), golf's governing body, is getting and what that money will be used for.

Unconfirmed figures I have seen reported suggest that the new five-year deal was priced at £75 million ($114 million/€101 million), equivalent to £15 million ($22 million/€20 million) a year, up from £7 million ($11 million/€9 million) a year under current arrangements.

If that is anywhere near correct, the R&A will have doubled its money from this property, although it is possible, I suppose, that sponsorship income might edge down if corporate backers conclude that new broadcasting arrangements may result in their logos being exposed to fewer eyeballs.

If a substantial chunk of that extra cash is earmarked for a concerted drive to identify the factors behind falling participation and to devise effective ways of reversing the phenomenon, then the ultimate verdict on this week's deal might be positive in the long term as well as the short term.

The comments of R&A chief executive Peter Dawson, as reported by the BBC, suggest that this is the plan.

Dawson spoke of "increasing our financial support to initiatives in Britain and Ireland in getting to grips with participation in golf.

He went on: "We need to have a real go at it, and have a good analysis of what the participation issues are, and I think that is one of the great things to come out of this arrangement."

Interestingly, cricket - another sport with plenty of well-heeled fans but which can also take a long time to play, presenting similar challenges in how to accommodate it on a mainstream, general interest channel - went the pay-TV route in the UK nearly a decade ago.

Cricket in England does not seem to have been particularly affected by no longer being shown live on free-to-air television ©Getty Images



Since then, while it is undoubtedly true that no contest has lodged in the popular consciousness as indelibly as the epic 2005 Ashes series between England and Australia, nothing dramatic has happened to participation levels: Sport England data indicate that 0.44 per cent of the adult population played once a week between April 2012 and 2013, compared with 0.48 per cent between October 2005 and 2006.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) informs me, meanwhile, that more than £150 ($228 million/€202 million) million has been invested since 2006 "to help strengthen the game", including the recruitment of over 45,000 more grass-roots coaches.

I have to say that it does strike me as odd that no Twenty20 matches can, as far as I know, be seen live on free-to-air TV in the UK, when this relatively new, quickfire format seems an obvious route into the game for kids.

But, nearly a decade on, there doesn't yet seem to be much in the way of hard evidence suggesting that the switch of live Test Match coverage to pay-TV has damaged the game.

It will probably be prudent to wait at least this long before attempting to draw definitive conclusions about what this week's deal means for golf.