	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

THE GOLF CHANNEL MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 11, 2006

DAN HIGGINS: Hello to everybody on the line. We appreciate you all joining us this afternoon for some pretty exciting news. In addition to myself, with us on the call from The Golf Channel are our Chief Executive Officer David Manougian and our executive producer Tony Tortorici. Also joining us from London is our special guest, but I'll let David make that introduction.
DAVID MANOUGIAN: Again, I echo Dan's sentiments. Thanking you for taking time out of your day for joining us. We're extremely excited about the announcement we're getting ready to make. As we've been preparing for our new 2007 PGA TOUR TV deal, we felt it was incredibly important to fill the build a team of talent that would be informative, entertaining, and really providing a unique experience for our fans and for our viewers. So when we kind of scripted out the perfect individual, we thought the person should have great credibility, we thought the person should be, again, an entertaining individual, and also the person should have broadcast experience.
If we could find somebody that met all three of those criteria, then we'd be off to a really good start. I can say that given the choice of anybody out in the marketplace, I feel we have gotten the person that is on all cylinders in every one of those categories and will be somebody that will absolutely help bring these telecasts to life and make the viewer experience second to none, and so with that I am extremely proud to announce we've established a partnership with Nick Faldo to be our lead PGA TOUR analyst, beginning with the Mercedes Championship next year, and again, we couldn't be more pleased, proud and excited that Nick has decided to join our team.
With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Faldo.
NICK FALDO: Thank you, David. It's very kind, all those kind words. Obviously I am extremely excited. I've very much enjoyed my two years' experience with ABC. It's given me great insight into the broadcasting world, and obviously with The Golf Channel's 15-year commitment, I am even more excited to be part of that team, the ever-expanding Golf Channel.
I really hope I can bring -- I'm now under pressure, David, after all those compliments that I've got to go and deliver, but I guess that's what I enjoy, being on the line and being able to deliver. I'm very much looking forward to the years to come, and I think I'm even more excited about the fact that we head into a new era with new ideas for broadcasting, production and how to broadcast to the viewer and how to get golf across, so I'm very excited to be part of that team, and hopefully we can do something very special and engage the viewer as much as possible.
DAVID MANOUGIAN: The other thing I will add to what I said and what Nick said is one of the things we're very excited about with Nick is not only the credibility and excitement he will bring to the golf telecast, but also with the partnership, we're going to work together at Golf Channel and Nick and his team to develop some programming elements above and beyond the golf telecast that I think over the years will be product that the viewers haven't seen before and that they'll really enjoy.
With that, we'll throw it to Dan and open it up for questions.
DAN HIGGINS: If any of you have questions, Nick is trying to be sensitive to schedule. Maybe just keep your questions to the topic for today, knowing that Nick has got limited time for this call.

Q. Nick, what was the major circumstance that brought you to The Golf Channel?
NICK FALDO: I think the major one obviously is their commitment to the Tour. Obviously, as I said, I've really enjoyed my analyst role, and as David alluded, we've got 24 hours of golf to fill, and without giving anything away, there's obviously some opportunities for me to be involved in our other areas, other shows which I'm obviously very excited about.

Q. How much will you work? Obviously they have a lot of tournaments that will be exclusive with Golf Channel, and they'll also have the early round coverage of the rest of the PGA TOUR. How intensive will your schedule for The Golf Channel be?
NICK FALDO: I will definitely be at the first three events. As you know, The Golf Channel has those exclusively all four days. And then the rest of the year is to be mutually determined between the two parties at this present time.

Q. So that would be Mercedes, the Sony and the Hope?
NICK FALDO: That's right, those three we're there 24/7, and after that, as I said, that's to be discussed.

Q. I was just wondering, do you like being an analyst more than you originally anticipated you would?
NICK FALDO: Yeah, I think probably yes. Yes, it was a whole new experience. I'm quite happy to throw myself in the deep end to see what -- life's little challenges. Yeah, my number one goal, you may have seen me quoted, I wanted to enjoy myself. I thought that was very important. If I walked out the door at 6:00 o'clock saying, well, I enjoyed that, and I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to do that, but I think I really enjoyed working with the team at ABC. I think that has been great. I got on really well with absolutely everybody. The camaraderie has been great, so kind of that's a new experience for me coming from an individual sport, to be part of a team.
You know, I've enjoyed giving my insight, and I think as these two years have gone on, I feel that it's quite interesting listening to yourself talking at times, and you get more proficient at being articulate and getting your story over, and so, yeah, I've enjoyed the experience of -- just being there watching the golf tournaments.
Again, I wasn't sure that -- to be really honest, I didn't really watch a lot of golf through my career. It was kind of like get the highlights and that was about it. But to sit there for five or six hours and watch other golfers has been fascinating, so I'm into it.
Yeah, as I said, a big year, so I think I've definitely got it. That's why I'm pursuing a longer career into it.

Q. I was also just wondering were there other possibilities at other networks that you were considering?
NICK FALDO: Well, in fact, obviously the networks predominantly that we can -- Golf Channel has Thursday and Friday, so there are possibilities for me to pursue working other weekends, but at the moment The Golf Channel is my priority, and I will work with them to -- as I said, our schedules first, and then we'll see if I want to be involved any more than that.

Q. I was wondering if you were going to continue doing your on-course tips and techniques segments?
NICK FALDO: Well, I hope so, yeah. I hope we can expand that. That's one of the reasons obviously I feel I have a good knowledge on the technical side. Yeah, I'm sure -- as I was saying, we've got 24 hours of golf to fill, and I will be trying to do all sorts in that area, yes, whether it's on the live show or whether we do something extra. We're obviously talking about that, the instruction side, so yeah, obviously the instruction part will be a significant part of it.
DAVID MANOUGIAN: If that's it, we'll wrap it up. Thank you all for coming, and have a great day.

End of FastScripts...

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297