SENIOR PGA TOUR MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 25, 2000

Bill Bolster

Jim Colbert

Tim Finchem

Bob Wright

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Thank you, Bob, and thank you ladies and gentlemen of the press for joining us this morning, and particularly thanks to Bob Wright and Bill Bolster for taking the time to join us for this announcement as well, and our good friend, Jim Colbert who is, I guess right before he's heading out to hit some balls, getting ready for this week's tournament, joining us in addition. Let me just say at the start that we are extremely excited about what is now a new era for the SENIOR PGA TOUR. We have been working for a good deal of time with CNBC on this new direction for the SENIOR TOUR, beginning in 2001, and we are pleased that we will now have a co-branded partnership that will result in the SENIOR PGA TOUR on CNBC. This partnership is really a merger of two extremely compatible audiences, the golf audience and the business audience. We often talk about the relationship between golf and business, but putting the SENIOR TOUR into a partnership with CNBC takes that relationship, in our judgment, to new levels. This is particularly exciting because it will allow the SENIOR TOUR to continue to build on our recent momentum as we bring in new players over the next several years. We look for a continued growth in the SENIOR TOUR on all fronts. To give you a little bit of detail, and I'll take questions after the other gentlemen have an opportunity to comment, the SENIOR TOUR on CNBC will, as Bob mentioned, have up to 33 events, which is about a 25 percent increase over the 24 events we have on ESPN this year. We will have consistent air times every Saturday and Sunday from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. We will be able to have what we call live-to-tape a number of weeks where we are virtually on the air and taping at the same time, which helps us maintain our on-site audience at a variety of tournaments around the country where daylight precludes us from doing something different with our air time. So, we're very pleased about that. The production of these events will be organized by PGA TOUR Productions, but the talent and announcers will be directed by CNBC and in coordination with NBC Sports, and the entire production package will be a partnership arrangement between PGA TOUR Productions, CNBC and CNBC Sports as well. Inside the SENIOR TOUR which is our award-winning 30 minute weekly highlights program will also move to CNBC beginning next year. Our Friday coverage will be handled by the PAX TV Broadcast Network. PAX TV is jointly owned by PAX Communications and NBC. We will have consistent air times on PAX TV around the country, with early-round coverage on Fridays from 1:00 to 3:00 PM for those tournaments played in the Eastern time zone, and 2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern time when originating in other time zones. The strategic relationship between NBC, CNBC and PAX TV allows us to capture the best consistent air times and be able to cross-promote effectively between those two carriers which allows us to have a better opportunity to enhance the ability of our audience to find us. We are particularly pleased with the extent of the promotional commitment by CNBC each and every week in which we have a tournament, and the ability to reach the current CNBC audience to bring those viewers to SENIOR TOUR golf. We will, of course, be expending significant resources in the first year to bring our existing SENIOR TOUR audience over to CNBC from where we have been historically. I know you're going to ask about dollars. We do not as a policy announce rights fee arrangements, as you know. I will only say that on a per-event basis, we will have an increase in the next four years of rights fees per event from this four years, and obviously with an increase from 24 events to 33 events. In addition to a per-event increase, the increased dollars will allow us to continue to grow the SENIOR TOUR from a purse standpoint, and the ability to promote the SENIOR TOUR and conduct the tournaments at the level that our fans and players have become accustomed to over the years. The bottom line here is that in having a partnership, and a distinct partnership, with CNBC, we think we are positioned to more effectively bring an enhanced amount of golf coverage of our players to our fan base. And in addition to that, in the context of CNBC adding to that fan base, with the kind of audience -- and the unique audience that they generate; it's an audience that, frankly, doesn't watch much television, per se. You're not going to find those viewers in the average prime time weekly programming in the evening. So, the marriage here is very powerful. It's very strong; it sets the stage for the future of the SENIOR TOUR. We're delighted with it and I'd like just to wrap up here by saying we're especially pleased with the leadership that Bob Wright has demonstrated in all of this and the commitment of Bill Bolster and his team at CNBC. This is a new direction for CNBC. They are not a sports carrier in the past, but having this major franchise relationship with SENIOR TOUR golf puts them in partnership with a very positive sports experience and we look for good things down the road.

BOB WRIGHT: Thank you, Bob, and thank you, Tim. We have had a long and attractive and financially profitable relationship with the regular TOUR, and this is just a wonderful association, to be able to be associated with the SENIOR TOUR in such a major way is very, very good for CNBC and it's good for NBC. There's certainly a tremendous audience compatibility. We know from our own research, we know from the people that are -- appear on CNBC, we know from the people that call in and we have a lot of understanding of that, as does the TOUR. I also think it's very exciting. There are lots of people that are going to be coming to the TOUR over the next few years. It's really -- the SENIOR TOUR is wonderful, because you have already banner talent that's already known to people who are lined up to join, just by age. And the class of program, I think it's very exciting to a lot of the CNBC viewers and a lot of NBC viewers, as well. We will do a very good job. It's important to Bill and I, and it's important to CNBC overall, and I think that the players will benefit by this; and clearly, our audiences will as well. It's an exciting moment. And the fact that we can do it and be consistent with the time periods, and the fact that we can cover a situation where there might be a playoff or where there's a weather-related issue or something like that and people will know that we can keep that coverage, I think it's also going to be an important point for viewers. I guess I'd like to turn that over to Bob and then to Bill.

BILL BOLSTER: Thank you. I think that Tim and Bob have covered it, and with the time constraints, I'll be here to answer any questions that you may have going forward. So why don't we start with the questions.

JIM COLBERT: Thank you, Bob. It's exciting listening to everybody and how exciting CNBC and NBC is about this relationship. I think the first thing the press needs to understand is we have not had a chance to explain this change to our players. So there will be a varied reaction on the first couple days, leaving ESPN. There's a lot of loyalty there. They did a great job of covering us. Once they understand the program, our players will be extremely happy about it. Dale Douglass, Hubert Green, David Stockton, John Mahaffey and myself, have been up to speed on this, and I can say they are very, very excited about the program. It does quite a few things for the players. The purses will increase every year over the next four years at least 10 percent, and maybe up to 15 percent, and the player is always interested in that. With the corporate opportunities available through CNBC and the contacts and our split package with all corporate America involved, it will do a lot of things like it's done in the past in opening marketing opportunities for our players. Palmer and Nicklaus can't represent everybody. And when corporations get involved, the first thing you see is they need spokespeople. You know, Cadillac has had up to 13 players involved in their promotions after signing up with the TOUR. From a competitive point of view, the times from 6:00 to 8:00 on the East Coast with some of the delayed tape shows really allow us to finish the golf tournament, 54 holes or 72 holes on schedule. By that, if we know the weather is going to be really bad in the afternoon we can actually get the times up get the competition in and get it completed and we can avoid a lot of weather with the freedom to tape if it's necessary. So all in all, our players will be very excited about it. And I guess the single biggest thing is CNBC will give us our own identity, and I think we're ready for that. Thank you.

BILL BOLSTER: The answer to the first about the paid programming, obviously what we'll do is take the current 6:00 to 8:00 programming and move it up into the current paid programming slots on 30 weeks and it's been -- we've been migrating away from paid programming. This just gives a great, big lump to take out. So the answer to that is yes. David Zaslav (ph) has talk to the cable people -- the cable operators, and obviously we've done some research on the audiences and they are pleased with this going forward.

JIM COLBERT: Well, once they understand the program, I think they will be very excited about it. And our own identity is in the fact that just -- you know, "These guys are good." That's really a great saying and everything, but I'm not so sure the senior circuit shouldn't have its own saying along with the regular TOUR. But in this package we get tremendous promotion, 50 promos a week. That gives the senior circuit its own identities, and then NBC and CNBC have agreed to spend some cash outside their own network to promote the viewers to come to CNBC, and all of that really establishes the SENIOR TOUR and puts it on its own two feet.

BOB WRIGHT: I just think that part of the interest that I see here is that the SENIOR TOUR is -- has marquis players joining in its first year each time. And, you know, this year the TOUR had Tom Kite, Tom Watson, Lanny Wadkins. We could help promote those people. They are all recognizable figures to anybody who knows anything about golf, and that frees up our promotion, our people on air. And we don't do any other sports; so, there's no conflict here. This is kind of the fun part of what it is. But I think it gives us a lot of meat. We have got people coming up in the next couple years, Ben Crenshaw will be coming in, and our friend Roger, and you know the same is true when Jim Colbert came along. I mean, I think it's a great opportunity for us to showcase the SENIOR TOUR as very compatible with our audience, and introduce and remind people that there are stars there; there are stars that are coming up to be rookies. So I think it's a good, solid combination.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Let me also amplify to the question, when we say "unique" and "identity," really, we're focused on a number of factors. One is consistent air times. Our audience is going to know where we are every week. We're in a unique situation, as Bob Wright suggested, being on CNBC which we're basically alone from a sports standpoint, but we enjoy cross-promotion from NBC Sports. We have the ability to, we think, more crystallize the public's focus on what this sport is all about, and since we have such a large number of events, there is no hesitation whatsoever on the part of CNBC, our carrier, to really promote heavily. The consequence of all these things we think is a very positive one from the standpoint of being able to communicate effectively what these great players are all about.

BOB WRIGHT: CNBC is not a sports network and won't be a sports network. This is just a very unusual situation where we have this very highly compatible SENIOR TOUR that matches up with it. So it's not a direction we're heading. It's not part of a larger scheme or thought on our part. This is our commitment to a unique property and a group of people that we think are very compatible with the business community.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: First of all, let me just say about ESPN, we are indebted to ESPN for the commitment that they have exhibited over the years since, really, 1984, to build the SENIOR TOUR and to commit resources to the SENIOR TOUR, and it was a very difficult decision to leave ESPN, having moved the SENIOR TOUR off of ESPN next year. However, we maintain a very strong partnership with ESPN. ESPN has a huge number of PGA TOUR hours to produce and program next year and the years following. So our relationship with ESPN will continue and be very strong. Now to your specific point, I don't want to get into -- we had discussions, and these discussions go back to the middle of last summer. We talked to a variety of television entities including ESPN. The reason we made this decision was for the reasons we gave, which is we think that the enhancement for the SENIOR PGA TOUR in creating this franchise of CNBC is very, very positive. Across the boards we think the positives are there, and I don't think it would be appropriate or, frankly, helpful to compare any of the details of that to what we would have received by any other carrier, including ESPN.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: The production of the SENIOR TOUR on CNBC will have it's own look, it's own special look, to be devised. The basic structure of production; that is, the hardware, what we call below-the-line will be contracted out by PGA TOUR Productions in some corporate fashion. Above the line, the announcement team will be organized by CNBC in consultation with NBC Sports and PGA TOUR Productions.

BOB WRIGHT: I think Bill was going to say no decisions on the talent have been made, and that's obviously something that's a priority going forward. I would say that the SENIOR TOUR has had the benefit of some very good talent on the air for a number of years, both former players and others, and we certainly will -- are going to do our best to get the very best package and be careful to deal with everybody that's been associated with the TOUR up until now.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Yeah, the events that you see on network television today, which include on NBC the Senior PGA Championship that was just aired, on ABC the Senior PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP, on ABC and ESPN the Tradition, and the U.S. Open, which is on NBC, those network events will continue. In addition to that, we have two or three other SENIOR TOUR events which are currently on network. Some may stay on network, some may move, and we'll have more to say about that in the next few weeks. The Legends Tournament, of course, will remain on ABC network. Our network agreements are through 2002, as you know. They include some of the SENIOR TOUR events, and as they are completed -- and we're in negotiation next year, the determination of those events been 2002 will be made at that time.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Well, absolutely. I think that -- first of all, we've talked to the players at length about the overall realities we were facing with these negotiations since last summer, and the PGA TOUR staff has obviously -- because we will continue to be a partner with ESPN, has shown a lot of loyalty to ESPN by negotiating with them first, by having lengthy discussions with them over the course of these discussions for the last seven or eight months. There hasn't been anything left unturned with respect to discussions with ESPN. In the final analysis, however, loyalty accounts for a lot. Our relationship with ESPN will continue, but we have to do what we have to believe is in the best interests of the SENIOR TOUR players.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: No. There's nothing contemplated with any early rounds. As a matter of fact, CNBC's basic business time, air time schedule daytime Monday through Friday would probably preclude any of that. But there's no discussions at this point to move any of our early rounds to CNBC.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: If you include challenging season events, major championships and the rest, the total would be 42 to 45.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: No, not at this time. I think we are we're all very bullish about the air times that we've organized, and of course, we'll evaluate it closely. But I think if we -- if we're effective in -- and we will be in reaching our audience with where we are, I think we're going to do just fine with those air times.

BILL BOLSTER: The audience of CNBC is the -- the Business Day audience of CNBC obviously is upscale and extremely interactive. About four years ago, we did research on what our audience looked like, and at that point about 65 percent of them were either interested in, watched or played golf. You kind of knew that from -- you know from the experience you had inside of the environment of CNBC Business Day; so we confirmed it. So, it made sense from the beginning. We have for the past five years, for instance, during Business Day, during major PGA events put leaderboards on Thursday and Friday as a service to our audience and CNBC.com, also, updates leaderboards for the major golf tournaments. It seems that CNBC and golf have a terrific back-and-forth relationship. Now as the business audience is expanding, that percentage may go down, but it's not because of the -- it's not because of the core. It's because of the expanding of the audience.

BILL BOLSTER: What we projected is probably in the area of 0.6. The 30 events are very important. The specific times are very important, because in television if you can promote to the same time on the same network in two days, specifically, you're going to increase those numbers. The ratings are going to be a measure, but really, the most important part of the audience is the quality of the audience, and that's where it really dovetails with CNBC Business Day. If you watch the golf tournaments on the current television networks, the advertisers and customers of the current golf tournaments are fundamentally, plus or minus 10 percent, the advertisers and customers of CNBC.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: Well, we're going to have some live as well, but when we tape, it will largely be -- it will largely be live-to-taping, which means that it's virtually a turnaround, it just gets us an hour later. We're actually on the air while we're still taping in most cases. It just allows us to complete the tournament and maintain our crowd a little better on site; at the same time get the air time a little bit later so that we can pick up the later viewer, which helps expands our viewership, which also allows us to greatly decrease the number of overlaps that we have with PGA TOUR programming. Because when we have an overlap, we're really slitting the golf audience between PGA TOUR golf and SENIOR TOUR golf. We'd like to really reduce the instances where we do that. So on balance, a little bit, if you follow the Internet and you stay on the Internet and you pick up the scores, you know you may -- the scores might be out there for an hour in some cases, but we don't think there's going to be a determinative effect.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: No, the demographics of the audience are similar. On the PGA TOUR, we're saying maybe the last three, four, five -- going back five years, more women, more young people. But basic demographic thrust, if you're an advertiser, it's a very similar reach.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: The ratings are actually last, but they have a causal effect. I think historically, you go back 30 years to when PGA TOUR got very active on television, we've never been a ratings-driven sports. There's a lot of interest in ratings in the last few years because the ratings on the PGA TOUR have spiked a lot, especially with Tiger spiking the ratings. But basically, it's a demographic buy for an advertiser. So what we're looking for is the acceptance of the advertising community and our sponsors. That's indication No. 1. Indication No. 2 is the extent to which we can shift our existing audience from SENIOR TOUR golf over to this series of events on CNBC. And then No. 3 will be in the longer term, and it's going to take a little while, we think two, three years, but in the longer term, with the new stars coming out on the SENIOR TOUR, how we can grow that audience. So it's really a three-step effort. And I think that step No. 1 with sponsorship, we're really going to know that in the next six months. But the early indications are very positive in terms of our corporate sponsors and title sponsors looking at this and recognizing the real values in there.

BILL BOLSTER: As far as CNBC is concerned, one of the approaches we took in making the judgment on is obviously the revenue, but also creating a CNBC experience from a marketing standpoint on location, both for the people that are at the tournament and those that will be associated with it. It just presents an ideal opportunity for an intimate customer relationship, whether it be putting up a tent at the location and introducing people to CNBC.com and the Internet, or having our talent there interacting on site. So CNBC would buy time in an event like the SENIOR TOUR, and we do, as a matter of fact, run spot -- promo spots for CNBC and the TOUR events on NBC because the audience marries up so nicely. So as you're brand-extending a brand like CNBC, this just provides an excellent opportunity for on-site reinforcement.

BILL BOLSTER: We're doing our fourth in July and August in the summer in Lake Tahoe.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: No. I don't think we're ever looking at retrenchment. The thing about the SENIOR TOUR is there's been a lot of focus on the decline in the ratings the last three years, but everything else is very, very solid on the SENIOR TOUR. We have the lowest -- in this 24-month period we had the lowest turnover of title sponsors in the last five or six years. The value for title sponsors is very real, very substantial. The market for title sponsors is very strong. Our ticket sales are very strong. Our charitable contributions are up. All the indicators that indicate success are positive, and I don't -- in all of our discussions with television, with any of the arrangements we enter into, we're going to generate the ability to increase purses. That was never an issue. I think Jim's comment, 10 percent is a little bit aggressive in terms of probably what we'll see in purse increases. We have other issues to deal with. I do think, though, that we'll see a trend of purse increases on the next three or four years consistent with what we've had the last three or four years; so, a steady progression. A lot of that was going to happen anyway. I think the real benefits to this arrangement are the uniqueness -- building a franchise, having a strong partner, being able to commit a lot of promotional resources, being able to have a lot more consistent air times, being able to enhance production quality and fundamentally being able to communicate what is great about these players to what we believe will be an ever-broadening audience.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: All of our title sponsors have now been informed as to the package, and in the first round of conversations, the reaction is quite positive.

BILL BOLSTER: The day before yesterday, I believe, there was an article in the New York Times by Bill Carter outlining the terrible problem that they are having in measuring audience. That is amplified by a CNBC or, frankly, a golf audience, because the privacy issues that you're seeing on the Internet is being reflected, in our opinion, by people failing to cooperate with Nielsen ratings, especially at these psychographic or income levels that we're talking about that watch CNBC. In a perfect world, the distribution of CNBC is within a whisper of what ESPN is; so it should be the same. Will it be reflected that way? I really don't know. I would tell you one thing that has been very important to the customers and advertisers of CNBC, and the reason that I like the PGA, is because of the environment. The environment of a customer's commercials is very important to them, and when you put them in golf -- the SENIOR PGA or on CNBC's programming, it's constant. They don't have to worry about any backlash from their customers or other possible backlash. So the audience is -- the audience measurement is a thing that's -- that's under terrific scrutiny right now and will be until we get it resolved.

COMMISSIONER FINCHEM: I don't know about the latter. I think our hopefully going to see the SENIOR TOUR on CNBC an awful lot. We think that that summarizes what this franchise is all about. And you're correct in your perception of that and everything that is related to that fact is what really drove putting this deal together. If was not, frankly, a matter of dollars. It was more a matter of the other intangibles that go into allowing us to build this franchise. The "NBA on NBC" has been very successful, and we think "The SENIOR PGA TOUR on CNBC" is going to be very successful, as well. And that plays off lots of different ways. You can talk about audience, air times, positioning, promotion, but fundamentally, it comes back to the intention of our partner. And Mr. Bolster and his team have demonstrated over the past several months that they really want to make this happen and they want to make it happen right, and that's the kind of relationship that we think was important at this point in time for the SENIOR TOUR.

BILL BOLSTER: In following up on that, I was very aggressive in wanting to title it exactly the way you saw in parenthesis, and that's exactly right. Dick Eversaw (ph) has done a great job of the NBA on NBC, the Olympics on NBC, and NBC with their Thursday night promotion that just positions the marketing and the association of two great brands. So you picked up exactly on the right thing.

BILL BOLSTER: Well, as far as CNBC is concerned, our customers are not necessarily interested in what age the advertisers are -- the viewers are, if this is where you're going. I'll try to answer it. They are interested in the quality of the viewer and their propensity to consume. And I guess by definition, if you don't have any money, you wouldn't watch CNBC during Business Day unless you wanted to irritate yourself. So, you know, the Baby Boomers are just going to continue with their 401Ks in place, and their lifestyles are going to continue to watch CNBC, use CNBC to enhance that lifestyle. And I suppose Tim and I assume they are probably going to participate in golf and watch both on weekends.

BOB COMBS: Thank you very much, and ladies and gentlemen of the media, thank you very much for your interest in today's announcement. Contact names and numbers for other follow-up are provided on the press release and the entire transcript of today's discussion will be available later today on PGATOUR.com. Thank you again, and that concludes our announcement.