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By Greg Oakford
STORY: The Internet has
been responsible for the
biggest communication shift
since the printing press, which
Google says was around the
1440s. The world is now more
connected than ever before,
with an astonishing amount of
information at our fingertips.
What needs to be appreciated
in this new media-fragmented
world is that there are so many
options to consume. You might
be comfortable with searching
a website and using YouTube,
whilst your child wants their
content in the form of an image
or video on Instagram and
Snapchat.
Because golf is ‘the game for
life’ covering a broad spectrum
of ages and demographics,
it’s our job to do our best to
speak to our audiences on the
platforms on which they want
to be communicated or are
best reached.
So, how has this affected golf?
What is golf doing differently
opposed to five, 10, 20 years
ago?
With barriers lowered on
publishing own content,
golf has done what many
other sports have done and
driven people to their own
destinations.
these have been reduced or
stripped away completely from
the daily papers, they are still
available. They’ve just been
relocated. Look for club golf
results every day on
golfvic.org.au under ‘Club
Support’ or visit Golf Australia’s
website for all states daily club
golf results.
Pennant results, too, spike
Internet traffic on the Golf
Victoria website and you’ll
find plenty of news and video
content on this popular
competition at http://www.
golfvic.org.au/pennant.
Let’s highlight some initiatives
that wouldn’t have happened in
yesteryear.
In the past 12 months, the
Victorian Boys and Girls
Championships (Yarra Yarra
Golf Club), the Victorian Junior
Masters (Churchill Waverley
Golf & Bowls Club) and the
Oates Vic Open (Thirteenth
Beach Golf Links) have all been
live streamed, making the
tournaments available free-to-
watch to anyone in Australia,
and the world for that matter.
In Victoria, take club golf
results, for example. While The live streams were viewable
at golfvic.org.au, GV’s Facebook
page, GV’s YouTube Channel
and www.vicopengolf.com for
the Oates Vic Open. These new
distribution channels are not
the ABC, Channel 7, Channel
9, Channel 10 or SBS, but they
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WINTER EDITION 2017
can serve the same purpose,
putting eyeballs to our game.
The 2017 Oates Vic Open live
stream enjoyed significant
growth on its 2016 figures,
generating a 500% increase
in viewership and surpassing
100,000 views with replay
numbers included. In fact, the
2017 Oates Vic Open was the
first professional women’s
tournament in the world to be
broadcast via Facebook LIVE,
with the LPGA following suit
just a month later to showcase
one of their Symetra Tour
events over the same platform.
It will be fascinating to see how
the product of live streaming
plays out in the next five to 10
years as it’s a well-known fact
within the advertising industry
that live sports and events
are the only content that can
counter the ‘on-demand’ media
consumption society we’ve
become.
Why is this important? Because
just about all other media can
be consumed on ‘our time’,
meaning commercials are
being skipped or are not in
there at all (think Netflix and
Stan). Having live golf coverage
that attracts a growing
audience will be a desirable
asset as we look to the future.
Golf Victoria TV (GVTV) was
launched in January 2015 as a
new way to cover some major