CBS Sticks With Masters Plan

CBS plans to televise the Masters golf tournament in April despite a potentially searing public relations campaign that links the network with sex discrimination practices.

One reason is the tournament is a ratings juggernaut, the most prestigious and widely watched event in golf. CBS also does not want to lose the tournament to a rival network, which media sources say would jump at the chance of wresting control of the Masters and breaking a 46-year tradition at CBS.

The Masters is one of the few sporting events that is not a loss leader for broadcasters. CBS will continue to break-even on the Masters, even as the network is expected to lose as much as $108 million on other sports programming this coming year, said analyst Richard Bilotti of Morgan Stanley.

“Activist threats and boycotts are endemic in the network business so if CBS dropped the Masters, it would send a bad signal,” said Alan J. Bell, the new chief executive of Freedom Communications Inc., owner of the Orange County Register and a TV station group that includes five CBS affiliates. “The Masters has been a tradition on CBS since the network first existed. It brings attention to the programs that run after it, no one else has it and it’s not costly.”

Bell also said that televising the tournament is not synonymous with endorsing the practices of the Augusta National Golf Club, the exclusively male fraternity that is the home of the prestigious Masters.

Since June, Martha Burk, chairwoman of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, has been pressuring the Georgia golf club to open its membership to women. Burk was rebuffed again last Friday, when Hootie Johnson, Augusta National’s chairman, announced that next year’s tournament will be commercial-free as a way to keep the three sponsors--Coca-Cola Co., Citigroup Inc. and IBM Corp.--from being pressured by the group to drop their support.

The move will make the Masters the only commercial-free sporting event on broadcast TV.

Now, Burk is threatening to turn up the heat on CBS, which has televised the event since 1956 under an unusual year-to-year contract. Burk is demanding that CBS drop the telecast if there is not a woman member of Augusta National by April. She also is threatening to examine CBS’ management for female representation as part of her mission.

But CBS, whose highest-ranking woman is entertainment president Nancy Tellem, has no intentions of dropping the telecast, spokeswoman Leslie Ann Wade said.

The American public seems to be siding with CBS. In a CNN/SI.com poll Tuesday, 87% of the respondents said CBS should continue to broadcast the Masters.

PGA Tour player John Daly said Thursday that he staunchly opposes clubs that don’t allow women. Then he was asked if he would consider sitting out the next Masters. “I would not consider that,” Daly said. “If I got into Augusta, I would play....It’s a tournament we dream as little kids of winning. Women protesting it shouldn’t take it out on us for playing in it.”

And sports-equipment maker Nike Golf, which has endorsement deals with Tiger Woods and David Duval, among others, would not try to influence players to skip the Masters, marketing director Chris Mike said. “Our players play many, many tournaments a year and I can’t see any situation where ... we would ask somebody not to play a tournament.”

Media analysts say CBS faces little risk from continuing to televise the Masters. “The only way you can really hurt networks is by taking away their advertising,” said Larry Gerbrandt, chief content officer of Kagan World Media, a market research firm in Carmel, Calif. “[Burk] has already done the damage, so CBS doesn’t have a whole lot to lose. There could even be a bronze lining for CBS in keeping affiliates happy and generating goodwill with viewers because the event will be commercial-free.”

Even before the latest uproar, the relationship between CBS and the Masters was a novelty in the sports world. Most sports-rights holders have taken advantage of the popularity of TV sports and cutthroat competition among broadcast and cable bidders to secure record prices and long-term contracts. Most major sports contracts run from four years to 10 years. Broadcasters and cable programmers pay a premium for these packages because they draw in elusive male viewers whom advertisers pay top dollar to reach and who otherwise may not see promotions for the network’s other shows.

By these standards, the Masters is cheap and its year-to-year contract with CBS is old-fashioned. The structure of the deal has long been a closely guarded secret, but sources close to CBS estimate the network pays $7 million to $10 million a year for the right to broadcast the Masters. NBC paid an estimated $13 million for this year’s Ryder Cup match between American and European golfers.

Networks typically offset these costs by selling advertising at top rates. But during coverage of the Masters advertising has been limited to only four minutes an hour, about one-fourth the norm.

In addition to constricting commercial time, Augusta National keeps tight control over which advertisers are allowed in. CBS and cable programmer USA Networks, which airs about five of the 13 hours of tournament play, negotiate the terms with the advertisers lined up by the golf club.

Augusta National even determines CBS’ profit. Under the unusual partnership, the golf club has added up the costs of the event each year, including the estimated $2 million or more CBS and USA spend to produce it, and charged them off to the advertisers.

Last year, CBS generated $9.4 million in network advertising from the Masters, a 10% gain from 2000, according to Competitive Media Reports in New York. Advertisers paid an average $205,000 per 30-second Masters spot, slightly higher than in the World Series.

With its decision to drop advertising, Augusta National has agreed to reduce the rights fee that CBS and USA pay to make up the difference. That will make the Masters a costly event for the golf club, which this year distributed $5.5 million in prize money and an additional $3.3 million to charity.

Some pundits wonder whether this could change the old-fashioned feeling of the event as Augusta National looks to cover its increased costs. In the commercial world of sports, the Masters remains an anomaly, charging only $1 for sandwiches and $125 for a weeklong ticket to a perfectly groomed course free of corporate logos and signage. Even drinks are served in cups that match the tournament’s famous green jacket.

Times staff writer Peter Yoon contributed to this report and the Associated Press was used in compiling it.