Paul Azinger publicizes shock return to golf broadcasting

Guess who’s again? Again once more?

Zinger’s again, inform a good friend.

Pardon the dreadful pun, however the information is true: longtime NBC lead analyst Paul Azinger is returning to golf broadcasting in 2025, taking on no less than analyst for the PGA Tour Champions instead of the since-departed Lanny Wadkins. Golfweek’s Adam Schupak was first on the information.

WELCOME BACK?

Whereas Azinger stays well-regarded within the trade, his return to a PGA Tour arrives as a little bit of a shock. He has been out of tv since leaving NBC in a blaze of glory final December after the community elected to not renew his contract. Zinger was not a very fashionable voice amongst viewing audiences in his remaining years within the lead chair as a consequence of an overreliance on folksiness and his repeated derision of golf media (of which he was a key appointee), however his new position with the PGA Tour Champions ought to place him within the good graces of a technology of Tour stars he is aware of nicely, which ought to assist to reinforce a few of the analytical breakdowns of latest years.

WELL THAT’S AWKWARD

We should always not neglect the occasions that almost all lately introduced Azinger into the golf highlight. Just a few weeks after his departure was finalized, Azinger torched his bridges at NBC, unloading on his former employer’s “cost-cutting” methods, calling NBC Sports activities head of manufacturing Sam Flood a “actual a-hole” and asserting his opinion that the PGA Tour had change into a “qualifier” for LIV Golf.

One imagines that Azinger addressed these allegations with the PGA Tour Champions earlier than accepting the brand new lead job, and maybe apologized for his characterizations of the community he’ll now sometimes broadcast for (Golf Channel) and the golf tour that indicators his paychecks.

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HOME COOKIN’

Azinger’s return to the sales space comes because the PGA Tour Champions begins its broadcast transition to a principally distant setup out of the PGA Tour’s brand-new manufacturing studios in Jacksonville, Fla.

Distant broadcasts, or “remies” as they’re typically referred to within the trade, are new terrain for sports activities TV. Proponents of the technique say the enterprise mannequin brings down prices for sports activities leagues and broadcast networks whereas limiting the chance of technical failures, whereas opponents say that it undermines the journalistic integrity of broadcasts by eradicating entry from gamers and aggressive excursions.

LANNY’S SWAN SONG

Azinger will exchange Lanny Wadkins, additionally a former main community lead analyst (CBS) and likewise lead analyst of the PGA Tour Champions. Wadkins stated the shift to distant broadcasts was a part of his choice to step away from the sport

“I believe that telecast goes to be shedding one thing for all of the positives that they’ll give you,” Wadkins advised Golfweek. “I believe the non-public interplay with the gamers is without doubt one of the finest issues you are able to do. I do know, for instance, after I name the match in Hawaii, I’ve breakfast each morning with numerous gamers and also you get them in a surrounding like that you simply’re capable of get extra information from them on what’s occurring with their video games, who they’re working with, how they’re hitting it, and what they’re making an attempt to realize, every thing else.”

BROADCAST MOVES

December is the time of yr when broadcast strikes are introduced within the golf world. Mum is the phrase on important shakeups to the TV product as of now, nevertheless it’s price noting that NBC Sports activities play-by-play man Dan Hicks’ contract is about to run out on the finish of the yr. Flood, the top of NBC’s manufacturing, has acknowledged his need to maintain Hicks on the NBC Sports activities roster headed into the longer term. Hicks is the voice of a number of huge properties for NBC, together with golf, Olympic swimming, Notre Dame soccer and tennis.