NASCAR Now Accepts Blogs; Is the PGA Tour Next?

A big thanks to Geoff Shackelford for pointing me to Bill King's piece in Sports Business Journal on the disappearing ranks of NASCAR and golf beat writers.  King takes a look at the impact of having fewer beat writers committed to both sports. 

First, take a gander at the handful of organizations that will show up to every PGA Tour event.

Take away the specialized golf magazines and you can count the outlets that maintain a standing presence on the PGA Tour on one hand: The Associated Press, USA Today, ESPN.com, CBSSports.com and The New York Times.

That's it.  That's the list.  At the AT&T National, local sports channel Comcast SportsNet had the largest presence, followed by local network TV affiliates.  Throw in the usual golf suspects - GolfChannel.com, Golf World, and GolfWeek - and there you have it.  The motviation behind those cuts has been covered relentlessly on this site and elsewhere.

With that in hand, King talks to the PGA Tour's Ty Votaw about the impact on golf.

"If [a newspaper is] going to invest in a writer to go cover the Masters or PGA Championship or The Players, then you’re going to put it on the first or second or third page every day," Votaw said. "Not on the agate page or back on page 9.

"There are more words being written about golf, even with these cutbacks, than before. It’s just a question of: Are as many people reading it?"

Given the lower printed circulation for every golf magazine, it is tough to answer that question.  On a digital scale, certainly more people are reading about golf.  With the proliferation of the golf blog - albeit on a smaller scale than other sports - the PGA Tour gets quite a bit of ink. 

After the jump, we talk about how NASCAR has responded by accepting bloggers into the press corps.

NASCAR has seen the impact of losing professional journalists and has decided to replace those writers with amateur bloggers - a la the LPGA Tour stance taken earlier this year.  In addition, King notes that NASCAR streams its press conferences on their media site each Thursday and allows writers - professional or blogger - to submit questions.

Golf has not done the same on a large scale.  Some bloggers are able to get into professional events and major championships.  Each organization and tournament has their own metric and selection criteria. 

Like I said in my piece on golf blogs in the beginning of this year, I still hold this notion:

My expectation, though, is that some golf bloggers may be able to serve as local beat reporters for publications that seek local Tour coverage now lost with the death of the local golf beat writer.

I'm not suggesting that golf bloggers will suddenly rise to the same level of acceptance with the PGA Tour as they have with NASCAR or the LPGA Tour.  After all, Votaw said there is more ink than ever about the PGA Tour.

On a personal level, I hope that I've been able to carry the torch for bloggers when I attend and cover events.  I plan on covering at least two more this season.  I have a significant advantage over traditional outlets.  In being a one man show, I double as lead writer and editor.  I can also be cameraman, photographer, and webmaster.  My editorial cycle is just a tick faster than the big guys as a result.  Does that make the content better?  No.  It may make it faster.  Hopefully it just turns out to be pretty solid also.

My feeling is tournament can be covered from the couch.  Someone can follow leaders, see the scores, and report on them in real time.  Comprehensive coverage, though, has to be done live.  The sights, the sounds that you can't hear on TV are a critical part of telling the story.  The 60 players that you don't see on the TV on the weekend are a prominent part.  Golf is unique in that regard.  NASCAR has all 44 drivers on the track at once - and visible on TV.  A golf tournament is much less concentrated.

Perhaps, then, a golf blogger can be a subjective observer of the tournament action.  And they can offer insight as a dedicated and knowledgable fan of the sport.  My hope, though, is that my blogging breathren will be given and take the opportunity to try to cover an event live.