Turner Sports Tees Up Online/Mobile Video Coverage of PGA Championship

The 93rd PGA Championship, the final major tournament of the season, gets underway tomorrow and Turner Sports, which has exclusive broadcast rights, has teed up significant multi-screen and social media initiatives. As the Olympics, NCAA March Madness and other high-profile sporting events have previously shown, online and mobile video have created an immersive, up-to-the-minute experience for fans.

Aside from its Thursday-Sunday live broadcasting schedule on TNT, Turner Sports has a full slate of online video coverage on PGA.com, which Turner powers and through mobile. Among the highlights:

- A free iPhone/iPod Touch PGA Championship app is available (argh, no Android apparently) that includes live video of the day's "Marquee Group", plus coverage of all four Par 3 holes.

- Scores and other updates are available on the PGA's optimized mobile and iPad sites.

- A new 360 Degree camera that users can adjust to get a broader view will be available.  

- A video highlight hub lets users customize views and information by player, round, hole or memorable moment, and share these on-demand albums.

- "Snap and share" clipping feature for favorite moments that can be shared on Twitter and Facebook.

- Social media features including #PGAChamp destination on Twitter and live fan chats.



Note that unlike ESPN which has begun offering authenticated live -streaming of its channels online for pay-TV subscribers, Turner is only offering a subset of its linear coverage online and mobile, but doing so for free. I suspect that in the future, in addition to this package, Turner will follow the ESPN model and also offer full authenticated online/mobile viewing for subscribers. In the meantime though, access to PGA championship video continues to expand online and on select mobile devices, delighting fans.

Categories: Cable Networks, Devices, Mobile Video, Sports

Topics: PGA, TNT, Turner Sports